Cliff Notes – Celebrate Star Wars Day with an authentic Scout Trooper helmet
- Hasbro celebrates International Star Wars Day with new merchandise, including a high-end Scout Trooper helmet priced at £104.99.
- The helmet features a foldable faceplate and a built-in voice distorter, enhancing its appeal for collectors and fans alike.
- The Black Series range includes various helmets and action figures, with notable additions from the Star Wars Visions series and the upcoming season of Andor.
Celebrate Star Wars Day with an authentic Scout Trooper helmet
Mind out for trees and angry teddy bears (Hasbro)
Today is international Star Wars Day and Hasbro has a variety of new merch to celebrate the fact, include high-end cosplay gear and action figures.
Most franchises get their own ‘day’ now, usually based around some sort of pun or in-joke. Mario Day is on 10th March (MAR 10), Alien Day is on 26th April (from the planet LV-426), and Star Wars is on 4th May, because May the 4th be with you.
Until recently, May was also traditionally the month new Star Wars movies were released and this year’s big new item from Hasbro is a scout trooper helmet, from their high-end Black Series line of action figures and accessories.
Scout troopers, also known as biker scouts, were first introduced in 1983’s Return of the Jedi, where they were shown riding speeder bikes and getting beaten up by Ewoks. They’ve featured in plenty of other shows, video games, and other media since then… in part because they have a really cool looking helmet.
As well as looking the part, including the ability to fold the front face of the helmet up, the helmet also has a voice distorter built-in, so that if you talk with it on you’ll get that sort of crackly, electronic effect that they have in the movies.
It looks great and at £104.99 from Hasbro Pulse it’s not actually as outrageously expensive as you might expect, especially given it makes a good display item, even if you don’t want to wear it about town all that often.
The original helmet was designed by Nilo Rodis-Jamero, who worked on many of the most iconic Star Wars costumes, and rather than being an in-universe detail the grey design on the bottom left-hand corner of the visor is actually a stylised version of his initials.
The Star Wars Visions episode was black and white, so the toys are too (Hasbro)
There’s already a lot more helmets in the Black Series, for roughly the same price, including Darth Vader (obviously), a Death Trooper (from Rogue One), and several taken from The Mandalorian TV show – such as Mando himself, The Armorer, Bo-Katan, Axe Woves, and a Death Watch member.
Also part of the range is a variety of lightsabers, that cost upwards of £250, and a huge selection of action figures.
The Ronin & R5-D56 is a new one, based on the first season of the Star Wars Vision series on Disney+, while another good double pack, that’s currently on pre-order for the Vintage Collection, is the Bantha & Tusken Raider.
Other new ones include everything from Han Solo and Chewbacca, from the first Star Wars movie, to pre-orders for figures inspired by the brand new season 2 of Andor.
There’s also a bunch of figures based on the Star Wars Jedi: Survivor video game and, as a more nostalgic video game choice, Dash Rendar from Shadows Of The Empire.
In the original film, the banthas were elephants wearing costumes (Hasbro)