Packaging - **
Nothing in the least exciting here. I'm looking forward to the
cardback change, since we've seen this art long enough.
Actually, with the greatly
reduced number of figures on the back of the cards with the last couple
waves, and the seemingly poorer graphics work on the photos, these
cardbacks are inferior to even those from a couple releases ago.
Sculpting - ***1/2
Hasbro can do a really nice job when they want to. They wanted to
here.
Both the head sculpt and body
sculpt are nicely done, with excellent details and intricate work.
They've captured the source material very well. Poor guy - he's
definitely got a face only a mother could love. Unfortunately for
him, the secrets of Rogaine don't appear to be part of the Star Wars
universe.
The only thing holding this
back from a perfect four star rating is the forced sculpting on the
arms. Without the elbow articulation, they had to pre-pose the arms,
and it's a fairly awkward pose.
Paint - **
A great sculpt can be ruined by poor paint ops though, and that is part of
the problem here. It's not that the ops are that bad, but that they
neglected to try to do any sort of wash on the face to bring out the
nostrils or wrinkles. On top of that, there's not enough dark colors
in the mouth to set it off from the rest of the face.
Comparing the head to the
photo and you can see where the great sculpt would have looked so much
better with just a decent use of highlighting and shadow.
The paint ops were a bit
sloppy on the blaster as well, with the silver not following clean lines.
Articulation -
***1/2
For a Hasbro Star Wars figure, that's a pretty good score! We get
neck, shoulders, waist, hips and knees on this figure.
I'm assuming they added the
knees because of the slightly tilted sculpt on the legs - he's got a
casual stance going on. But elbow articulation would have really
helped this figure, giving you a lot more options with the accessories.
Accessories - ***1/2
Speaking of accessories, he's certainly got more than his share.
Since we've been lucky when we get one with a seven dollar figure in the
past, it's extremely refreshing to see not two, but three!
He has two blasters - a
handgun and a rifle. The small blaster fits nicely in his left hand,
and it also fits in the holster sculpted on his ankle.
The long blaster doesn't fit
well in his arms in any pose I tried. If you've found a good one,
let me know.
The small drinking glass also
fits in his right hand well, but I suspect that over time the back of the
hand may break, as the hands are soft, and the amount it has to bend to
hold the glass is considerable. The glass itself is pretty nifty,
and a very nice touch.
The only downside to the
accessories is the use of an extremely soft material for both
blasters. That's been a trend now for quite awhile, and one I'm
definitely not happy about.
Value - ***
At seven bucks, most of the POTJ figures are overpriced. We've lost
the Freeze Frames, we've lost the Force Files, now we don't get jack with
the small figure.
At least Zutton has a good
share of accessories, greatly improving his value rating over some of his
current colleagues.
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