Mighty Jabba's Collection

I posted about the Black Series Slave Leia figure yesterday, and concluded that it was a little disappointing in terms of its paint job and use of soft goods. This Boba Fett figure, on the other hand, is extremely impressive and is a great argument for the entire line of 6″ figures.

Boba Fett as a character has so much going on with his costume that it really shines in the larger scale, compared with a character like Leia. They’ve made things like his gauntlets and kneepads separate pieces, which adds to the sense of realism versus smaller figures that have everything just sculpted on as a single piece. Of course, you can tell by the color of those gauntlets (green rather than red) that this is the Empire Strikes Back version of the character. Still, I don’t think Jabba fans should really care too much about the distinction, since Fett was working for Jabba even in Empire and would’ve been around the palace wearing this version of the armor as well, even if it wasn’t on screen.

6 inches is really a nice size. The traditional 3 3/4″ figures are great in the sense that they make it possible to make things like vehicles and playlets (and having a large number of characters in a small space), but when compared with a 6″ figure they seem quite tiny and lacking in detail. Below is a shot of it next to the Vintage Collection Boba Fett figure (which I realize now I haven’t posted about here). That’s also a nice figure, but it just looks puny compared to the Black Series Fett, and the level of detail and paintwork is quite different as well. My only real knock against the Black version is that the antenna is one solid piece with the helmet, while on the smaller figure you can put it down into “range finder” position. Seems like a strange omission for the larger, more expensive figure.

The articulation is pretty good, although I couldn’t make him hold his rifle in one hand with the barrel pointing vertically toward the sky. That’s the kind of pose you’d be able to get with a 1/6 scale figure, but on this one the elbow wouldn’t bend enough. Other than that, though, I’m quite impressed with this version of Fett and may actually think about collecting the 6″ line in general if they stay at this level.

This is the normal retail version with Fett by himself, but Hasbro also released an SDCC-exclusive version of this figure that came with a Han in Carbonite figure (and that set is currently going for astronomical amounts on the secondary market). But from what I hear, the Han in Carbonite figure is probably going to be available in some other form later on. Maybe even in a Jabba’s Palace set? We can hope!

When I heard that Hasbro was releasing a Slave Leia figure as part of their new series of 6″ scale figures, I was intrigued. The prototype looked really good. But as is so often the case, a fair amount changed with the production figure. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. First, let’s look at the box. All of the 6″ Black Series figures have similar boxes, but I hadn’t looked at them closely until getting this one (my first in the series). I had the impression that they were all pretty much identical, but in reality there is a fair amount of custom artwork on both the front and back. (Technically the back is a photo but the point is that the box is more individualized for this figure than I first thought.) You also get a nice view of the figure itself.

She comes with a vibro-axe and (for some reason) the staff she used when in her Boushh disguise. There’s a plastic chain around her neck and she wears a cloth skirt. While on the prototype this was made of thinner material that had actually been sewn, this is just a flat piece of satiny cloth that doesn’t look all that great (mine was fraying at the edges right out of the package).

The head sculpt is really quite good, with a very good resemblance to Carrie Fisher. The paint is another matter though.  I actually think the production paint job makes the figure looks more like Fisher than the prototype, but it’s pretty sloppily done. Mine has a paint rub on the nose from the packaging, and the eyes seem very subtly cross-eyed. Of course you have to keep in mind that it looks a LOT better in person at a distance of 2-3 feet than it does blown up on a screen. But I think this is one of those figures that could really benefit from a good repaint.

Articulation is always a problem with figures that are not wearing many clothes, and here it does look a little ugly to see all these joints. Most of the previous Slave Leia figures have eschewed super-articulated bodies for ones that look more attractive, but of course that means that Leia isn’t even able to sit down. Since one of the main uses for a Slave Leia figure is sitting by Jabba, that’s a problem. The Saga Collection Slave Leia solved this by including two pairs of legs — one for standing or other poses, and one for sitting. In this case, the figure is well articulated enough that you can in fact get her to sit down next to Jabba, although it’s still a little tricky. (TheFwoosh has posted a gallery with a lot of action shots of this figure to give you an idea of what’s possible.)

I’ve used the Gentle Giant statue for the photo above, which is in a similar scale to this figure. But I really hope that Hasbro will bring out a Jabba in scale with these new figures.

Although this was part of the “Kenner Collection” it was actually produced by Hasbro in 1998. It was part of the “Complete Galaxy” line, which had figures paired with planet models that opened up to form little dioramas. Here we have Tatooine, and inside is Luke standing on the skiff above the sarlacc. I had never seen these in person before receiving this one, so I had originally though they were miniature figures, but it turns out that the figures are the same 3 3/4″ figures as in Hasbro’s main line, which makes the planets rather sizable — about the size of a large grapefruit. It comes with a stand to prevent it from rolling away.

Mine had been left in the box for 15 years, so there was some discoloration of the planet’s paint where the plastic of the packaging touched it. Also, it refuses to close completely unless I hold my finger on it, which explains the shot below. I had never given a lot of thought to the geography of Tatooine, but from this is seems as thought the main locations from the films are spread all over the entire planet. I’m not sure if Tatooine is just a small planet or if things like speeders are faster than I thought, but somehow that seemed odd to me, since they seem to be able to travel between locations relatively quickly.

The Luke figure is similar to but slightly different from the one that came with the POTF2 Rancor (prototype here). His facial expression looks rather sad, or at least very concerned about something. I suppose I can’t blame him, as he’s about to be fed to the sarlacc, but it doesn’t really match the confident Luke we saw in the film.

The sarlacc is of course the version from the “Special Edition” of Return of the Jedi, so it’s got that beak-like thing in the middle, but it’s sculpted well enough. The tentacles and mouth can turn.