Unboxing Boba Fett’s Starship, The Slave One

My five youngest help me unbox and assemble the new Book of Boba Fett Slave One Vintage Collection Starship. We also pull out my 1980s Slave One for some comparisons and contrasts, look through my collection of Han in carbonite, and my 1980s Boba Fett Bounty Hunter action figure. Pictures tell the story. There’s some commentary at the end, followed by some videos.

Comparisons and Contrasts

So there are a number of differences between the ships released in 1981 and 2023, and we took a look at some of these, comparing and contrasting what we like about both. I was 13 years old when I received my the Original 1981 Slave One ship. I remember the feature I liked most about it was the Carbonite block containing the imprisoned Han Solo. The Book of Boba Fett Ship has no Carbonite blocks in it, which while a let down, makes sense given that there weren’t any we saw in his later story line. Arguably we got enough carbonite blocks with the Mandalorian Razorcrest.

Anyway, back to the comparisons. The 2023 Book of Boba Fett Ship is much larger than the 1981 Empire Strikes Back Slave One. The size difference affords a larger cockpit, seating 3 figures rather than one, and some play space in the cargo hold which the original one sorely lacked. As far as looks go, well a lot has changed in the technology since since 1981, allowing for more details to be added to Star Wars toys in general, much more so than back in the ’70s and ’80s. So for example, there are a lot more ship details on the 2023 version. And while there aren’t as many decals on the newer ship– the 2023 ship consists of different colored plastics, so even with less decals, the ship itself is much more colorful.

The loading ramps are different. The loading ramp on the older ship was always bothersome to me, as its poor design makes it hard to pull out and retract. It doesn’t really stay on its rails well. The new version handles this feature better. The 2023 ship also has two bombs you can drop, where the 1981 version has none. Additionally there is an escape ship that comes with the new one– but it looks to me more like Fett’s bacta bed, in Book of Boba Fett; so that’s how I’ll be using it.

The older ship has has a handle on the bottom for holding it during play. The Book of Boba Fett ship has a stand for displaying during play or otherwise. This is probably the feature that stands out most to me, though I’ve found that this, as well as a number of features I’ve mentioned here were also present in the 2020 Vintage version remake of the Slave One. Currently, some 40 years later, a few of the decals are falling off, so I’ve been gluing them back on to the older ship using modeling glue. As I’ve lost track of where some of them go, I’ll need to do some research to find the original guide to placing them.

The 1981 ship did not come with any figures, so we pulled out my original Boba Fett to line up with the “old man Boba” that comes with the 2023 version of the ship.

Just for fun, here’s the 1981 TV advertisement for the original Slave 1: