CASSIAN ANDOR – EADU

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

One Rogue One character conspicuously missing from my 3 3/4-inch reviews was Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor, who looks to be one of the film’s central characters.  Currently, the only way to get a smaller scale Captain Andor is to buy the big U-Wing vehicle, which seemed like a touch much to me on top of all the other figures I bought.  Fortunately, there should be a number of different Cassians hitting shelves in the next month or so, so I shouldn’t be without one for long.  In the mean time, I can tide myself over with his larger scale figure, which I’ll be taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cassian Andor is part of the first assortment of Rogue One-themed Star Wars: The Black Series figures, and is #23, which makes him the second figure in the set chronologically.  As noted in his name, this figure is based on his look while on Eadu.  Judging by the number of layers this guy is wearing, it seems Eadu might be on par with Hoth in terms of extreme temperatures (though, as Jyn’s Eadu figure shows, maybe not *quite* as extreme as Hoth).  This is, admittedly, not a look we’ve seen much of Cassian wearing in the trailers (where he’s more often seen in the brown leather jacket-ed look that will be part of the Target-exclusive three-pack next month), but he was wearing the jacket in the very first cast shot we saw from Rogue One last year,  which gives it a bit of credence.  The figure stands about 6 inches tall and has 27 points of articulation.  Sculpturally, he’s about what you’d expect from a Black Series figure.  The details aren’t anything amazing, but they’re decent, and there’s certainly some nice work on the various parts of his clothing, especially on the gloves.  The head sculpt is alright, though I’m not seeing a whole lot of Luna in it.  Like last year’s Poe figure, this may be more of a paint issue than a sculpt one.  I do have to say, they did quite a nice job sculpting the stubble on his face.  It makes the grey paint on the lower half of his face look a bit less silly.  The figure’s mobility is a bit hampered by the sculpt, but that’s mostly to due with the design.  I imagine the exclusive figure will be a bit more posable.  The paint on Cassian is okay overall, with the best work being on the body.  Even the head’s not awful, just not quite right for the character.  It’s mostly to do with the solid black goatee, I think.  It makes him look like a totally different person.  For the most part, the paint is rather basic, with lots of solid patches of color.  I can’t help but feel that this is a figure that would have been greatly helped by some accent work, just to make him a bit more interesting. Cassian includes a helmet and goggles to complete his cold weather look, as well as a blaster pistol and a slightly larger blaster rifle.  The helmet is okay, but kind of on the bulky side.  The two blasters are cool, though I think the larger one could stand a little paint.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was actually rather surprised to discover at TRU’s midnight opening that there was no small-scale Cassian available on his own.  This solidified my decision to pick up the full set of both scales, since I wanted K-2 in the smaller scale, but didn’t want to have K-2 without Cassian, meaning I needed to pick up this figure.  It’s like Hasbro planned it that way or something.  I’ve seen a lot of people calling Cassian the weakest of this particular bunch.  I don’t know that I can refute those claims.  He’s kind of on the average side, and easily gets lost compared to some of the other stellar figures in this set.  That being said, he’s still a solidly put together figure, and even if you aren’t interested in him as Cassian, he makes for a good Hoth attire Rebel soldier.