While the Star Wars movies have always been done gangbusters at the box office, the franchise revolving around a galaxy far, far away has also accumulated a lot of money from merchandising, particularly toys. Since purchasing Kenner Products in the early 1990s, Hasbro has been churning out Star Wars toys, whether there's a new movie coming out or not. But last month, it was announced that Hasbro was launching HasLabs, a crowdfunding platform that raises money for the construction of sought-after niche toys for passionate Star Wars fans. Now it's official that HasLabs has raised enough money to construct the first of these special toys, and is the biggest one in all of Hasbro's Star Wars-related history yet: the Khetanna, more commonly known as Jabba the Hutt's sail barge.
Despite being an important vehicle/location in 1983's Return of the Jedi, Hasbro hasn't made a toy version of Jabba's sail barge before now, but thanks to surpassing its goal of 5,000 backers, each of whom paid $499.99 (plus tax), one is finally on the way, as you can see above. Measuring at approximately a little over 4 feet long and weighing nearly 14 pounds, the "Vintage Collection Jabba's Sail Barge" also has removal side panels that allow you to pose 3.75-inch figures within, like Jabba the Hutt and Yak Face, both of whom are included with the sail barge. You can head over to the HasLab webpage to learn more detailed information about this toy, as well as watch a video showing the sped-up process of how it was constructed. The sail barge also comes with a 64-page booklet called "Behind the Workshop," which goes behind the scenes into the development of the toy.
While Star Wars toys have had a frequent presence in toy stores and department stores basically since A New Hope was released back in 1977, not all of them necessarily sell well. In the case of this sail barge, it makes since that Hasbro has been unwilling to pour money into it until now since it would only appeal to a small group of Star Wars fans, namely collectors. However, we live in an age where crowdfunding can make projects that previously stood no chance of ever happening be fully realized thanks to passionate fans online. There are still a couple hours left to support the campaign for Jabba's sail barge, so if you have $500 laying around and want to proudly display this big toy in your home (and even reenact the battle that took place aboard it), head over to HasLabs now, though the Khetanna won't ship until February 28, 2019.
The Star Wars franchise continues next month with the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story on May 25, with Episode IX following on December 20, 2019. Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for updates concerning these movies and the rest of the film series.
