Yup! More Star Wars! While it’s true I have a ton of Star Wars stuff I want to get caught up on before Rogue One hits in a few weeks (A FEW WEEKS!!!), the truth is I also needed something quick and easy to look at today because I’m insanely busy with work and probably will be for the rest of the year. I’m trying as hard as I can to not have to reduce the number of Features each week, but realistically, I may be cutting back to three updates a week in the near future. We’ll see. In the meantime, let’s check out a couple more Hot Wheels Starships from Star Wars!

This pair are new enough to feature the updated figure stands, but not the Rogue One branding, although they are re-issues and do feature shots of some of the Rogue One ships on the back of the cards. These packages are very attractive, show off the ships beautifully, and I’m still impressed that Mattel does individual card art for each ship. Honestly, it’s really tempting to just collect doubles of these, keep them mint on card, and hang them on my wall. Let’s look at the TIE Fighter first…

There aren’t many surprises here, but this is a beautiful little rendition of the iconic Imperial fighter. It’s also a completely new sculpt from the First Order TIE that I own. The body is die-cast and the panels are plastic, and the quality of sculpt and detail is just all around fantastic.

They also did a fabulous job painting the cockpit windows and framework, the black striping on the top, and the tiny red dots on the laser cannon. The rest of the coloring consists of the blue-gray hull and the black panels on the “wings.” My only question is, does anyone know if Mattel issued a white version, because I’d love to pick up one of those too.

Next up is the Imperial Shuttle, one of my favorite ship designs from The Original Trilogy. One of these days I need to get around to reviewing Hasbro’s re-issue of the Kenner 3 3/4-inch version of this ship! This one may be tiny, but it captures the look of the design perfectly in this scale. The body and central fin are all die-cast, with only the wings being plastic, and yes, the wings are articulated so you can display the ship landing or in flight.

The shuttle does not sport much in the way of paint. Mattel went for a very clean and new look here. You do get some gray panels on the wings and fin, blue paint on the rear thrusters, and black paint on the cockpit screen. There are also plenty of great little details and panel lines sculpted into the hull. I would have liked a bit of gray paint on the wing guns, but it’s still a nice looking ship.

If you’ve been collecting this line from the beginning, you’ll note the change in stand designs. Gone are the ones designed to go on your finger and in their place are these clear discs with the Imperial insignia sculpted in. I liked the old style well enough. They were fun and innovative, but I think these just look better. Unfortunately, the fact that the stands don’t match on all my little ships is making my OCD flare up.

While my attention to this line has been spotty at best here on FFZ, I continue to enjoy collecting these a lot. I picked up this pair for under five bucks a pop and I still think these are some of the best values in the toy aisles today. They’re fun, they look great, and I can amass a whole fleet of them without breaking the bank. I kind of think of these as the modern equivalent of those cheap rack toys I used to buy with my allowance at the corner drug store when I was a kid. The only difference being that these are a whole lot better quality.