Utapau was home to the Tall, slender, and rather slow moving Pau’ans, as well as the shorter, stockier, harder-working Utai.  Later, the Amani and Sugi species adopted the planet as their homeworld as well, you know, for reasons.  These guys were depicted in the released, but unfinished, Clone Wars arc that told the story of some kind of arms deal involving a giant Kyber crystal.  Or something like that.

The Pau’ans were the ones were ruled the planet, and had a relatively peaceful and symbiotic relationship with the Utai.  I’m not sure how much they cared about the Utai, though.  It seems that on the subject of the legendary “short Utai” figure, they remained silent.  This created a lot of tension between the two species, which has yet to be resolved.

This figure is called Utapaun Warrior.  I don’t know about you, but I find it a little “off” with the word “Utapaun”.  I feel like it’s missing something, and should really be UtapauAn.  But what do I know.  In fact, I don’t even know where these guys are on screen.  I tried to find them in the scene where Tion Meddon greets Obi-Wan, but it looked to me like the group behind Meddon were just some Pau’an dignitaries.  And then later, after Obi-Wan returns to the main levels of the city after climbing out of the lake post-Order 66, the 212th Clones are arresting a bunch of Pau’ans, but I didn’t spot any of the soldiers that look like this figure.  Not sure if I missed it, or if these guys were cut from the film, or are just off screen.

Regardless of all that, the figure gives me the same feeling that it is “off”, as does the Neimoidian Warrior.  It’s not so much the character design as it is the figure itself.  But it just doesn’t look or feel quite right.  Not that it’s bad.  It’s decent for what it is, but it’s not particularly good either.

The sculpt of the outfit is pretty nice, with a lot of details.  Something about the outfit reminds me of the concept Maul we got in POTJ.  Once interesting detail is the insignia details painted on the back of the hands.  The headsculpt and paint are a highlight of the figure.

We’ve got a ball jointed head, swivel shoulders, wrists, hips, and a right elbow.  Again, for some reason, only one elbow is articulated, and it is a straight cut above the elbow and below the bicep, so it’s in a permanent 90 degree angle.  And there’s the ankles, which I’ll get to in a moment.

For accessories, the figure comes with some kind of staff/spear thing.  He can grip it fairly well in his right hand, and with a little patience, you can accomplish a cross-body THWG.  He also comes with a shield, which is pretty frustrating.  It has a bicep clip and a grip for his hand, so in theory, it should be a pretty sturdy fit.  But it just wasn’t working for me.  I could barely get it to stay for the photos.  Also the shape of the shield itself makes it an awkward fit for the body.  There’s a soft plastic strap which you can use to sling the shield over the figure’s shoulder or back, but it gets in the way of a solid defensive grip. 

There’s also a removable helmet, which fits over the head nicely.  And finally you get a figure/stand base.  This one is the Mustafa lava base, but repainted to a more neutral/dusty color, similar to the one that came with the the Polis Massan figure.

Now back to the ankles.  In a recent review, I forget which one, of course, I mentioned how we tend to simplify the terms we use for the different joints.  It’s either swivel or ball jointed.  But in reality, a true ball joint would be of the ball and socket variety, which typically in the 3.75” line can only be found on the neck joints.  Other joints that we casually call ball jointed, are really some combination of swivels and pins.  This is most frustrating with wrists.  We usually complain that wrists go in the wrong direction, and that is due to the way that particular swivel/pin combo is aligned - and Hasbro seems to often choose the wrong plane for the swivel to move.

Well, in the case of these ankles, we have true ball and socket joints.  I’m not sure that I can recall this style of joint used on any other figure in the 3.75” line (aside from necks).  It’s almost like Hasbro decided to randomly experiment with this on a figure they chose by throwing a dart at a board.  And the result is glorious.  In a figure that is otherwise effectively bereft of lower body articulation (no knees and a stiff plastic skirt), the ball and socket ankles to allow you to maximize the posability of the swivel hips.  Again, to be clear, the range of motion is severely limited.  But it would be zero if not for these ball and socket ankles.  In image #11, that VERY slight battle stance would be impossible without these ankles. 

The aesthetic is a bit weird, and these ankles may contribute to my overall feeling that there’s something off with the design.  We Star Wars fans usually demand screen accuracy and form over function.  So the look of these ankle joints may be off putting.  But I never realized, until I revisited the figure for this review, how awesome the ankles really are.  I’m sure Hasbro could improve the sculpting of the ankles to accommodate this type of articulation.  And man, would it be great to have these in the wrists, or what?  I’m told by Mr. Chris that this is used in the 6” scale.  If that’s true, then we must immediately demand that the technology be translated into the one true scale.

5 Stars
5 Banthaskulls (with a nod to the revolutionary ankle articulation)