Vintage Collection
Garazeb 'Zeb' Orrelios
If you’re reading this on the date of publication, we’re taking a brief reprieve from our post-HasLab coverage to bring you a figure review. Don’t worry, we’ll be back to the HasLab afterglow tomorrow. If you’re reading this in the future, I bet you wished you backed the Cantina.
In advance of HIS REVIEW of this Garazeb ‘Zeb’ Orrelios, my buddy Tim from Bossk’s Bounty told me that it was a 10 out of 10 figure. Star Wars has brought me immense joy my entire life, but it has also dealt me my fair share of heartbreak. Every coach who retires from sports has a similar refrain for why they exit the game: at some point, the losing hurts worse than the winning feels good. My Star Wars fandom is slowly approaching that point. I need to avoid as many L’s as possible to ensure I never get there. So I told Mr. Timothy that if he were exaggerating and lying to me, I would declare US/UK War III: This Time It’s Personal. He did lie to me, but fortunately he didn’t exaggerate. This is an 11 out of 10 figure. May the fraternal good will between our two nations remain so long as the sun rises in the east.
This figure was an absolute joy to pose for photography. The dynamic fighting stances it can achieve are amazing. It can be posed as a twisted coil of kinetic Lasat fury. If you look at image 19 above, it was inspired by this pose from the official glam photography that I assume was done by our friend Mr. Cohen:
I’m a kid of the 80’s (and thank God for that). I’ve been traumatized by the “some poses may require additional support” caveat that always escaped my conscious brain during the commercial for “Hasbro’s best thing ever”. I would become crestfallen when I would find out that “thing” couldn’t actually walk on its own. It was merely a dastardly feat of stop motion trickery. So I was determined to find out if this Zeb could balance on one foot. Not only is it doable, it’s exceedingly easy. In fact in many dynamic poses that would otherwise require a precarious balancing act, this figure stands as assuredly as a chess piece. So off the charts is the utility that it has inspired memes:
You may have noticed in the header card that I only gave it a score of ten versus the eleven I mentioned above. It’s not because it would require a major rewrite of the site to give a grade that exceeds ten. It’s because I had to deduct a point for one annoyance, and thus this figure only gets a perfect score versus a better than perfect tally that would create a universe-ending quantum paradox. Zeb’s AB-75 Bo-rifle can accurately and satisfyingly attach to the figure’s back via a pair of holes on the upper back, and two sets of pegs on each side of the collapsed bo-rifle. This is a great feature, but Hasbro also included those pegs on the extended bo-rifle, which I can never imagine plugging into the figure’s back. Those pegs fall right where I wanted the figure to grasp the accessory.
It’s the one case where a Hasbro decision interfered with how I wanted to pose this Zeb. In fact, it’s so disruptive that I assumed the intent was for the figure to grip the accessory via the two handles, which is how I initially photographed it. Then I watched the reference material and realized this was wrong. He grips the weapon by the stock. This required several reshoots which would normally send me into a sweaty, stripped-to-the-waist rage. But in this case, I didn’t mind. It meant I got to play with this figure some more. The only issue was that those reshoots occurred as I was still celebrating the Cantina’s success. I was a little tipsy and gluttonously inhaling chocolate covered cashews. I became concerned that I would get chocolate on the figure as I was photographing, but then I decided that would be decidedly on brand for me. So I stopped worrying and just enjoyed the process.
As with many, I was caught up in the malaise of the repack heaviness of the early pipelines for 2024 (which was assuredly caused, in part, by LFL’s media shuffling). I erroneously quipped that it would be hard to come up with my annual Top 10 list for TVC come the year’s end. Not only will it be easy, it’s quickly becoming a crowded field, and we still have Cobb Vanth and probably four all new Acolyte figures cominig. It’s already a tough decision for the best of 2024 between this Zeb and the previously reviewed Kanan Jarrus.
I feel bad for anyone who skipped the Cantina because:
We backed the Ghost and all Hasbro gave us is repacks. No Baylan. No backie.
Don’t worry. You can buy my extra deluxe set for $1000 next year.
Post Script:
I forgot to mention this in the body of the review. This release represents Zeb for his Seasons 1/2 appearance in Rebels. The version of Zeb coming with the HasLab Ghost represents him for Seasons 3/4. You will notice a different head sculpt, some different deco, and the upper arms are retooled to remove the shoulder armor for the Ghost version:
