As we had discussed in a previous review, the 327th Star Corps was originally designed to be a different color.  Armed with this early information from Lucasfilm, Hasbro released the ROTS 33 Clone Commander (Red/Green Variants) figure(s).  Neither of those colors made the final cut.  I had liked the yellow coloring of these troops as they appeared in Revenge of the Sith, and was happy that Commander Bly made it into the ROTS basic line.  Meanwhile, the new “expression”, or “format” as we used to call it back in the day, was the Evolutions multipack, and one of the earliest releases was a 3 pack of troopers that included some variations.  One such variant was the Phase I Clone Commander / Pilot, the Phase 2 327th Star Corps, and a Sandtrooper squad leader.  That 327th trooper, along with Aayla Secura and this Commander Bly from the basic line, allowed you to faithfully recreate the cold-blooded execution of Order 66 on Felucia.

The figure itself is a straight repaint of ROTS #33.  Aside from the yellow flashes of the 327th replacing the red or green of the original figures, Hasbro added some carbon scoring damage to the armor, and also added some weathering to the kama.  This brought some excellent depth to the figure that was lacking in the super clean scheme of ROTS #33.  Perhaps as a cost-cutting measure to counter the expense of the extra paint apps (if that was even a consideration in 2005), Hasbro thankfully dumped the silly zip line accessories this time.  Bly, of course, still has the dual pistols and the long rifle.  With the 2005 version of super-articulation, you could manage some decent poses out of the figure to recreate the Felucia thing.

Of note, Hasbro made efforts to not only bring collectors a proper film version of the Clone Commander that previously had the wrong colors, they also seemed intent on adding as much detail as possible to the scheme.  To this end, there were 3 variants to Commander Bly.  The first release is the one pictured here.  The second release updated the joints in the shoulders and ankles to have yellow paint instead of leaving them white.  This brought better accuracy to the figure.  Not finished with that, Hasbro further changed some of the yellow details to a mustard color that was more screen accurate.  This included the vertical center stripe on the helmet (leaving the top fin the original yellow), as well as the center stripe on the chest armor.  Not finished, they added some additional grime to some of the armor parts.  This final version was the most accurate and most desired, but the hardest to find.  At least that’s what I’m told by Chris.  He threatened me with some terrible consequences if I didn’t mention this.  In fact, I typically ignored minor paint changes to figures, and while I had basically forgotten these 3 variants were even a thing until I had to write this article, I’m not sure I even knew of these changes back in 2005.  I have 2 ROTS 57 figures, and both are version 1. 

The authority at the time was Dan Curto at Rebelscum, and he took this excellent comparison photo of the 3 Bly variants HERE.  Again, the differences are (1) White shoulder/ankle joints, (2) yellow shoulder/ankle joints, (3) improved color on specific flashes, and additional weathering/damage deco.

Later in the TAC line, Hasbro issued a battle pack called Betrayal on Felucia, which included Bly, Secura, and 3 members of the 327th.  That version of Bly reverted to what was essentially the first variant of ROTS #57, with the white shoulder and ankle joints, but also dropped all the weathering and scoring.  So it was either a nice and shiny Bly, or a step back in deco, depending on your point of view.  Hasbro hasn’t really given much love to the 327th since then (aside from the Gelagrub pack), so I would suspect there’s a chance we see Bly and his troops at some point in the not too distant future now that we have the new clone buck.

5 Stars
6/10 Banthaskulls (Better than the 5/10 for the red/green variants, due to the efforts to make it more screen accurate and dropping the dumb zip line.)