It’s a tale as old as time, but I’m going to tell it anyway, because I need to meet my quota of words. You don’t want to not hit your quota. There is a backroom in Fwoosh headquarters, and it’s pretty much made up of socks filled with quarters. In this backroom there’s a big sign above the door that says “Make your quotas or get the quarters.” Fwoosh is terrifying, yo.
When you’re a kid, and specifically a Star Wars-collecting kid, Luke is easy. Han is easy. Vader? Boba? Those guys barely need your hands to move them around. But when it gets to some of the lesser guys, the guys who didn’t have much of a role, or were never mentioned by name onscreen, or didn’t make out with Princess Leia — you had to do some of the heavy lifting yourself.
Nien Nunb laughed.
Nien Nunb co-piloted the Millennium Falcon with Lando, was partially responsible for blowing up the second Death Star, and laughed some more. Now the laughing was kind of secondary, but it was the “co-piloting the Millennium Falcon” part that was important. Han was highly hesitant to let the Falcon out of his sight, and it was probably only because Lando was the previous owner that he even managed to talk Han into it. But who the hell was Nien Nunb? He was clearly somebody — like, somebody somebody — for the Rebel Alliance to stick him shotgun in what was going to be the most important ship that was aimed right at the Emperor’s keister.
Nien Nunb had seen things, man. He may have been overly jolly and had a face like a couple of pancakes draped over the back of a chair, but he had seen things and done things that you and I can barely comprehend.
Plus, Nien Nunb was an alien, and aliens in Star Wars are cool. For the longest time I couldn’t stop referring to him as Nien Numb. As in “his brother’s name is Comfortably.” But numb would be dumb, because it’s Nunb, which is nothing like Numb.
Nien Nunb’s sole original trilogy appearance didn’t really give you much to chew on, but that was okay because his original figure was excellent. Coming later in the line, the figures were losing a bit of that flat, stripped down aesthetic of the earlier toys. That doesn’t mean that the toys weren’t still on the basic side basic, but by the time of Return of the Jedi, the toys were clearly advancing in detail and execution. It didn’t hurt matters at all that he wore red and black, which is my favorite color combination ever.
Regardless, there was just something cool about him. Nien Nunb always managed to find himself behind enemy lines, outgunned, outmanned, surrounded by Stormtroopers (or at least surrounded by the two Stormtroopers I had, plus an AT-AT Driver and a Snowtrooper. Playtime was weird when you couldn’t army build as much as you wanted). He never had any trouble blasting his way out of danger. I can’t remember if I ever gave him a lightsaber, but I probably didn’t. I was pretty strict about those things. He wasn’t a Jedi; non-Jedi figures only used a lightsaber if Luke had been knocked unconscious and/or needed rescuing, so Nien didn’t get to use a lightsaber.
Things like that made total sense in 1983.
Nien’s story didn’t end after the Battle of Endor, though. Despite a 30-year gap where Han knocked up Leia with Darth Tantrum and Luke decided his life’s ambition was to cosplay as Obi-Wan, Nien made sure that the former Rebel Alliance members had links to his Facebook and Instagram. When the Force started to awaken, Nien knew it was time to suit up and kick ass again.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that Nien Nunb is a pretty important character as far as alien co-pilots go. While he may not be Ugnaught levels of rock star cool, while he never uttered the immortal phrase “It’s a trap!” and he didn’t get shot by Han before ever firing a shot himself, he is still pretty high in recognition factor, and as such old flapjack face needs a Black Series figure. I have way more Stormtroopers these days, and they aren’t killing themselves. Tell me he wouldn’t make a great figure. Tell me so I can laugh just like Nien Nunb did while co-piloting the Millennium Falcon to victory.