Unleashed Slave Leia Figure by Hasbro
Hasbro’s “Unleashed” line consisted of non-poseable figures, generally in exaggerated action poses of some kind. They’re basically plastic statues. This particular one came out in 2004 and seems to be one of the more sought-after ones if my experience looking on ebay is any indication. It took quite some time before I found one at a reasonable price.
As you can see, this one depicts Leia in her slave girl outfit on what appears to be the bow of Jabba’s sail barge. She’s holding a force pike in a pose that’s fairly similar to the one chosen by Sideshow for their Premium Format Figure. The force pike here is considerably longer, though. I have a feeling that’s actually more accurate. The outfit is quite well done, overall — the plastic of her skirt is translucent, and she has a real metal chain. She’s about 7″ tall on the base, or 10″ tall if you include the force pike.
The sculpt looks nothing like Carrie Fisher, but is very attractive nonetheless. It’s a sort of stylized anime-inspired look.
Interestingly, the artwork on the box features an amazingly good likeness of Fisher as Slave Leia.
I believe these figures cost around $20 when they were available, which isn’t too bad for a figure with this kind of detail. Unfortunately they seem to be commanding considerably more than that, even out of the package. Still, with a little patience you can still get her for a reasonable price.
John Karpinsky (aka “captainmagnificent” on Etsy) has created a number of prints of Star Wars characters with designs inspired by Dia de los Muertos (the Mexican “Day of the Dead”). I’ve known about them since last year when he did the Lando piece, but I finally decided to get some when I saw that he had added Jabba and several other characters from the palace. Click any of the images below for a closer look.
The main prints are 12×12 and he also has some 4×6 prints, but I wanted to make a combined display of just the Jabba’s palace characters, so I asked him for a 12×12 of Jabba, and had him print up 6×6 versions of the other characters to keep the square aspect ratio. The frame I got is 12×24, but ended up having a bit more overlap into the picture area than I expected, so I had to do a little rearranging of the prints to get the borders to look decent, but in the end I think it looks pretty darn cool. The prints themselves are extremely well done with crisp, vibrant colors. Even my wife commented on it. I may end up displaying this with my “Jabba skeleton” statue from Japan.
He’s come up with interesting names for each print in Spanish:
Jabba = Serpiente Hinchada (Bloated Snake)
Leia as Boushh = Viejo Amigo (Old Friend)
Gamorrean Guard = Verde Centinela (Green Sentinel)
Boba Fett = Muerte de un Cazador de Recompensas (Death of a Bounty Hunter)
Lando in Skiff Guard Disguise = Rebelde Disfrazada (Rebel Disguise)
Vintage Yak Face Figure by Kenner
I mentioned this guy in my post about the Yak Face mini-bust from Gentle Giant. The figure was originally going to be released in the US, but due to some production delays they scrapped those plans and in the end the figure was released mainly in Europe. In his book “1,000 Collectibles: Memorabilia and Stories From A Galaxy Far, Far Away,” Steve Sansweet told about buying clearance Yak Face figures in Europe for $2 apiece and selling them for $5. Nowadays a Yak Face figure in the package could go for a hundred times that or more.
While not truly “rare” in the sense that some figures are rare (you can pretty much always find multiple Yak Face figures on eBay), it has become known for its scarcity, which is one reason why it still commands high prices even out of the package. I put off getting one for a long time for this very reason, but I finally decided it was ridiculous to have a Jabba focus collection without a Yak Face, so I bit the bullet and bought a loose one from the UK. He’s got some paint rubs in a few places, but overall is in pretty decent shape. He’s a bit taller than most vintage figures and as you can probably tell looks a lot more like a camel than a yak. Still, there’s something kind of charming about him…
Upcoming: Ree Yees Mini-Bust from Gentle Giant
Gentle Giant has just announced that they will be releasing another Jabba’s palace character in mini-bust form. This time it’s Ree Yees. They’re taking preorders now, but so far all they have to show us is some concept art. Still, it’s always good to have more characters to fill out my display.
Link: Jabba the Hutt and Rancor Pancakes
The Saipancakes blog has been making the rounds of the blogosphere today. It’s all about pancakes in a variety of interesting shapes. Of course, I had to check if they had a Jabba one in the Star Wars section, and I wasn’t disappointed. Well, maybe a little disappointed since it’s a little lacking in detail compared to some of the others, but it’s nice that they have one anyway. The whole site is worth a look. The marine invertebrates section is particularly impressive…
Jabba the Hutt “Obey” Parody T-Shirt
This shirt appeared out of the blue on eBay the other day. I guess it’s just one of several parody shirts that a new seller “needleznthreadz” is selling, although I don’t know for sure if the design originated with them. It’s obviously a parody of the “Obey” stickers featuring an image of Andre the Giant, which were created by artist Shepard Fairey.
Vintage German Jabba the Hutt Magazine Ad
A while back I posted about a magazine ad in Dutch for the Vintage Jabba the Hutt toy, and I recently found a copy of the same ad in German. The photos used are the same, but the text is a bit different (at least if Google Translate can be trusted). I’ve massaged the machine translation a bit to make it sound better in English, but since I don’t speak German I can’t really vouch for the total accuracy of this translation. I tried to leave some of the more interesting phrases intact (e.g. “highwayman of the galaxy”).
Your adventure with Star Wars action toys.
“Do you have the courage to liberate HAN SOLO from the violence of this repulsive creature?”
“Han Solo was frozen by DARTH VADER in a carbon block. He is the helpless captive of Jabba the Hutt, the highwayman of the galaxy. JABBA THE HUTT is the leader of a gang of the most dangerous crooks in the universe. Know this, young JEDI KNIGHT, only by defeating the most terrifying monster of all worlds can you liberate HAN SOLO. Remember, the future of your friend and of the REBEL ALLIANCE is in your hands. May the force be with you!”
(Caption)
Jabba the Hutt’s prison has room for seven STAR WARS action figures. The doors of the prison can open and close by a switch.
(Caption)
JABBA THE HUTT
STAR WARS JABBA THE HUTT action figure: When you move JABBA THE HUTT’S head, his giant tail will move.
“May the Force be with you!”
I did learn one thing — the word for “tail” in German (schwanz) can also be slang for a certain part of the male anatomy. Imagine my surprise when I typed the German “Wenn Du JABBA THE HUTTS Kopf bewegst, zischt sein riesiger Schwanz hin und her” into Google translate. Reminds me of this statue… I also didn’t know that his throne would hold seven action figures.
This ad was put out by Parker, since they had the license for Star Wars toys in Germany. I’m interested to know if there are any other versions of this ad in other languages. I think it would be cool to frame them together.
Rebelscum just posted some new shots of the Jumbo Gamorrean Guard figure that I posted about a while back. Most are just of the figure itself and make it difficult to tell it from the normal vintage figure. But I thought this shot was particularly interesting. This will be one huge figure!
[via rebelscum.com]
Vintage Plastic Return of the Jedi Coca-Cola Cup
This 32oz plastic cup was apparently given out as part of a promotion at theaters, presumably in conjunction with showings of Return of the Jedi in 1983. It has Coke branding and some pretty nice art, including a large image of Jabba, Bib Fortuna, Salacious Crumb, a Gamorrean Guard and Slave Leia. Interestingly, Leia’s outfit does not match the actual one used on screen. It has a sort of blouse instead of the bikini top that was actually used. I can only assume that they thought the actual outfit was a little too risqué.
On the other sides of the cup are Luke and Vader dueling, an ewok on a glider, an Imperial Guard, and Jabba’s sail barge. It’s a pretty nice cup for a theater freebie. A similar item is the Jabba the Hutt glass that was given away at Burger King restaurants at around the same time.
This hasn’t officially been announced yet, but all signs point to Gentle Giant releasing a second mini-bust of Boba Fett. As I mentioned in my post on the Yak Face Mini-Bust, the original Boba Fett mini-bust is highly sought-after and expensive on the secondary market, so I don’t have one in my collection. But since it’s the Empire Strikes Back version anyway, it makes sense to wait and get this version for my display of Gentle Giant mini-busts. The differences aren’t huge (boiling down to mostly different color paint in some places), but I’d rather have the correct version and since this will be much cheaper, it’s a win-win. It looks like it may be a deluxe statue with several different arms, allowing you to vary the pose. Some have said that his neck looks too long, but I think a lot of that is due to the angle from which that this photo was taken.
Of course, since this isn’t even in the final prototype stage, and Gentle Giant is not the speediest at releasing announced products, it could easily be over a year before we can actually buy it.
[Via Yodasnews]
Mighty Jabba's Collection 
