Kit Fisto was always a fan favorite ever since his mid-battle smile lit up the screen on Geonosis in AOTC.  His figures over the years have been fairly decent, but were always a product of the times; preposed or simply lacking enough appropriate articulation.  Also, for “reasons”, Kit’s look changed between films.  I assume, it’s just one of those things where Lucas was dissatisfied with the original mask and costume.  It’s not particularly noticeable if you view the films casually, but when images from each film are compared, the difference is startling:

War.  War never changes.  But Kit Fisto does.

This ROTS figure does seem to account for the change in the eyes and face structure.  It’s a well done portrait.  The paint is a little heavy-handed, but not bad overall.  The expression seems to reflect a somewhat bemused demeanor.  It’s well short of the AOTC smile, but also a little too gentle for his more determined look during the poorly-conceived and ill-fated attempted arrest of Palpatine.  The neck is not ball-jointed, but that’s like not anything you’ll miss because the complexity of the sculpt with the head-tails would likely inhibit any range of motion such as joint might offer. 

The articulation on the body is elevated beyond most figures of the day, but in line with how Hasbro treated Jedi.  It’s almost as if they saw the future, and knew the Banthaskull-coined term Jedi-Level Articulation, which would simply refer to a figure having the best articulation available during the time.  These Jedi figures from the ROTS line are pretty close to that, although they typically don’t have ankle articulation (except for Aayla Secura).  In Kit’s case, the ball jointed shoulders and elbows, along with swivel wrists and waist give it plenty of posing opportunities for the upper body.  And while he does have ball jointed knees, the hard plastic skirt restricts movement of the swivel hips, and as mentioned, the lack of ankles is damning. 

The weirdest thing is the way Hasbro approached the knees.  If you look closely, you can see that the left joint is constructed in such a way that`the “cut” is above the knee, with the hinge peg plugging upward into the thigh.  The right joint is the opposite, with the cut below the knee and the hinge peg plugging downward into the shin.  Also for some reason that I can’t discern, there is an additional point of swivel articulation at the point where the top of the right boot meets the pants - only the right boot, not the left.  It’s all very odd, and seems over-engineered to me, but I assume there was a reason for this design.  In the end, most of it comes to naught, due to the aforementioned hard skirt and lack of ankles.

Kit Fisto’s knees are weird.

The one thing that impacts the accuracy and value of this figure negatively is the lack of a robe.  While Fisto ditched the robe for his appearance on Geonosis, he most definitely geared up for his arrest scene in ROTS.  So unless you give him a spare robe, this figure isn’t entirely accurate to ROTS.  While that accessory is missing, he does come with a lightsaber hilt and removable (ugh) green blade.  Sadly, the hilt doesn’t plug into the hole in his belt.  It seems the hole just isn’t deep enough to accommodate the peg on the hilt.  I initially assumed this was just a flaw in my sample, but it’s the same case for the two figures I own.  Perhaps to make up for the lack of a robe, Hasbro included the common “spaceship” floor style of figure stand.

5 stars.
5/10.