The Clone Commanders that were seen in ROTS were some of the most demanded action figures by the collecting community.  Even though almost all of them (aside from Cody) received mere seconds of screen time, they caught the imaginations of collectors immediately.  Gree may have been the most popular, due to his memorable and particularly distinct color pattern.  And like Cody, he did have a speaking part.  Also, He was the only one of the 5 to not survive Order 66.  Cody, Bly, Bacara, and Neyo seemed to do just fine, but this idiot had his head separated from his body.  Whatever.

The problem was, Hasbro failed to manage getting Gree out as part of the planned ROTS line of 56 figures.  So he was relegated to the repaint waves that came after.  As such, a lot was left to be desired when the final figure as designed.  I recall not being too bothered at the time of release, because I was just happy they made him.  But it became apparent pretty quickly that Gree was substandard as a straight repaint.

Based on ROTS 41 Clone Trooper (which itself was a tweak of the venerable 03-50 Clone Trooper), Hasbro merely did a repaint of that base figure, and changed nothing physically.  That was a stretch, because there was enough that was different on Gree’s uniform that it didn’t really work out all that well.  Gree had suspenders as part of his gear, and rather than either add a separate removable piece, like a pauldron or kama, Hasbro opted to just paint the straps on the upper body.  He also had an extra pouch on his left hip that was strapped to his thigh, which is absent altogether on the figure.  And on Gree’s back, there’s a secondary thermal detonator above the primary one on his waist.  This is also not represented on the figure in any way.

Aside from the missing equipment on his armor, Gree also lacks some important accessories, which were important to telling his story.  He lacks the binoculars he was seen using just prior to the battle’s initiation, and he doesn’t have a Palpatine hologram.  Granted, the mini-hologram wasn’t really much of a thing at the time, aside from R2’s Leia and maybe Dooku’s Death Star.  But the binoculars were done several times, and shouldn’t have been difficult to include.  To make matters worse, Hasbro included another instance of the nonsensical giant Playskool version of the DC15 rifle, along with the firing projectile. 

The paint job is pretty poor.  A lot of details as well as the pattern itself aren’t well-represented when compared to Gree’s appearance on screen.  This may have been the source of the most complaints.  Hasbro did make a change to the color of the visor on later releases, along with some improved camo and damage deco, but otherwise, it was still sub-par. 

Hasbro largely corrected these issues when they upgraded Gree in the TAC line, and that figure also included ball jointed hips and wrists, so it was quite a moment in the line.  But this original Gree figure was generally a disappointment.

5 Stars
5/10 Banthaskulls.