TOBIAS BECKETT

SOLO: A STAR WARS (HASBRO)

Hey, whoa, remember yesterday, when I reviewed a figure of a character played by Woody Harrelson?  Well, if you liked that, you’re in luck, because I’m totally going to be doing that again today.  What sort of crazy person would put these things back to back?  This sort of a crazy person, that’s who!  Yesterday’s review looked at one of Harrelson’s earliest on-screen roles.  Today, we’re jumping forward to 2018, with his turn as Han’s mentor Tobias Beckett in Solo.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Tobias Beckett was released in Series 4 of the Solo line from Hasbro.  As a pretty major player in the film, it’s a bit surprising it took so long to get him, but at least he actually showed up at (some) retail.  Beckett is based on his main smuggler’s appearance from the film, same as his 6-inch figure.  The figure stands 4 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  A number of the Solo figures added wrist joints, and Beckett furthers this by also adding swivels at the tops of the boots.  Despite these extra joints, I still found Beckett to be almost impossible to keep standing. I’m not sure why he’s so different from others in the line, but it does appear that the feet are angled a little too far back.  It’s possible this issue is limited to my figure, but it’s still frustrating nonetheless.  The figure’s sculpt is decent enough, though I don’t find it to be quite as strong as the rest of the main characters. The detailing is generally a little softer, and I don’t think there’s really much of Woody Harrelson in the likeness on the head.  It’s certainly not as good as the spot-on likeness of his larger counterpart.  Also not quite as strong as the larger figure?  The paint.  Obviously, there’s less of a canvas to work with on the smaller figure, so less detail is expected, and for the body, that’s not so bad.  It’s really the head that gets the worst of it, because they’ve transformed Harrelson’s scruff into more of a Van Dyke looking thing.  It just makes the whole figure look rather off.  Beckett is packed with his dual blaster pistols, which he can hold or store in his working holsters.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Beckett’s a figure a very nearly missed at retail.  None of the stores in my area have carried anything past the second wave of Solo product, and even that was scarce.  I ended up finding this one at the Walmart near where my family was vacationing over the winter holiday, just as they put all of their Star Wars stuff on clearance, at which point pretty much every figure they had disappeared overnight.  If you really just want a Beckett, the Black Series figure is the better offering, and may just be easier to find in the long-run.  Had I not found this guy when I did, I don’t know he would have warranted tracking down after the fact.