Fair warning, this review is highly opinionated and says a great deal. I thought about editing it and then decided that if any issue in toy collecting needed to be spoken about this was it.
I love collecting action figures for various reasons, and this set is one of the BEST waves of figures of the year. Seriously they are made great and the paints are perfect. Which makes it more confounding as to the story of these fine figures. One has to look at this wave of action figures and wonder what the hell happened.
The story goes something like this: Towards the end of the year of 2009 Hasbro put out a ton of waves in a very short period of time. So fast that many retailers didn’t have a chance to get them, something like 5 waves in the course of a month and 1/2. Hasbro then claimed that the Legacy line wasn’t selling figures. Problem is how can something sell if there is no product on the shelves. Anyway there seems to be a big mess behind the scenes here. Even though the Legends and Clone Wars figures have been pegwarming shelves to death, yes Legacy doesn’t sell even though you cannot find any of them anywhere.
Some defenders pointed to a few slow sellers like Yarna, and the whys and how’s that Hasbro felt this was a great pack in extra figure for the first five waves of Legacy. Yet it should be pointed out that it is very hard to have any waves of figures that will not have some form of pegwarmer. This EU wave is a rare exception, but I bet the repacks in this wave to fill it out will not be near as hard to find.
On top of that the claim is made that the “Expanded Universe” of Star Wars is not selling at all. From everything I have read online from others, it seems the only things that didn’t sell from expanded universe is Princess Leia/Xisor comic packs and the very poor choices of comic packs for Wal-Mart exclusives. Still with all of this the Legacy line trudged on.
Earlier this year Hasbro announced they would release the Expanded Universe wave in limited amounts as a Toy R’ Us exclusive. WHAT!!!? OK maybe not so bad since the GI Joe TRU exclusives are pretty easy to find. Well obviously that isn’t the case.
When I heard the announcement my first thought was the nearest TRU was 2 hours away-CRAP!!! So I waited and visited the 2 hour away TRU on May 1st (the release date), then the 3 hour away TRU and then the 4 hour away TRU. Yeah you guys see the pattern here. No sign of them, not even the repacks from the waves, and it looked like none would ever get there according to employees. From the reports of other TRU’s around the country this seems to be the case in more than just my local area. So I bit the bullet and ordered from BBTS at nearly twice the price to get them.
Reports are that scalpers have had a field day with this whole set up, a store might get 4 cases and be able to do nothing when the scalpers walk by with all of the figures in their hands. A pain to hear about but not unexpected. Let’s face it, looking on Ebay it’s pretty clear that limited release and Expanded Universe is a combination that just breeds scalping (Darth Revan anyone).
Now of course Hasbro has defenders and I am sure they have tons of excuses and counter arguments. Let me be blunt, I don’t think Hasbro is “out to get the fans” or “creating problems on purpose.” I just think they have massive levels of incompetence lately. Most companies make mistakes and learn from them. Hasbro makes mistakes and continues to make the same mistakes sometimes exasperating them from before. The thing of it is this is turning tons of fans off and personally I have been dealing with this for years, nearly a decade and it seems these mistakes get worse every year. This kind of stuff is across the board and in many toylines. I can list specifics but that means you will have to read three times as much of my complaining. But I doubt it would take long for anyone to find an example of what I mean.
The point is, I know tons of people have nearly had it with the same stupid decisions being given to different toylines. I know a few that have turned their backs from collecting as a whole due to distribution, or limiting releases, or stupid case ratios, blaming the fans, and every other little thing that gets done in the name of “business.” I dare say if Hasbro didn’t have the license to some of my favorite characters I wouldn’t give them a second look.
But they do have the license, so that is what we get.
The Expanded Universe is a wonderful thing, it takes the concepts and characters that are familiar and continues them for a new generation as well as the old generation. Is everything EU perfect, of course not, but there are some great things and concepts that are there.
KKruhk is a Jedi Master who has a very interesting story. He apparently was killed by General Grievous in his first appearance (in original Clone Wars animated series) but then survived. Not only did he survive, he lived on into the Legacy era of Cade Skywalker. How did he do this you ask, well according to fans it was the magic of his straw hat. A hat that is not included with his figure but the Ages of Action Ninja has a substitute that works.
OK probably not the hat, but K’Kruhk is fun in that he allows for that type of fun conjecture. Very few figures do that on any level. So getting a figure of him was one of the announcements I jumped for joy. K’Kruhk is one of the many EU characters I really like and wanted to have around in my collection.
First of the figure is a lot larger than I expected, but I went back into my comics and realized he is a pretty big guy, so it’s accurate. I guess I had never really noticed before but yeah K’Kruhk is a tower of a Jedi Master.
A last point is right after I opened the figure I noticed some similarities to Pre Cyborg Grevious unmasked, which I found intriguing. They are not twins by a long shot but the similar features like elongated face, slanted eyes and jutting teeth struck me as odd. They are obviously different alien races but still having similarities given their history is something of note.
I think K’Kruhk is one of the best alien Jedis to date, the hair is very detailed, his face is a dead on likeness for his comic appearances. The one downer is that his hair does prevent his head movement. Of course like many of the modern Star Wars figures he is pretty articulated too. He is of course hard to find but I think when all the hype dies down he will be the easiest of the EU wave to track down. I think, for the most part, the only ones who will want him are the diehard comic fans, and while there are plenty of those, I think also ultimately he will meet demand. Right now he is seen as “RARE!!!!” so he is going somewhat inflated, but unlike the rest his following is a bit more limited. Although he is my favorite of the wave, I have to admit his fan base isn’t quite as solid as the rest.
Especially when compared to the Force Unleashed Version of Shaak-Ti. This is a figure noticeably absent from the previous Force Unleashed wave. Shaak-Ti also apparently shares K’Kruhk’s immortality, at least in a figurative sense. Shaak-Ti died in 2 deleted scene of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. First in a sequence where Anakin and Obi-Wan get lost in the droid ship only to encounter General Grievous holding Shaak-Ti and Grievous killed her (as seen on the Episode III deleted scenes), and also in a rumored deleted scene of Anakin Skywalker killing Jedi when he became Darth Vader (as viewed by Obi-Wan and Yoda, this scene was played out in the Lego Star Wars game as well). Well even after all that Shaak-Ti ended up surviving and appeared in The Force Unleashed.
In the game Shaak-Ti had fled to Felushia to escape the Empire. She had apparently decided to lose her clothing and blend in by being nearly nude. This fact is of course fabulously recaptured with the Action Figure LOL. The figure is a great likeness of her appearance in the TFU game. Another interesting fact is that no one is sure if she survived her encounter with Darth Vader’s apprentice. At the end of the fight she jumped into a sarlacc like pit. However, given the fact she had been hiding out on the planet for so long it is reasonable to assume she could have gotten out of the situation. Plus, after surviving so much suicide didn’t seem in character for Shaak-Ti to just end it so easy.
But she looks great sculpt and paint wise, I have a hard time coming up with anything to say in criticism of her. Also I think this will be the one that will be hard to get out of this wave. The TFU figures from the first game still fetch a decent penny online (Although not as much as they used to) and Shaak-Ti really feels like a completion to that first run. Even worse is the multi=packs (also TRU exclusive) for TFU which brings the old game/book/multimedia event back into the front of everyone’s mind (along with TFU 2 coming soon). If she appears in TFU 2 in this garb, I bet this figure will become near impossible to acquire for a while.
Exasperating this point though is the fact that TECHNICALLY speaking, TFU is part of the “canonical” Star Wars, which means technically this is not Expanded Universe territory cause Lucas has stated these events really happened in the Star Wars Universe. So yeah that just makes it all that much more fun doesn’t it?
Speaking of fun, up next are the Solo twins, Jaina and Jacen. For whatever reason in the Star Wars novels it was decided that Han and Leia have twins just like Amadala did (OK we didn’t know Luke and Liea’s Mom’s name at that time, but we knew she had twins). It appears that the versions we got were from around the Vong war. Some have complained saying they want Young Jedi Knights versions. Me I am OK with this era.
They look great too, Jacen defiantly favors his father but his face sculpt is distinct enough you know he is not Han Solo. Jaina has similar looks but not as effectively as Jacen. Also Jaina’s card art does look different than her figure. The card art is awesome and I really wish she looked a bit more like that, kind of like Carrie Fisher a bit younger and a bit of a extra toughness with kindness. I don’t know who painted that, but from here on it’s the way I view Jaina.
Jaina also has a very unique lightsaber, its pink (BTW just so you know this has to be the hardest color to mimic in Photoshop yet, I tried several times and different techniques and finally just settled on what you see which is a slight reddish/purple tone to it, I will keep experimenting). Jaina is kind of tall too, taller than most of the Liea figures (which keep in mind too, Carrie Fisher isn’t too tall herself). So I guess that means Jaina is taller than her Mom (not too hard to accomplish when you think about it).
Jacen has a ton of the weird snake things that he calls to him to be armor, OK it looks as dumb as it sounds, but is also easily removed. So if you haven’t read the SW novels, spoiler time. As many know Jacen falls into the footsteps of his grandfather, Darth Vader, and becomes Darth Cucumber or something like that LOL. OK just kidding but I do remember the name being kind of lame.
Anyway Leia can’t bring herself to take him down even after he kills his own brother, her other son Anakin (which I could never understand why Leia and Han named him that after everything Vader did but still). Eventually it comes down to Jaina who finally puts the whine-bag to rest (and yes he really came across as a whine bag and not the Dark Lord his grandfather was. I tend to think the writers were following the Anakin plot from Ep 3 a bit too closely IMO).
But with all that in mind, I can’t help but to have Jaina and Jacen fight it out, it’s fun. After you remove his snakes he is not a bad figure at all. His garb is very reminiscent of Luke in his Bespin garb (should be since that is the base figure for him).
While both these figures are very good, they could be better. Jaina wins overall but Jacen kind of suffers from the lack of original parts. Still this is one of those cases where if you buy one you have to buy both, it would seem unnatural not to have the set. Which also makes it hard to determine if these two will be in high demand later. The twins have not really been on the top of most people’s must have list, yet they have been desired at the same time. Jaina is great, Jacen is just OK, really he kind of comes across as a custom rather than a real production figure. A good custom, but still a custom. It is a very hard call to make without having clearer information on the production run and how many they are planning to unleash (or have unleashed) upon the collecting community. At this point I will just say it’s up in the air and only a few years will tell the tale.
The last two figures of the wave were army builders and to be honest I had to worry about how much money I am spending to acquire all these figures that are having a hard time getting out to stores (Marvel Universe Archangel Wave, the Iron Man 2 figures that can’t seem to find a store, ect) and decided to only get the figures I really, really want. As such I didn’t grab them, they looked fine but given the choice as I was I opted for the Jedi. I am willing to bet those figures will be VERY hard to find though, they are high demand and collectors will probably buy multiples.
Overall this wave is great, which makes its story all the more frustrating. If you see them, grab ‘em. That is the best option, even if you decide to get rid of them later they will be a pretty good bargaining tool. But really just grab them cause they are probably the best figures the Legacy line has delivered thus far (and since this is the last wave, probably ever will). The limiting of the wave makes them even more desirable for sure, but seriously this is the wave that should have seen wide release and probably would have had the biggest sales of all of Legacy. I know that is a bold statement, but I firmly believe it, the character selection was solid, the molds and paints are perfect, it’s hard to believe some executive made such a bonehead decision as to lower the production runs and limit these to one store. Then again after so many other bonehead decisions I guess its par for the course.
So after all that venting and frustration, let me try to end this review on a lighter note:
