The Set

This set of cantina aliens was sold as an internet exclusive in 1998.  I honestly don’t remember that, but I’m not going to question what has been documented by the Godfather of toy line archiving, Mr. Curto.  If he says it was an internet exclusive, it was an internet exclusive.  Why this is somewhat shocking is that mainstream household adoption of the internet didn’t occur until 2001 according to the consensus opinion.  For the record, I was one of the cool “I liked the band before they sold out” kids and have been online since 1995.  All you Johnny Come Latelies and hangers on disgust me.  The internet is my thing.  Get your own thing.  Anyway, Hasbro made this set exclusive to a platform that wouldn’t gain widespread adoption until three years later.  It’s a bold move, Cotton.  Let’s see how it works out for them.  I’m sure there was some 1998 back up method of ordering as well.  Either ham radio or Western Union telegraph (or calling an 800 number).

Back then I wasn’t nearly as obsessive as I am now with identifying every single character by canonical name.  I was still going with with the [animal/creature] + [man/face] naming convention that Kenner popularized.  It’s a good system.  Sometimes I might go rogue and use “guy” as the suffix.  So when my friend told me that Kabe and Muftak were coming out, I didn’t know who he was talking about.  Once I learned that it was Mouse Bat Guy and Giant Furry Spider Face from the cantina, I was thrilled.  Getting a figure of the character I now know as Muftak was pretty neat to someone who grew up with a line that couldn’t even be bothered to make the main bad guy, Grand Moff Tarkin.  People who grew up with the Atari 2600 appreciate the NES more than the spoiled brats who were born into the Nintendo age.  People who grew up with the vintage Kenner line have deep appreciation for the depth of the modern line.

While Kabe could easily have been released in the carded figure format, and later would, Muftak is too big for that platform.  Releasing this set as a window box was a nice compromise for the packaged collectors, even if it is a pretty dull presentation.  The figures in the POTF2 line are awful on average, but I have to admit that the POTF2 figure packaging had some pop to it.  This box, on the other hand, is rather drab.

Kabe

The cantina scene was meant to jolt the audience.  According to special effects makeup artist, Stuart Freeborn:

Because [the cantina] was supposed to be a kind of ‘shock’ scene. Everything’s pretty normal up to that point in the film.

It worked on this five year old, and perhaps a little too much.  I can remember staring to get a little scared by what is essentially an extended monster sequence.  Then the diminutive Kabe shows up on screen and begs to be served at the bar with a whine that is similar to a dog begging for a treat.  It was the perfect tension cutter for me, so I’ve always loved that shot in the movie.  Being such a diminutive figure, Hasbro reduced the standard six points of articulation of the time to four.  The lower body is a solid piece without individual legs.  It would be almost impossible to get any meaningful movement out such short limbs had they been independently sculpted, so it’s not much of a loss.  There is a swivel at the waist which saves the figure from full blown “salt shaker” status.

Where the articulation could be faulted is at the arms.  While on-screen Kabe does not employ a two-handed-weapon-grip (THWG), she does perform a THBGG (two-handed-bar-glass-grip). I often say that every character has an iconic pose, and the figure must achieve that pose to fully pass muster.  Two hands reaching up to grab the glass that Wuher hands her is that pose for Kabe.  Truth be told, I’m not sure that could be achieved with modern ball jointed articulation because, again, the limbs are too short.  But perhaps cut swivels at the shoulders could have the arms come together as they are raised for that pose. 

The paint application on the figure results in two highly contrasting browns, but they are crudely done.  If it was meant to represent variations in hair color, it misses the mark.  It’s distracting and actually makes it hard to pick up on the details of the sculpt.  The paint applications were greatly improved upon when this figure was re-released in 2006 in The Saga Collection (review coming soon).  Because of those coarse paint details, this release of Kabe gets a 3 out of 10.

Muftak

So this is a tough one.  I just finished writing that a figure needs to strike its corresponding character’s iconic pose.  Muftak is the centerpiece of the second group shot in the cantina, and his iconic pose would be tapping his proboscis with the back side of his hand.  This Muftak figure has the 1998 standard six points of articulation, but those points are distributed in an atypical fashion.  Usually those six points come at the neck, shoulders, waist, and hips.  Muftak loses the waist articulation, but gains a swivel just above the right elbow.  The end result is that the figure comes acceptably close to being able to achieve that iconic pose with the back of its hand.  That is pretty neat.

Where the figure fails is that it can’t possibly assume a seated position when that is all we see the character doing on screen.  Even the silly limited articulation, straight-legged sitting pose is impossible due to angle of the swivel hips.  The resulting pose is something that threatens the family friendliness of our site.  I wrote that articulation might not benefit the Kabe figure because the limbs are so short.  Here we have a different problem. This is a massive, thick-limbed figure.  In isolation, getting such a prodigious hunk of plastic is pretty cool, but thick, beefy limbs require big ball joints.  Big ball joints have a less than ideal range of motion.  If you’ve ever tried to pose one of the Marvel Universe Hulk figures, you know what I’m talking about.  So even if this figure had better articulation, I’m still not sure the requisite range of motion would be there to allow it to sit. 

Having said that, the bulkiness of the design may not be accurate.  Reference photos show a perhaps more slender Muftak, and the full rendering of the Talz species in The Clone Wars certainly establishes a less beefy body frame.  So while this particular figure would not be able to sit with more articulation, perhaps a more realistically proportioned one would.  But I’m not even convinced of that.  While I do not own it, the Clone Wars line Thi-Sen has articulated knees, and looking at photos of that figure, I can’t envision it having enough range of motion to pop a squat either.  [Editor’s Note:  I have that figure.  It’s a good figure.  But I can’t bring myself to use it as a stand-in for Muftak in my cantina display.]

Taking the size and the judicious reallocation of a point of articulation into account, this figure deserves more than the standard minimal articulation score and earns a respectable 5 out of 10.  I would gladly buy a better articulated, modern update to Muftak, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if the sun set on the Star Wars action figure line, and this was the only Muftak we ever got.