Tag Archives: Star Wars

#1723: Y-Wing Scout Bomber

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

Y-WING SCOUT BOMBER (W/ KANAN JARRUS)

STAR WARS: REBELS (HASBRO)

“Discover exciting stories of good versus evil in a galaxy of starships and vehicles. Armed with proton bombs and laser cannons, this prototype Y-wing Scout Bomber uses its rotating engines to provide enhanced maneuverability during flight.”

For the next entry in my week of Star Wars vehicles, I’ll be starting off a trend that’s going to finish out the week: Star Wars: Rebels.  Rebels had its own devoted line of figures back when it first started out, but it was sort of swallowed up by the recent movie toylines (which is how I acquired my rather modest collection of figures).  The main crew has each cropped up at least twice, with a few of them popping up a little bit more than that.  Kanan Jarrus is probably the most common, and he’s part of today’s review, alongside a variation of the Y-Wing.

THE VEHICLE ITSELF

The Y-Wing Scout Bomber was released as one of the mid-sized weapons in the Force Awakens toyline, and was re-released unchanged for the Rogue One line as well.  It’s a much smaller variant of the traditional Y-Wing from the original trilogy, with its roots in The Clone Wars.  The vehicle is actually an almost entirely re-used sculpt, from back in the Clone Wars days, but tweaked a bit to fit Chopper in place of a more standard astromech droid.  The ship is about 7 inches long by 4 1/2 inches wide, and stands about 3 1/2 inches tall.  The thrusters on the back are both posable pieces, as is the turret for the astromech droid.  Overall, it’s a very squat and compact ship, which isn’t perhaps as impressive as a more standard piece, but for the price point, it’s about what you’d expect.  The paint work on this piece shifts it more from a Clone Wars design to something closer to the Original Trilogy, adding in some white and yellow.  The details are a little sloppy in some spots, but nothing too terrible.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Included with the Bomber is the aforementioned figure of Kanan Jarrus.  Kanan is sort of the show’s lead, I guess, so his prominence in the toy form makes a little bit of sense.  What makes less sense is how many times they released him the exact same get-up.  This was the fifth time this figure was released, more or less.  This one has a slightly tweaked head with the head set, but that’s the only difference.  Most egregiously, there was a standard Kanan in the launch wave of the Force Awakens product, so he was hitting twice on that same day.  The fact that he was picked over the less oft-released Chopper, whom the ship kind of needs to look complete, is rather frustrating.  It’s not like anyone who needed a Kanan was missing him.  But I digress.  The figure stands about 4 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  He’s using most of the same sculpt used several times before, but with the new head.  It’s Kanan’s basic garb, which works decently enough.  The sculpt is softer than later releases, in part due to his animated nature, but also due to him just being a slightly older sculpt.  He’s still a pretty respectable looking figure.  Kanan’s packed with his lightsaber, which is a pretty cool piece.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Kanan and the bomber is a set I saw very many times, but never picked up.  However, in Toys R Us’s last days, they had a bunch of these various vehicles for rather cheap, and I got sucked in.  Honestly, it’s not much to write home about, but it’s a decent enough toy, especially for the much lowered price.

#1722: TIE Silencer (w/ Kylo Ren)

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

TIE SILENCER

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (HASBRO)

“Kylo Ren has inherited piloting skills from his father, though he uses these abilities to pursue the Resistance from the seat of his unique, angular TIE Fighter.”

In the last few months, I’ve picked up quite a few Star Wars ships. There was a store going out of business or something.  So, in an effort to make my way through them, I’ll be devoting this whole week to reviewing them.  Behold Star Wars Ships Week…which technically started yesterday.  Shhhh, don’t worry about it.  Yesterday, I looked at Han Solo and his signature Millennium Falcon.  Today, I’m following that up with his son, Ben Swollo Solo, and his ship, the TIE Silencer.

THE VEHICLE ITSELF

The TIE Silencer is the latest derivation of the TIE Fighter.  Like his grandfather before him, Kylo is flying a brand-new, advanced form of TIE amongst his troops.  After going more classic for the Force Awakens, this design is definitely more divergent.  This ship was the largest of the ships meant to interact with the figures from the Last Jedi toyline.  Size-wise, it’s footprint isn’t much smaller than the Kessel Run Millennium Falcon, though that’s largely due to the wings.  This makes the Silencer much closer to its proper scale than the Falcon.  It’s still a little smaller than it technically should be, but no worse than the X-Wing and TIE from the last film.  Kylo looks a little goofy in there, but worse things have happened.  Like some of the prior vehicles, the Silencer needs a little bit of assembly when you get it out of the box.  There wings need to be popped into place, and then the front guns need to be placed on.  Once assembled, the ship is about 12 inches tall, 8 1/2 inches wide, and stands 3 inches tall.  The Silencer’s sculpt is a pretty decent recreation of the ship’s design from the movie, following the proper shaping and internal proportions (even if it’s small). The internal cock-pit has had to be tweaked a bit to fit the smaller size, but isn’t far enough, and you won’t really be able to see much of it anyway.  The detail work, especially on the wings, is really in depth, which is a nice change of pace for these vehicles, which have a tendency to be lighter on such details when compared to the figures.  The paintwork on the ship is fairly scarce.  There are some silver details, but mostly it’s just the same very dark grey plastic. There’s one slight error there: the color of the (actually pretty cool) transparent windshield, is incorrect.  It’s just more grey here, but was red in the film.  In Hasbro’s defense, however, this was a rather late change, and the same error shows up across a lot of merchandising.  The Silencer, like the whole Last Jedi line, is Force Link compatible, and it’s probably the coolest bit of compatibility we saw from the line.  When you pick up the ship while wearing the bracelet, in addition to the usual swooshing sounds, there are also some light-up features.  It’s pretty fun, though I can understand why some people were upset about being unable to access those features without the reader.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Included with the Silencer is its pilot, Kylo Ren.  This figure’s just a slight tweak on the standard single-careded release.  He’s one of those figure’s that’s bafflingly different.  Like, why did they make a figure that’s technically all new molds, instead of just re-using the other figure?  I mean, I guess they didn’t want to force people to buy the same figure twice, but I can’t really say this is much better.  Between the two, I find myself preferring the last one, but I guess I can appreciate having the second to keep in the ship.  Kylo includes his lightsaber, should you want him to have some non-ship battles.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This was the one main vehicle I *didn’t* pick up on Force Friday II.  It was the most expensive, and I was already getting the basic Kylo, so that worked for me.  But then it sat around at my nearest Walmart for a good long while, and eventually got mega clearanced, and then it was cheap enough for me to get invested.  It’s a pretty fun ship, and a design that I certainly like, though I can’t say I find it quite as fun as the Falcon.  Guess I’ve always been more invested in the hero’s vehicles.

#1712: Luke Skywalker – Hoth Gear

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LUKE SKYWALKER — HOTH GEAR

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

Doesn’t it feel like I *just* reviewed this figure?  Well, I didn’t.  Well, I didn’t.  Reviewed a very similar figure, of course, because that’s the insanity of toy collecting.  But this one’s different, you see.  He…ummm….he’s got…goggles?  Yeah, let’s go with that.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Luke Skywalker in Hoth Gear was released in the 1997 assortment of Power of the Force II figures.  We’d had our first taste of Hoth figures the prior year with a Hoth version of Han.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches and he has 6 points of articulation.  He’s wearing the same cold-weather gear that we saw him wearing in the two-pack with a Wampa, but this figure depicts him a few moments earlier in the film, prior to the Wampa’s attack.  So he still has the goggles, and his face is un-scarred.  His sculpt is unique to him (though parts of it would be slightly re-tooled for a few later variants of this same gear), and it’s pretty decent.  He’s still a bit puffy and bulked-up, but with the cold-weather gear, that doesn’t feel quite so off.  The level of detailing on the outfit is quite sharp, and looks very good for the time, rivaling even more modern offerings.  My figure is missing his little head scarf thingy, which was a free-hanging piece that was prone to breaking off.  Luke’s paintwork is about what you’d expect.  Fairly basic and an overall decent match for what we see on the screen.  Application is clean, and there’s pretty much no slop.  Hoth Gear Luke was originally packed with his lightsaber and a blaster pistol, but mine has lost them in the years since I got him.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I remember this figure being rather hard to come by, at least initially.  Stores still had tons of Hoth Han, and I was constantly having to explain that it wasn’t the same thing.  I eventually got him in the Farpoint Dealer’s room the year he was released.  If I recall correctly, it was the same dealer from whom I ultimately got my Princess Leia figure, that very same year.  It’s been a favorite of mine for a while, even if it is rather environment specific.

#1704: Grand Moff Tarkin

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GRAND MOFF TARKIN

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

“An ambitious, ruthless proponent of military power, Wilhuff Tarkin became a favorite of Emperor Palpatine and rose rapidly through the Imperial ranks.”

Before the introduction of Emperor Palpatine in Empire, the original man behind the man that was Darth Vader was Wilhuff Tarkin, Grand Moff of the Empire, and really the central antagonist of A New Hope.  Yes, his name is really Wilhuff.  At least it’s better than Sheev, right?  Tarkin hasn’t always been the most prevalent figure when it comes to action figures, but he was fortunate enough to be one of the recent additions to The Black Series.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Grand Moff Tarkin is figure #63 in the Star Wars: The Black Series line.  He hit alongside the Solo product back in April, and has proved to be the most difficult to find of the set.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and he has 24 points of articulation.  As an Imperial officer, it’s not a huge surprise to find that Tarkin makes use of some of Krenic’s parts, namely the arms and legs.  He gets a unique torso and skirt piece, to denote his slightly differing rank and his lack of a sidearm.  The torso does a good job of capturing Peter Cushing’s more narrow-shouldered build.  He’s also got a new head, of course, which is definitely one of Hasbro’s best offerings from this line.  The likeness of Cushing is spot-on, right down to the slight little sneer he had in all of Tarkin’s scenes.  There are tons of subtle little details, which really help to make this sculpt incredibly lifelike, even more so than a lot of others in this line.  Tarkin makes use of the new face printing technique, just like the rest of his assortment.  Like with the sculpt, I think Tarkin is one of the best iterations of this technique we’ve seen in the line.  Between the sculpt and the paint, there’s a lifelike quality to Tarkin that just about rivals a Hot Toys offering.  The rest of the paint is more basic, but it’s still very clean, which is always a plus.  Tarkin is only packed with one accessory, but boy is it a good one.  He includes the Imperial Interrogation Droid (or, as he’s known to Robot Chicken fans, Dr. Ball, M.D.!).  It’s a pretty sizable piece, and almost counts as a figure in its own right.  It also highlights how lightly packed the Jawa from this same assortment was, but let’s just focus on the awesome that is this figure and his amazing accessory.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Tarkin’s been a high-ranking want from this line for a good while, so I was super pumped when he was shown off last year.  The figure was also my main want when all of the Solo product was hitting, though it took me a little bit to finally track him down.  I ended up getting him at the same time as Lando and the Jawa.  He’s absolutely my favorite figure from this line, and he’s going to be very hard to top going forward.  This is a figure that no Star Wars fan should miss out on!

#1703: Jawa

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JAWA

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

“Jawas comb the deserts of Tatooine in search of discarded scrap and wayward mechanicals. Using their cobbled-together weaponry, they can incapacity droids and drag them to their treaded fortress-homes, immense sand-scarred vehicles known as sandcrawlers.”

Though rather simple in execution (they’re literally just children in brown robes), the Jawas are a distinctive part of the the first Star Wars film.  They’re also pretty plot-relevant, moving R2 and 3PO to Owen Lars’ farm, and thereby getting Luke involved in the whole story.  And then they get barbecued.  What a day.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Jawa is figure 61 from Star Wars: The Black Series.  He hit alongside the first assortment of Solo figures, and is a re-pack of the 40th Anniversary Jawa from last year.  That one saw a much more limited release, so seeing it again here is much appreciated.  Unlike most Jawa figures, which come paired with another Jawa or droid, this one returns to the release method of the original vintage figure, being sold all on his lonesome.  The figure stands about 4 inches tall and he has 28 points of articulation.  I’m happy to report that, unlike the earlier Yoda figure, the Jawa was not short-changed on the leg articulation.  Of course, the plastic skirt piece kind of removes most of the mobility on those leg joints, but lets not go down that road.  The Jawa’s sculpt is unique, and definitely very strong.  The robes are all plastic, which I think was the appropriate call after the spotty cloth work on figures like Luke and Leia.  The detail work on said robe is exquisite, with tons of texturing all throughout, to really capture the heavy coarseness of the fabric. The head and hood are done as two separate pieces, which is a smart move.  It allows for the head to be fully detailed, or at least as fully detailed as the completely covered head can be.  The two straps running across the figure’s chest are a separate, but non-removable piece.  I was expecting there to be a buckle somewhere on there, because there usually is on pieces, but no luck.  So, if for whatever reason you were hoping to remove that, it’s going require a little finagling.  There’s an Ion Cannon attached to one of the straps via a somewhat lengthy cord.  It can’t be removed either, but it can be holstered on one of the belts.  The paintwork on the Jawa is decent.  Mostly it’s pretty basic, but I do appreciate the slight weathering on the bottom of the robes.  The Jawa includes a second Ion Cannon, this time not connected to the straps.  For versatility, I guess.  Given the smaller stature of the figure, I would have liked maybe a smaller droid or something to be included, or just more accessories in general, but I think this figure’s being slightly held back by the 40th Ann release having less space for such things in the blister, and Hasbro not wanting to add extras here and thus detract from that figure’s value.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When the 40th Anniversary figures were hitting last year, I wasn’t in the financial state to be going toy-hunting, so I never found this guy.  When the re-release was announced, I was definitely happy.  I didn’t have luck finding him initially, but ultimately found him on the same Target trip that got me Lando.  The Jawas have long been a favorite of mine, so I’m very pleased to have this figure.

#1702: Qi’ra – Corellia

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

QI’RA — CORELLIA

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

“At 18 years of age, young Qi’ra is already enmeshed in a life of crime, working for a gang on Corellia.”

Well, I’ve already burned through the “confusing Emilia Clarke for her other roles” bit for the first Qi’ra figure I reviewed, so I’m out of obvious intro material.  Darn.  Here’s this action figure, I guess.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Qi’ra is figure 66 in Star Wars: The Black Series.  She was part of the second round of post-Solo releases, packed alongside the bounty hunter 4-Lom.  As of right now, she’s by far the easier of the two to find of retail, and I kind of feel like that’ll stick.  Like her smaller figure, Qi’ra is based on her look from the film’s prologue.  It’s not her main look from the movie, nor is it a look that really interacts well with the other figures, but it’s a decent enough look nonetheless, and probably the one that has the easiest translation into toy form.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  Her articulation is a little more restricted than Han and Lando, but compared to your average Black Series release before them, Qi’ra is still pretty darn mobile.  Qi’ra gets an all-new sculpt, and it’s a pretty decent one.  Very similar to the smaller one, which makes sense, what with them being the same design and all.  I think the smaller one might actually have the slightly better Clarke likeness, but this one’s certainly not bad, and it’s definitely well-detailed.  Her paintwork is pretty good overall, but it does suffer a bit more than other recent offerings.  The biggest issue is definitely they eyes.  She’s using the printed face technique, but something seems off about this particular release, especially around the eyes.  It’s like the printing got misaligned.  Hopefully this is something that’s more or less confined to my figure.  Qi’ra is packed with her unique blaster pistol, just like her smaller counterpart.  It’s not much, but it’s pretty cool, especially since it even opens for re-loading.  That was an unexpected touch!

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Qi’ra was a purchase of convenience, really.  I found her at Target, and I needed to spend another $20 for one of their get $25 off $100 deals, so home with me she came.  And she was essentially free at that!  After the tremendous Han and Lando (and even Rey, for that matter), Qi’ra’s a slight step down in quality.  That said, she’s still a pretty decent offering overall, and definitely a fun figure.  Now, here’s hoping we can get her in her heist outfit, because that one was the coolest.

#1701: Lando Calrissian

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

LANDO CALRISSIAN

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

“Smooth and sophisticated, Captain Lando Calrissian stands ready to retire from the life of a smuggler and instead become a full-time gambler (or “sportsman”, as he calls it), shuffling from card game to card game across the galaxy.”

For my second and third entries in this week of Black Series reviews, I’ll be moving over to the newest installment in the Star Wars franchise, Solo.  I’ve looked at the smaller figures, as well as the Black Series release of the main character, but now I’m going to look at one of the other major returning characters, and one of the highest-praised parts of the movie, Lando Calrissian!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Lando is figure 65 in Star Wars: The Black Series, released in the assortment that arrived on shelves alongside the other Solo-themed product.  This is Lando’s second time as a Black Series figure, in rather quick succession, actually.  He’s based on his main Solo look, which is certainly dynamic, and makes for a solid figure design.  The figure stands just over 5 3/4 inches tall and he has 27 points of articulation.  His articulation set-up is rather similar to Han’s, meaning he’s got quite a bit of range in most of those joints, and he’s a ton of fun to pose.  His sculpt is an all-new offering, and does a respectable job of translating Donald Glover’s version of Lando into figure form.  The likeness on the head isn’t quite as spot-on as Han or Rey; I think Glover might just have one of those difficult to capture faces.  On the plus side, the face is very expressive, and very in character for Lando, so it’s a nice change of pace from the blander expression seen on other figures in the line.  The cape and scarf are both separate, removable pieces, allowing you to mix and match looks, and give him a bit of variety.  The softer plastic isn’t too restricting of the figure’s articulation, and it still manages to hold the details pretty well.  Like Han and Rey, Lando makes use of the new face printing technique, to give his face more realism.  It’s not quite as convincing here as it was on the other two, in part due to the more cartoony expression.  Still, it looks pretty good, and it still avoids that lifeless look of the earlier figures.  The rest of the paint is really bright, and quite eye-catching, but there’s one small issue with my figure; the bottom half of his shirt is painted yellow rather than molded.  Not a huge deal, but on my figure the paint application is a little thin, so some of the underlying black plastic is bleeding through.  It’s not terrible, but a little annoying.  Lando is packed with his fancy blaster, which is the same model as included with his smaller figure, but this time it comes with a removable barrel attachment, and that’s pretty fun.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been on the look out for Lando ever since the figures first started hitting.  I saw the ESB version a few times, but the figure never really grabbed me, so I never got him.  So, this one carries some extra weight.  He was a little tough to come by initially, but I managed to track him down during a completely not-toy-related stop to my local Target.  He’s another strong figure, and like Han, I’d love to have a main Billy Dee Williams version of this quality down the road.

#1700: Rey – Island Journey

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REY – ISLAND JOURNEY

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

“With the power of the Force awakening inside of her, Rey travels to the hidden world of Ahch-To. There, she seeks out Luke Skywalker as the last hope of the Resistance.”

I’ve bought a lot of Star Wars figures recently.  Try as I may to space them out, sometimes you’ve just got to paraphrase Tom Cruise and say “What the heck?” and do a week of Black Series reviews.  Because that’s just how I roll.  So, let’s kick this week off by answering the that question I love answering, “Where’s Rey?”  She’s right here!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Rey (Island Journey) is figure 58 in Star Wars: The Black Series.  She originally hit alongside DJ and Captain Rex in the first assortment of 2018, and she’s also received a re-pack alongside the Solo-themed offerings.  She was originally shown off prior to the Last Jedi releases, intended as a Force Awakens release.  But, since her Resistance togs appeared in both films, it was pretty easily re-fitted into a Last Jedi variant.  The figure stands 5 3/4 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  Rey sports a mostly new sculpt, with her arms and hands being re-used from the Jedi Training version of the character.  I had initially thought this caused a slight inaccuracy on the figure, since she’s lacking the wrist covers that go with the resistance outfit.  However, after double-checking various stills from the movie, she actually removes those covers for some parts of TLJ, especially when she’s wearing the poncho that this figure added.  So, the re-use is actually warranted here.  The rest of the sculpt is really quite good.  The proportions are nicely balanced, and the details of her outfit are sharply defined.  The vest piece can be removed, and she manages to not look totally goofy without it, which is a plus.  My favorite part of the sculpt is definitely the head, which is my favorite Rey headsculpt yet (it’s managed to supplant the Titan Heroes sculpt), and has a really strong Daisy Ridley likeness.  As with the previously reviewed Han Solo (who Rey actually predates, of course), the paintwork on Rey is really strong, and helps to further elevate an already strong sculpt.  Her assortment premiered the introduction of Hasbro’s new face-printing technique into The Black Series.  As with Han, this adds a much more lifelike quality to the figure, almost on par with the likes of Hot Toys, and just makes the figure look that much better.  In terms of extras, Rey is pretty well packed, coming with her staff, blaster, and Luke’s lightsaber (all shared with the Jedi Training figure), as well as the poncho she’s seen sporting on Ahch-To.  The poncho’s just a simple cloth piece, but it’s better tailored to the figure than prior softgoods pieces from this line, and it does add a lot more to display options.  I’m kind of a sucker for a nice poncho.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Rey’s Resistance look is definitely my favorite of her three designs, so I’ve been on-board with this figure since day one.  The announcement that she was getting the poncho from TLJ and would be introducing the face-print tech only got me more on-board.  Of course, I had to find her first, which proved a little difficult.  I never lucked into her in her initial case packout, but the reissue made her a little easier to track down, and I was able to get her through Super Awesome Girlfriend’s work.  This is a really nice figure, and hands down my favorite Rey.  I liked the Jedi Training version quite a bit, but this one blows it out of the water.

#1698: Probe Droid

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PROBE DROID

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

After some rather goofy offerings to kick off the deluxe sub-set of their Power of the Force II line, Kenner followed up with some downright sensible offerings.  In the ‘90s.  I know, it was weird.  I was there, and I thought so.  But that’s not the point.  The point today is that I’m reviewing the very first figure of the Imperial Probe Droid.  Woooo!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Probe Droid was released in the 1997 deluxe assortment of Power of the Force II figures.  It’s based on the droid’s appearance in Empire, which was, at the time, its only canon appearance.  The figure stands 4 1/2 inches tall and has 6 points of articulation.  Not above the norm on movement, but a bit surprising, given the different anatomy of the design.  It also gets more mobility, since the limbs are all on ball-joints, which is pretty cool.  The figure has a sculpt that was, up until very recently, the only Probe Droid sculpt out there.  It’s not 100% accurate to the model from the film, but it’s certainly good for this era of figures, especially when compared to some of the humanoid figures from the line.  There was definitely a reason this sculpt stuck around.  There were some minor fixes to the proportions that were fixed on the more recent one, such as a slightly smaller head, and slightly longer legs.  The legs in particular have been tweaked so that it can actually stand on them, rather than relying on a flight stand like the more recent figure.  It’s the biggest departure of the figure, but it’s sensible from a practicality standpoint.  The paintwork on the Probe Droid is pretty decent, especially for the time and design.  Technically, the base plastic should be a little darker, but it works alright, and there are lots of small little details.  The Probe Droid features two different action features.  The first is a “Photon Torpedo,” which is just a fairly standard missile launching feature, which fires from its eye.  It has the side effect of making the central eye bright orange, which is kind of weird, but there it is.  The second feature is a “Self-Destruct Exploding Head” which works in a similar fashion to the missile launcher above, just at a slightly larger scale.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Last Jedi release was my first Probe Droid, and I liked him enough to be on the look out for this figure.  I ended up grabbing it from Lost in Time Toys, during one of their winter sidewalk sales.  Though the newer one is still the superior offering, there’s still a lot to like about this release.

#1684: Boba Fett

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

BOBA FETT

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

“The most notorious and fearsome bounty hunter in the galaxy is also the most mysterious. Many legends and stories have arisen over the years, but few facts are known of the man called Boba Fett, or his link to Han Solo’s past. Since the Clone Wars, Fett has worked as a mercenary, a soldier, a personal guard, an assassin, and most frequently, as the most expensive bounty hunter in the known systems.”

Is it safe?  Can I come out?  One never can be too sure when reviewing a Boba Fett figure.  His fans are easily startled, but they soon return, and in greater numbers…or something like that.

So, yeah, looking at the Fett-man today.  He’s had a lot of toys over the years, but they used to be fewer and further between.  The return of the brand in the ‘90s got in on the whole ‘90s anti-hero fad, so he was pushed to the forefront.  As such, he figured pretty prominently into Kenner’s relaunch, getting not one, but three figures in short succession.  I’ll be looking at the first of those today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Boba Fett was part of the first series of Power of the Force II figures, hitting in 1995.  The fact that Boba made it into Series 1 was quite a feat, given his relative obscurity compared to the others in the assortment with him.  It wasn’t really something that would happen again; he tends to be held back for at least the second assortment now.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  His sculpt was unique, and as an early offering from the line, he’s certainly filtered through the line’s distinctive style.  The big thing is his overall build, which isn’t quite as absurd as a few of the others in the early line-up, but it’s still really puffy for the character seen on screen.  Definitely some Mandalorian super-engineering going on here.  Similar to the Stormtroopers, his armor takes a bit of a turn as well.  Most notably, his helmet, specifically the visor, has taken a slightly different look from the movies.  It’s a lot rounder at the edges and the visor is quite a bit wider than it should be.  His view-finder is also quite a bit stubbier than it really ought to be; at it’s current length, there’s no way it would be able to come down in front of his eye.  The rocket pack and the scarf/Wookie braids are both removable pieces.  The rocket’s pretty decent, and actually stays on a lot better than later figures.  The braids and scarf rely on a rather bulky shoulder piece to attach, which looks a little off when the figure is fully assembled.  Later figures would definitely get these parts down better.  The paint work on Boba is based on his slightly more colorful RotJ design, so he gets the blue and orange pack and the red wrist gauntlets.  The figure actually does a pretty solid job of getting all of the painted elements in place, and he even gets the bits of chipped paint on the armored sections.  Boba included his distinctive blaster rifle, a piece which is missing from my figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As a kid, I didn’t have this figure; I had the deluxe version instead.  And I didn’t even have that one on purpose.  My cousin got two of them for his birthday, and I got to keep the extra.  That figure went missing over the years, and in the mean time, I’ve picked up more of an appreciation for Boba.  I got this guy from Yesterday’s Fun.  He was out of his box, but still in his tray, and only missing the rifle, so I figured he was worth it.  He’s a goofy figure.  Since Boba’s a character that’s really only got the cool design going for him, I think he was hurt a bit more by a line that made everybody look really goofy.