Okay, so it’s Sunday, not Saturday. But I started this post on Saturday but felt too ill to finish it, so I’m finishing it today. It’s still Star Wars Saturdays though!

I mentioned in my Christmas haul post the other day that I planned on doing a Star Wars Saturdays looking at some Galactic Heroes playsets that I had recently acquired. Well it’s a Saturday, so here we go.

There was once a tragic period of time where I felt inclined to pretend that whatever toy I was purchasing for myself was actually for some young relative. I am very glad that I just don’t care these days, and so a couple of days before Christmas I unhesitatingly strolled towards the counter at The Entertainer toy shop with an ‘Echo Base Encounter’ playset gripped in my hand, fully aware that it had ‘Playskool’ emblazoned on the back of the packaging, along with ages 3-7 on the front. My girlfriend wasn’t far behind me, buying me an ‘Endor Adventure’ set. I may be twenty years too old to be the intended target market for these toys, but they’re chunky and fun and Star Wars and I needed them.

 

 

The picture quality is really dire, but I didn’t realise until after I had uploaded the photos and had already torn these sets from their cardboardy prisons, so never mind. I’ll be chronological in the order of looking at these sets as what they appear on screen, so the first set is the frozen wilds of Hoth.

 

 

Hoth or ‘Echo Base Encounter’ is comprised of a main glacial looking piece, a little bit of terrain which can be attached to the main piece, a rebel dish turret (or a 1.4 FD P-Tower if you want to call it by it’s actual name according to wookiepedia) and Luke Skywalker in his Hoth getup.

 

 

The Luke figure is really cool, (no pun intended, that joke would probably get a Luke-warm reaction) and is far more interesting than the Galactic Heroes figures I bought about a decade ago. Though his face resembles nothing like Mark Hamill, I can forgive that as this figure probably denotes Luke post-Wampa mauling, so his face would obviously be a bit inflamed. Ignoring his mess of a face, the rest of him is pretty neat with his arms being on a ball joint at the shoulder allowing for quite a bit more articulation than the original Galactic Heroes. The legs also move at the hips, whereas the originals had weird bent legs that didn’t move at all. I’m really slagging off the originals which I don’t mean to, as they were great and adorable at the same time, but these more modern Galactic Heroes are an obvious improvement.

The front of the set has a little silver knob poking out of the front. When turned, a Wampa creature appears from behind the wall of ice.

 

 

It’s a neat little feature but the Wampa is just a flat piece of plastic. It would have been waaay cooler if an actual Wampa figure had come with this set, but it’s definitely a fun gimmick.

The top of the set has a little moveable ledge that you can attach Luke to, so you can recreate the the scene where he is hung upside down just before the Wampa pounces on him.

 

 

The front of the set also has a little door on the front so you can hide figures behind it. It’s a cute feature but nothing that strikes me as very synonymous with Hoth.

 

 

Oh I almost forgot, the rebel turret can be placed on any of the hexagonal tiles. It clicks firmly into place and can be a bit of a pain in the ass to pull back off. It wouldn’t be much of a turret if it didn’t fire a missile, which it obviously does, being the big red thing sticking out the front of it.

 

 

I think that wraps up looking at the Hoth set. It’s an awesome little playset and can be found really cheap now, I paid £6 for it which seems like a steal. Let’s move onto warmer, leafier climates!

 

 

It’s Endor! Or at least a little chunk of the Ewok Village. This set comes with a spear brandishing Wicket, who is tiny and adorable at the same time.

Like the Hoth Set, Endor has a wee door that opens up that you can hide figures behind.  It kinda feels like it ‘fits’ a  little better having a secret door in a tree on Endor than it does on Hoth.

 

 

The top part of the set is the most impressive. The little hut at the top of the tree opens up revealing an Ewok crossbow missile launcher. It looks a little too technical to be an Ewok invention, but I don’t care, it’s still awesome.

 

 

Like the Hoth set, the hexagonal pieces clip together so if you feel like it, you can combine both worlds together. Which is totally awesome, if a little bit weird. It’s like winter arrived on Endor!

 

 

The Endor set doesn’t seem to have as many features as the Hoth one, but I think it’s my favourite of the two, perhaps because it reminds me somewhat of the ’80s Kenner Ewok Village set I had as a kid, and it comes with Wicket whom I have always had a massive amount of appreciation for.

Anyway, I think that concludes this Star Wars Saturdays, and this marks the final post on The Forgotten Starship this year!

Galactic Heroes will undoubtedly appear again in the future as they are fun and adorable and I need some reason to justify buying toys that are intended for very, very young children.

I hope that everyone reading this has a great new years eve, and a healthy, happy 2018! Have a good one guys!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

his face a little bit chewed by the Wampa creature, hence it looks a bit