The POTF2 Freeze Frame era was one of those golden eras in the line where we were given multiple Original Trilogy background characters.  Some characters that are in the “I never thought they’d make this figure” category.  Of course this was because we lived on a planet at the time where three toed sloths could count the number of Star Wars movies on one paw. Kenner-bro had to start exercising their pause buttons to find interesting figure candidates.  This is usually a good thing. There isn’t a hard core collector around who doesn’t geek out to the occasional deep background character.  Heck, I have Mr. Nomadscout over here campaigning for characters that never occupy more than 7 pixels on a 4k television.  He’s a dork.  Anyway, so while this is ostensibly a good thing, the fact that this was during the horrid POTF2 era made it a bad thing.  Why is that a bad thing, you ask?  Because characters like this usually get a crack at action figure realization once every Halley’s Comet. Some figures (* cough * EV-9D9 * cough *) have been frozen in POTF2 status for over twenty years.

Let’s walk down the path of this particular figure a little bit.  First, “Ishi Tib” is not a character name despite what is depicted on this figure’s nameplate.  Ishi Tib refers to the species.  Now.  Today.  This whole species / name dance has been going on for decades now.  At the time, fans were legitimately asking for “Ishi Tib,” but what they were referring to was the character now named Shasa Tiel from Jabba’s Palace.  Kenner/Hasbro occasionally plays the game of “I hear you / I don’t hear you” with collectors (see the Mara Jade Fans’ Choice winner for a recent example).  If you don’t know what this game is, it’s what every patient of Dr. Nowzaradan does on My 600-lb Life during the first consultation when he tells them to eat less.  If you’re going to accuse me of fat shaming with that joke:  Tim Whatley.  In the case of the requested Ishi Tib figure, Kenner-bro played the game by bypassing Shasa Tiel and giving us this unnamed Ishi Tib from the bridge of Home One:

(click for the full sized image)

Yeah, that guy.

No one was requesting this figure, and in fact, I wouldn’t even want this figure updated, and I’m a “do all the POTF2 updates” zealot (the ASP-7 would be another exception).  I have nothing against it.  It’s neat we have it, but it’s such a low priority.  So why are we talking about this figure today?  At the time of this review, we sit about a month away from Toy Fair 2020.  Here’s hoping that fans finally get the figure they were requesting in the mid-nineties, and Hasbro announces a long-overdue Vintage Collection Shasa Tiel figure.

As for this figure, you know what it is.  It’s a bulky, crudely sculpted, 6POA, oversized accessory-having POTF2 figure.  The head sculpt looks neat and distinctive, but so much more expression could be coaxed out of it these days.  It’s fine as a Home One diorama filler, but it would need to be relegated to the back of the display.  I can’t bring myself to give a POTF2 figure anything other than a bottom of the barrel score unless the aesthetics are so well executed that it still looks passable today.  This is not such a case.  As a result, I have this as a 3 out of 10, because 2 seems too low, and no other reason.