OBI-WAN KENOBI

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (HASBRO)

“To gain free passage through Jabba the Hutt’s shipping routes, the Republic agrees to rescue the crime lord’s kidnapped son, Rotta the Huttlet. Obi-Wan learns that Anakin and his team have found the child and are under attack by Separatist forces. Obi-Wan races to join them on the remote planet, bringing much-needed reinforcements to Anakin and his embattled team.”

When the 3D-animated Clone Wars went into production, in order to save trouble on the animation concerning the flow of the robes that were signature to the Jedi Knights, the designs for the characters were somewhat ruggedized. Calling back on Obi-Wan donning a set of Clone armor during a sequence in the 2D Clone Wars, all of the Jedi were granted far more armored appearances, with Obi-Wan himself getting a more unique set of attire, merging his armored and robed looks. He kept the look for the shows first two seasons, and it was present for all of the launch product. Today, I’m looking at the first figure he got based on the design.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Obi-Wan Kenobi is the second figure in the first series of Hasbro’s Clone Wars tie-in line, which hit shortly before the movie that launched the show in 2008. The figure stands just shy of 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  Early in the line, only the Clones were getting full articulation, so Obi-Wan only gets proper movement above the waist, and even that’s slightly more limited.  Below the waist, he gets t-hips, and that’s it.  No knees or ankles.  As a result, he’s a little bit stiff.  The sculpt is at least a decent one.  Like the other early line sculpts, he’s not quite as accurate to the show model as later figures would be, but he gets the general gist of it.  The broader elements are there, with some of the edges rounded and lessened a bit, so that he comes just a little bit closer to the main line.  It’s an appealing look, and it’s at the very least quite in the spirit of the character.  The paint work on this guy is very indicative of its era; the base colors are pretty cleanly applied, and then the whole thing gets a sort of a messy wash over it.  It makes the details of the sculpt pop pretty well, but it’s also a bit heavy handed at times.  Obi-Wan was packed with his lightsaber, an alternate helmeted head, a jetpack, and a missile that can be launched from the pack.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was a little bit skeptical about The Clone Wars when the toys first dropped.  I’d liked the 2D version a lot, but I was still pretty iffy on the prequels as a whole at the time.  Nevertheless, I did still grab a small handful of the figures when they launched, with hopes that I’d enjoy the source material.  The movie *wasn’t* what I hoped for, but the show at least picked things up pretty quickly.  Obi-Wan was one of the first four figures I grabbed, because I’ve always been an Obi-Wan guy.  He’s not a perfect figure, and there were better ones later in the line, but this one wasn’t a bad start.