Tag Archives: The Force Awakens

#1743: Rey

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

REY

STAR WARS MIGHTY MUGGS

Remember how I was talking about having some Mighty Muggs piled up to review yesterday?  Well, yeah, let’s have a little bit more of that, shall we?  In fact, let’s have some more of the same subline from yesterday!  Yes, it’s time for some more Star Wars, specifically the franchise new lead character Rey!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Rey is figure 02 in the Star Wars Mighty Muggs line, placing her second in the first assortment of figures.  Rey’s design here is taken from The Force Awakens, specifically her appearance from the Starkiller Base sequences.  It’s a little bit surprising given the general leaning towards the Last Jedi designs for the new trilogy characters, but it’s kind of a persistent look.  The figure stands 3 1/2 inches tall and she has three-ish points of articulation, if we’re counting the slight mobility at the neck joint.  Since she’s from TFA‘s final battle sequence, Rey uses the same lightsaber-weilding body that was used for Luke, with a unique hairpiece.  The hairpiece is a nice, stylized summation of her look from the movie, which fits in very well with the piece we saw on Luke.  For Rey’s three facial expressions, she goes for a similar selection to Luke.  She’s got a serious expression, a happy expression, and an angry expression.  Of the three, my definite favorite is the happy one, but the angry one works well, too.  Her stern expression is alright, but the mouth seems oddly small when compared to the other Muggs I’ve looked at.  It just throws her whole look off, and ends up making her look a bit more childish than the others.  But hey, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad, right?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I saw Rey a few times before actually picking her up.  I think I was holding out that I might be just grabbing the whole set of the first series, but I never did get around to that.  I eventually got around to picking up Rey from GameStop while visiting Super Awesome Girlfriend Fiancé there one day.  She’s a nice companion piece to Poe and a pretty fun little figure all around.

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#1537: Finn – FN-2187

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

FINN — FN-2187

STAR WARS: TITAN HEROES (HASBRO)

“After his first taste of combat during a brutal First Order night assault on a Jakku village, Stormtrooper FN-2187 defects from Kylo Ren’s forces, becoming a fugitive.”

For my sixth post-Christmas review, I’m ducking back into the world of Star Wars, with another figure from the sequel trilogy.  This one specifically comes from The Force Awakens, which feels so long ago now, doesn’t it?  Prior to the movie’s release, we got a whole slew of Finn figures wearing his more civilian get-up, which, while accurate to the film and certainly the look he was sporting for the majority of its runtime, was perhaps a little less than exciting.  Slightly more exciting was his Stormtrooper-armored look from the opening of the film, which we had to wait until after the film’s release to get.  Thanks to weird distribution, I never actually picked up a single figure of Stormtrooper Finn, but now I have one, and I’m reviewing him today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Finn, or FN-2187 as he’s known when he’s still a Stormtrooper, is from the third main assortment of Force Awakens-themed Star Wars: Titan Heroes.  He hit around May of 2016 and was released alongside the Fifth Brother from Rebels.  The figure stands about 12 inches tall and has 7 points of articulation.  He’s built very much like one of the smaller basic-line figures, but, like the previously reviewed Titan Heroes Rey, he’s molded in a much harder plastic, and he’s largely hollow.  This figure is largely a re-use of pieces from the First Order Stormtrooper, which is sensible enough, I suppose.  It’s rather on the skinny side, given how bulky these particular troopers tend to be, but the overall detail work is generally pretty decent.  It’s not any worse than the smaller figures in that regard, though compared to Rey, the only other Titan Heroes figure I own, he seems a little lower in quality.  On the plus side, his head sculpt was an all-new piece to this figure, and it was certainly one of Hasbro’s best Boyega sculpts, certainly on par with the Ridley likeness on Rey.  The paintwork on Finn is okay, but noting to really write home about.  The head gets the cleanest work, and manages to look pretty lifelike.  The body’s a bit on the sloppy side, especially on the hands, but it’s not atrocious.  Finn is packed with a standard Stormtrooper blaster, which is a decent replica of the real pos and can be stowed on his thigh when he’s not holding it.  It’s a shame he does’t get a helmet or anything, but at this scale and price-point, it’s not a huge shock.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Finn was a gift from Super Awesome Girlfriend’s parents.  He’s more of a companion piece to a larger gift they got for the two of us (a Sphero BB-8 was the main gift, with a Finn figure for me and a Rey for Jess).  I’ve never really devoted much of my time to this particular line, but I did really like the Rey figure I picked up a while back, and Finn makes for a decent enough companion piece to her.  He’s not the most thrilling figure in the world, but he’s still a pretty solid toy.

The Blaster In Question #0038: First Order Stormtrooper Blaster

Posted by Tim Marron in Nerf Reviews and tagged with , , , , , ,

BlasterInQuestion1FIRST ORDER STROMTROOPER BLASTER

STAR WARS

stormpistol1One little word sure can make a big difference, especially when that word is “deluxe.”  Yes, this is in fact a different blaster review from last week, it’s not a typo.  So what does the First Order have to offer when “deluxe” is off the table?  Well… not very much, as it happens, but let’s have a look at it anyway.

THE BLASTER ITSELF

stormpistol2The First Order Stormtrooper Blaster was released in 2015, alongside the deluxe version as a promotion for The Force Awakens.  If you’re not sure what part of the movie it’s from, you can be forgiven for missing it because it doesn’t get a lot of screen-time, but it’s there, I promise.  Now, having just recently The Last Jedi, I can tell you it gets a couple scenes where characters using it are front and center on the screen, so that’s nice.  The blaster itself is almost as basic as you can get.  It is a single shot, muzzle loaded pistol with a little spring loaded priming tab in the back.  While the tab does a good job of maintaining the blaster’s aesthetics even when primed, it does mean the actual size of the plunger tube is severely limited.  You can really get a sense of this by how short and light the priming stroke is.  The outer shell is completely new to resemble the blaster from the film and looks pretty accurate… until you actually hold it.  In the film, the SE-44C blaster, which this is designed after, is built on a Glock 17 pistol.  If you’ve been keeping up with my Star Wars Nerf reviews, you’ll know that in general the Nerf blasters have pretty good ergonomics as they’re modeled after props that used real world firearms.  In the case of the FOSB, the shape is right, but the scale is waaaaayyy off.  It feels tiny in the hand.  As such, the normally quite comfortable grip of the Glock has been shrunk down so it no longer lines up with regular human sized hands.   I understand the reasoning behind it, because otherwise there would be just an unnecessarily large body housing a small internal mechanism.  Sure, they could have scaled up the plunger tube to get more air into the system but that… actually, that’s a good idea.  Why didn’t they just do that?  I guess it’s probably safe to assume that it all comes down to cost cutting measures, as is so often the case.  But hey, at least it comes with a cool attachment piece, right?  I mean, it does come with an attachment piece which clips onto the standard Nerf rail on the top of the blaster, but what even is the piece supposed to be?  As far as I can tell it’s a sight(ish) but it sits in the dead center of the blaster and has no other sight to line up to, so it’s kinda useless.  It’s actually really useless, but its on the blaster in the film, so there it is.  The FOSB’s performance is about what you’d expect for a Stormtrooper’s backup blaster.  Distance and power are lacking pretty heavily from that of a regular N-Strike Elite blaster, but you can usually hit your target if the muzzle is just about 5 or 6 inches away from it, so… yay?  Stormtroopers are meant to be imposing and scary, but a couple shot from this blaster and I doubt you’ll be able to maintain that kind of fear-based dominance over your younger siblings when you bust into their room.  The First Order Stormtrooper Blaster comes packaged with the useless sight/spike thingy and 3 of the red Star Wars branded Elite darts.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got the FOSB at the same time I bought its deluxe bigger brother.  I think having the deluxe blaster there distracted me from how lackluster the pistol was.  I’m not saying I regret buying it or owning it, but for the price, we essentially got a Star Wars logo that came with a free Nerf blaster.

#1515: First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter

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

FIRST ORDER SPECIAL FORCES TIE FIGHTER

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES (HASBRO)

“The elite of the First Order straighter pilots have access to specialized craft, such as the two-seater TIE craft outfitted with enhanced weapons and sensor systems. The skilled pilots of the First Order launch into combat aboard advanced fighter craft, hunting down enemy vessels and protecting space around installations and warships.”

There’s no denying that vehicles are a defining piece of the Star Wars mythos.  They’re so important, that the scale of the vintage line was largely chosen to facilitate the inclusion of these vehicles.  They’ve been an important part of the line for the past 40 some years, and its part of why the 3 3/4 inch scale has never fully died out.  When Hasbro introduced the 6-inch Black Series, it was kind of assumed by the fanbase that this line would be without any vehicles.  Fairly early on, there were a few smaller items (such as the speeder bike), but full scale vehicles seemed more than a little cost-prohibitive.  Imagine the fanbase’s surprise at SDCC 2015 when Hasbro unveiled a 6-inch scaled TIE Fighter, as part of the products tying into The Force Awakens.  I’ll be looking at that vehicle today!

THE VEHICLE ITSELF

The First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter (gosh, that’s a long name) was released as a special deluxe item in Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Black Series, which hit in the winter of 2015.  The TIE has a pretty large footprint, at a whopping 18 by 18 inches.  It’s sizable enough that I was half tempted to just put a flat surface on the top of it and just use it as a coffee table.  It has an articulated antennae, a rotating lower cannon, and an opening hatch at the top.  Like the smaller scale TIE, this vehicle is based on the slightly updated TIE Fighter design seen in TFA, which isn’t too far removed from the classic TIE design.  The sculpt is, understandably, unique to this particular item.  It’s a pretty solid piece of work.  Hasbro took advantage of the larger scale, and has filled every inch of this rather sizable piece with tons of detail work.  Speaking of scale, this TIE is a fair bit closer to proper scale with its respective figures than the smaller TIE was.  It’s still not 100% spot-on, but you can get two people in the cockpit sitting back to back as seen in the film, which is a step up indeed.  Said cockpit is definitely the coolest part of the Fighter for me; it’s got two full seats, plus all of the various instruments and panels seen in the movie.  There are clips in each seat, to help hold the figures in place.  They can make it a little difficult to get the figures in there, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not too bad.  A definite plus, though, is that you don’t have to be quite as picky about the figures that go into this Fighter, unlike the smaller one.  I was able to get Poe and Finn in there without too much trouble at all.  The paintwork on the Fighter is decent enough.  It’s pretty clean overall, and there’s some sharp work on the interior of the cockpit.  There’s also some pretty sweet accent work on the red Special Forces stripe.  The TIE Fighter’s only real accessory was an exclusive TIE Fighter Pilot figure, which I didn’t get with my fighter.  It’s the same as the single-release First Order TIE Fighter Pilot, just with some extra red detailing.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As cool as the novelty of this item was, when it was originally released with a $180 price tag, I passed.  That’s a lot of money and it takes up a lot of space.  And then I was out to dinner with my family, and there was a wait for our table, so Christian, Tim, and I walked over to the Goodwill across the parking lot.  At said Goodwill, they had this behind the counter, marked at $20.  So, for the price of a single Black Series figure, I got this huge freaking thing.  It’s pretty awesome, I gotta say.  Sure, I don’t have either pilot for it, but Poe and Finn look pretty at home in there, and I can’t stress enough how awesome it was to get this thing for 11% of its original retail price.

#1462: General Leia Organa

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

GENERAL LEIA ORGANA

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES (HASBRO)

“Despite all that she has endured and lost in a lifetime of war, General Leia Organa continues to shine as a beacon of hope for the loyal subjects of the Resistance under her command.”

Perhaps the most glaring omission from all of the Force Awakens product, even more than Luke Skywalker, was General Leia Organa.  Out of all the figures Hasbro released, there was exactly one older Leia, in the 3 3/4-inch Black Series line.  It’s *okay* but not great, and most annoyingly, it’s not sporting her main look from the film.  Two years after the film, we still haven’t gotten the basic Leia in the main line, but they have at least given her a larger-scale Black Series figure, which I’ll be taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

General Leia Organa was released in the second assortment of Black Series figures following the Last Jedi re-launch.  She’s figure 52, meaning Hasbro’s really committed to keeping the numbering going this time around.  Also, she’s actually listed as a general on the packaging this time!  Yay!  She’s also finally wearing her actual military garb, which is definitely the more exciting of her two designs from TFA.  It just seems more true to the character.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall (keeping her consistent with the other Leia figures from the Black Series) and she has 27 points of articulation.  Leia has a brand new sculpt.  There was definitely an upward trend of improvement to these figures starting with the some of the later Rogue One offerings, and it looks like The Last Jedi is starting pretty strong right out of the gate.  This is definitely one of the stronger figures I’ve gotten from the line, and probably the strongest Leia sculpt we’ve gotten to date.  It’s certainly an improvement over the smaller figure.  The head has a pretty decent Carrie Fisher likeness, and the detail work on the clothing and such is pretty great.  The paintwork on Leia is fairly straightforward, but still a notable improvement over earlier offerings.  They’re still doing a lot of molded plastic for the colors, but there’s enough subtle accenting, especially on the face/hair, that she doesn’t look quite as bland and lifeless as the likes of the Tatooine Luke figure.  I do wish that her hair had a little more noticeable grey in it, but she’s doing a little better than the Han figure in that respect.  Leia is packed with a small blaster.  I don’t believe we actually see it in TFA, but it’s a cool design, and calls back to the one she carries at the beginning of A New Hope.  It’s nice to get at least something.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This is a figure I’ve been wanting ever since the Force Awakens figures hit.  I was bummed when she didn’t show up around the time of the movie, and I continued to be bummed with the release of the rather lackluster small-scale figure.  When this figure was shown off at SDCC, I was excited, but a little apprehensive, since The Black Series has been rather scarce around these parts ever since the first assortment of Rogue One.  This was made worse by the fact that I’ve still yet to see most of the first Last Jedi assortment at retail, which left me a little worried about the prospects of finding Leia.  As luck would have it, I came across almost all of the second series while stopping for groceries at a slightly out of the way Target.  Leia is really awesome, and I’m really glad I got her. And, honestly, I’m sort of glad we had to wait, because it means she got added to the line right in the midst of its strongest run of figures to date.

#1194: First Order Stormtrooper Squad Leader

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

FIRST ORDER STORMTROOPER SQUAD LEADER

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

fosquadleader1

It’s been almost a week since the last time I looked at a Star Wars toy.  And I amassed quite a number of them towards the backend of last year, so there’s just sort of this pile of them waiting to be reviewed.  Here’s one off the pile.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

fosquadleader2The First Order Stormtrooper Squad Leader was part of the early 2016 Snow Gear assortment, alongside unmasked Kylo Ren and Nien Nunb).  The figure stands a little under 4 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  In terms of construction, the Squad Leader uses the same basic tooling as the standard FO Trooper (and by extension, all of it’s deviations, reviewed in the First Order Legion set), which is sensible.  As I noted when I reviewed it before, it’s a pretty strong sculpt, and accurately recreates the First Order armor from the movie.  The main appeal of this figure is the web-gear, which is unique to this guy.  It’s a combination of the Heavy Artillery Trooper’s ammo vest with an Officer’s pauldron.  It’s different enough to keep him interesting, which I guess is the point.  Paintwork for this figure is pretty much on par with the other FO Troopers I’ve looked at.  There are some fuzzy lines here and there, but by and large he’s pretty good.  The Squad Leader includes a basic blaster rifle, as well as a much larger blaster that’s part of the build-a-whatsit.  It’s kind of a cool piece, though it’s actually taller than he his, so getting him to hold it is kind of tricky.  Still, better than a lot of the pieces included with these figures.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Being part of one of the later assortments of the Force Awakens line, this guy never really showed up at retail in full force.  I ended up getting this guy from Cosmic Comix during their Biggest Sale of the Year! (TM).  I like the Heavy Trooper look, and I liked this variation of it, so I got him.  Is he really different from figures I already own?  Not really, but he’s still pretty fun.

#1173: Sidon Ithano & First Mate Quiggold

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

SIDON ITHANO & FIRST MATE QUIGGOLD

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

sidonianthoquagley1

Would you look at that?  I’ve made it through a whole week of post-Christmas reviews!  Go me!  For day 7, I’m going back to that galaxy far, far away.  You know what the backbone of Star Wars merchandise is?  You might think it’s Darth Vader, or Stormtroopers, or even R2-D2 or C-3PO, but you’d be wrong.  No, the actual backbone, the thing that’s kept the franchise afloat with a near endless supply of tiny action figures is all of the split-second appearance, no-name characters peppered in to fill out the backgrounds of scenes.  Need to fill a slot in a wave of figures?  Here’s Willrow Hood!  Worried the boxed set doesn’t offer anything new?  How about Snaggletooth?  Need something unique?  Elephant Mon, anyone? Heck, people will spend good money to get a complete set of the bounty hunters from Empire, despite the fact that most of them only appear in that one single scene and only one of them gets even a single line of dialogue.  That’s commitment from the fanbase right there.  Of course, as the prices of oil have risen, these obscure figures are getting fewer and further between.  Fortunately, The Force Awakens provided a great new selection of background characters, which Hasbro in turn took advantage of in order to get some fun new action figures.  Two such characters were Sidon Ithano and his first mate Quiggold, who I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Ithano and Quiggold were released in the second series of two-packs from the Star Wars: The Force Awakens line.

SIDON ITHANO

sidonianthoquagley3Sidon Ithano is the captain of the Meson Martinet, the ship Finn almost transfers to prior to Rey’s capture by the First Order.  That’s pretty much his whole character (okay, not entirely true; like almost every background Star Wars character, he’s got a whole elaborate backstory, which most people will never know).  He was playable in a side mission in Lego The Force Awakens, which is how I became familiar with him.  His figure stands about 4 inches tall and has the standard 5 points of articulation.  The sculpt is unique to this figure, and is quite impressively rendered.  The helmet is nice and clean, with lots of really sharp lines, and his clothing sports some incredible texture work, which really makes him stand out. Easily one of the best sculpts from the smaller Force Awakens line.  Ithano’s paintwork is fairly straight forward.  The application is pretty clean, and the basic colors seem to match up pretty well with what’s seen in the movie.  The color scheme is also rather on the unique side of things, which adds a nice bright splash of color to the shelf.  Ithano is packed with a blaster rifle…for all you blaster rifle needs?  It’s a cool design, I guess.

FIRST MATE QUIGGOLD

sidonianthoquagley2What good is a captain without his trusty first mate?  I don’t know.  I guess it depends on the quality of the captain, and, by extension, the quality of the first mate.  So, there’s like, a lot of potential variance there I suppose.  Anyway, here’s Quiggold, who’s a guy who gets just as much screen time as the last guy.  He’s also playable in the same Lego game level, where he gets a cool mini gun thing.  So that’s fun.  The figure stands about 3 3/4 inches tall and has 4 points of articulation.  Where Ithano is tall and lean, Quiggold is short and squat.  The figure’s sculpt does a pretty solid job of conveying his design from the movie.  He looks suitably like a big puppet (which is pretty much what he was) and the details on his skin and clothing are quite nicely rendered.  I wouldn’t mind if he had some more texturing here and there, but he’s certainly reasonable for the scale.  The paintwork on Quiggold is okay, if maybe ever so slightly imbalanced.  There’s some really great work on the face, which makes his skin look quite lifelike.  I just sort of wish the details continued onto the other exposed parts of his skin, but he’s not awful.  Quiggold includes a large missile launcher version of his big gun, which is…well, it’s not as far off as most Hasbro missile launchers, so I guess it’s got that going for it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I received these two as a Christmas present from my Super Awesome Girlfriend.  We’ve been playing through Lego The Force Awakens together, and I quite enjoyed the Crimson Corsair level.  She happened to spy these figures at retail and grabbed them for me.  I very much enjoy this pair of figures.  They’re solid renditions of solid character designs, and you can’t really ask for much more.

#1147: Rey (Jakku)

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

REY (JAKKU)

STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE

reyro4

This Friday will see the release of the latest installment in the Star Wars franchise, Rogue One.  In honor of the movie’s release, I’m going to be doing a week of Star Wars reviews to countdown to said release.  “But Ethan, didn’t you just do a Star Wars week?” Listen you, if you’re just going to ruin my good time, you can just go read someone else’s toy review site!  No. Stop. Come back.

All of this week’s reviews are coming straight from Hasbro’s various Rogue One product, but as we determined earlier, that doesn’t always mean that the figures are Rogue One-themed, strictly speaking.  There’s a steady helping of Force Awakens product mixed in with all of the new stuff, including today’s figure, Rey!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

reyro2Rey is part of the second series of Hasbro’s smaller-scale Star Wars: Rogue One line.  She takes Kylo’s spot from Series One as the resident Force Awakens character in this particular line-up.  We’ve gotten quite a few different Rey figures, and a lot of them look rather similar.  What sets this one apart from the others?  She’s got a new hat!  Okay, it’s more of a head wrap thing.  And, it’s not actually “new,” just in a different configuration from the last two times we saw it.  This figure takes the Starkiller Base Rey and the Rey’s Speeder Rey and sort of averages the two looks, giving us a Rey that is sporting her head wrap and goggles, but one you can still see the face of.  Perhaps not the most noteworthy look, but she does appear like this in the film, for like, seconds.  Maybe even a whole minute!  I look forward to the eventual wearing Poe’s/Finn’s Jacket Rey, that way I can have all three of the mains wearing the *same* coat!  Oh, the continuity nightmare!  The figure is about 3 3/4 inches tall and has the usual 5 points of articulation.  The main body appears to be the same mold as the Starkiller Base Rey; it’s not a perfect mold, but there’s at least some consistency.  My only real complaint is the thinness of the arms, but that’s minor.  This figure gets an all-new head, as well as an add-on piece for the additional wrappings on her torso.  The head is a pretty solid piece, and seems to have a slightly better likeness than the Starkiller figure.  It’s not like it’s spot on, but it’s decent, and there’s plenty of solid work on the rest of the head to make the sculpt worthwhile.  The torso add-on is a nice addition, mostly because it hides the slightly flat torso of the original Rey figure, and makes her look much more on par with the Rogue One stuff.  As far as paint, Rey’s pretty standard fare. She’s got all the right base colors, and everything’s pretty clean.  She’s the sort of figure that might be benefited by some accent work to bring out more of the sculpted details, but I guess this way she matches up with the rest of the line.  Rey includes her staff, a back pack, and, of course, the requisite giant missile launcher.  The launcher is patterned after her speeder, so I guess that’s kinda cool.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, against our better judgement, my family, Super Awesome Girlfriend, Tim, Jill, and I all went out early Black Friday (well, late Thursday, I guess).  Rey was not purchased at this time, because oh gosh the insanity.  Instead, I got her when we went back out much later on Friday, when things had calmed down.  This isn’t a Rey figure I knew I wanted, but I gotta say, I was pretty excited to find her.  Sure, she’s in that weird area of not really being a default Rey, but also being really similar to the default Rey, but she’s actually a pretty fun figure, and a great way for Hasbro to get the character out there one more time.

#1134: Han Solo

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

HAN SOLO

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

hantfa1

Here’s another Star Wars review for Star Wars Week!  Alright!  As I noted back in my first Force Awakens Han Solo review, Han (along with pretty much all of the returning guard from the original trilogy) was left out of the initial rounds of product for TFA.  While his 6-inch figure ended up showing up within a month or two of the film’s release, neither of his 3 3/4-inch figures proved quite as timely.  I ended up finding the Walmart-exclusive Starkiller Base version over the summer, but his basic small-scale version proved somewhat illusive.  But, in case you haven’t figured out by this point, I found one, which I’ll be taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

hantfa2Han was released alongside Resistance Rey in the second “Forest” assortment of Star Wars: The Force Awakens figures.  (The third figure in said assortment was the Hassk Thug.  Who’s the Hassk Thug?  Good question.  Perhaps the sort of question that should have been asked before Hasbro decided to pack him in equal numbers to two of the higher-demanded figures in the line, thereby adding to the already frustrating over-abundance of “unknown” characters.  I’m getting off-topic; sorry).  The figure stands about 4 inches tall and has the typical 5 points of articulation.  Han’s sculpt is unique to this figure.  It’s overall pretty good.  The head has a decent Harrison Ford likeness (better than the Starkiller version, at the very least), and the general pose is pretty natural.  The level of detail is okay; some of the details are a little on the soft side compared to other figures in the line.  My biggest issue with the figure is the jacket piece.  It’s a little on the thick side, and the shoulders on the arms aren’t sculpted to compensate, which makes it look like he’s wearing like a life jacket or something.  It’s not awful, but they’ve done better, and for someone as important as Han, it’s something of a letdown.  Han’s paintwork is fairly straight forward, but certainly not bad.  What’s there is pretty clean, and the eyes in particular are much cleaner than a lot of the other figures in the line.  This figure, of course, still has the issue with the hair being light brown, rather than the grey that it should be.  There’s some traces of grey in there, which is better than the other two, so at least they were trying.  Han includes his usual blaster pistol, which is really cool, as well as the usual build-a-thingamajig piece.  In this case, it’s a big gun, which is at least a little better than some of the pieces.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Just like Rey, I found Han out of the blue at Cosmic Comix.  He was definitely a major want for me, since the Starkiller version wasn’t really cutting it.  He’s a decent enough figure; not perfect, but pretty good.  I wish the sculpt were a little sharper, and the jacket’s annoying, but I’m honestly just happy to have him.

hantfa4

#1133: Rey – Resistance

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

REY – RESISTANCE

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

reyresistance2

I think it’s about time we had another theme week.  And, since this is my site, my word is law, so here’s another Star Wars week!  (That’s code for “Ethan’s been buying a lot of Star Wars stuff lately and sometimes it’s hard to space it all out).

Star Wars has long been keen on giving us lots of costume changes for the main characters (because it’s easier to sell more toys that way), and The Force Awakens did a little of that, giving each of the three main characters (and Han and Leia) at least two distinct looks.  As luck would have it, however, the only character who could have both looks represented in the initial TFA assortments without violating Disney’s strict embargo on certain parts of the film was Poe.  Now, for Finn, you could get his second look easily enough by swapping his head onto a standard Trooper, but this left poor Rey without a second figure until after the film’s release.  To make matters worse, the assortment featuring her was held up by the second assortment not moving at retail, meaning it took today’s Rey figure as much 10 months to show up in some areas.  That seems excessive.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

reyresistance1Rey was released as part of the second “Forest” assortment of Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens figures.  She and the other two figures in the set technically hit in February, but as I noted in the intro, they didn’t arrive a lot of places until after the Rogue One stuff.  Rey is presented here in her Resistance garb from the end of TFA.  It’s only in the movie for like five minutes or so, but it’s there for the film’s final shots, and is a pretty sharp design in general, so it was begging for a figure.  The figure stands about 3 1/2 inches tall and has the usual 5 points of articulation.  Rey is head-to-toe a new sculpt; nothing re-used from her prior figures here.  Across the board, this figure’s sculpt is a pretty substantial improvement over the Starkiller Base version.  The proportions feel a bit more balanced, she doesn’t feel as frail, and the pose seems a bit more natural.  The vest is an add-on piece, and it adds some depth to the figure.  The head is probably the best Daisy Ridley likeness in the smaller scale (only the Titan Heroes figure is a challenger in terms of all the scales).  It’s still not perfect, but it’s a lot closer, I think mostly because rather than upscale the strands of hair at the sides of her face so they wouldn’t break (and thus making them look like braids or something), they just left them off, which looks much more accurate at this size.  Rey’s paint is generally pretty good, with one caveat on my figure.  The basic scheme is nice, and matches alright with what we see on screen.  There was some controversy about what the color of her vest should be, grey or tan.  It seems Hasbro went with the color of the actual costume, and didn’t replicate the effect of the lighting from the film.  It’s Han’s jacket all over again!  The application is mostly pretty clean, but my figure’s missing most of the paint representing the bottom of the shirt at the top of her left leg.  It’s really weird, because the app isn’t missing entirely; there’s a small sliver of it around the hip joint.  Not sure how it ended up like that.  Rey was packed with the blaster given to her by Han, Luke’s lightsaber, her staff, and a piece of the build-a-whatsit.  The blaster’s definitely the coolest piece.  The saber is neat too, though she never actually wields it ignited in this particular garb.  The staff is frustrating because it’s worked into the build-a-thing, and so it’s got this big block right in the middle of it, which is really annoying.  Sure, I’ve got several of them, but not everyone does.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been on the lookout for this figure since January, to no avail.  I refused to pay scalper prices for her, so I held out that I might find her in an actual store.  Hasbro recently announced she’d be getting a re-release in a Target-exclusive 7-pack, so I figured that would be my ticket.  As luck would have it, while I was up visiting my parents for Halloween, I went to pick up my comics, and my store had just randomly gotten in a case of this series (these would be the first Force Awakens figures they’ve gotten).  So, hey, I’ve got a Resistance Rey!  Yay!  I really hope this is a sign of the series getting a wider release, because this is probably Hasbro’s best small-scale Rey. 

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