Slave One was first seen in the Empire Strikes Back hidden among a lot of Imperial garbage.  It seemed to be a fitting beginning as this ugly elephant head shaped spaceship chased the luckless (at least in this movie) Millennium Falcon to the Cloud City of Bespin where Han Solo would be captured by Darth Vader, who then handed him over to Boba Fett who would then take the former spice smuggler to Jabba the Hutt.  In an inspired evil move, Darth Vader decided that Han Solo would be better used as a live test “volunteer” for Carbonite Freezing; this was to be used on Darth’s wayward son, Luke Skywalker.  Slave One’s last scene in the Empire Strikes Back was one of the saddest moments of the entire Star Wars series as it left Cloud City carrying the frozen Han Solo while Princess Leia and Chewbacca watched unable to do anything to stop it.

 A “younger” Slave One was seen some two decades later in the prequel Attack of the Clones as the ship of Bounty Hunter Jango Fett, who was the “father” of the Republic’s Clone Army (which later became the Imperial StormTroopers.)

 A little bit of Star Wars Trivia for those who might be slightly interested.  The reason why Han Solo was frozen in Carbonite was because Harrison Ford wasn’t sure that he was going to return for a third movie so this gave George Lucas an out if Harrison wasn’t going to return.

Fine Molds originally released their Slave One kit as Jango Fett’s from Attack of the Clones in 2001.  Unfortunately, for those who wanted to make an accurate version of Boba’s Slave One from the Fine Molds Kit needed to make some major modifications as apparently there were significant detail changes (what I don’t know as it looked the same to me.)

 This kit makes those changes to build Boba’s older battered ship from Empire Strikes Back.  It comes with 135 parts in grey and clear styrene plus an additional bonus for those who bought the first production run, a white metal Han Solo frozen in Carbonite.

 In the photos, I am only showing sprues of the interior parts, the exterior pieces, the clear parts and the white metal Han Solo.  The missing sprues contain the exterior detail parts.

 The parts are almost free of flash with the ejection pin marks on the inside of the parts.

The kit looks like another well put together Star Wars Fine Molds kit and is an expensive one compared to the older “inaccurate” AMT kit which was re-released two years ago.  I look at the cost of the kit as the price one pays for increased internal and external detail as well as accuracy.  Even though this is one damned expensive 1/72 kit, it is certainly a lot cheaper than the Fine Molds Millennium Falcon which went for about $300 CDN and is more $tar Wars than even this fan is willing to pay for!!

 I think this is one of the uglier if not the ugliest movie spaceship ever, but even something this ugly has some appeal (hey, I bought the kit.)  The ease of fit makes construction easier, but not painting it which from all accounts is the hardest part of the build.

 The kit is courtesy of my now emptier wallet.

February 2007