A bit of a slow Monday for the LAAT/i, but we are, after all, right in the middle of the campaign, and likely (hopefully) scraping rock bottom of daily backer counts.  I’m not too worried about it, as we should all expect some miserably slow days.  Maybe we’ll get a shot in the arm with some fun gunship related news between now and the last weekend, but until then, the current pace seems par for the course.

As if watching grass grow isn’t exciting enough, here’s another installment of “Idiots!  How Did We Ever Actually Think These Figures Were Good?”, or I!HDWEATTFWG?  Or we could tone it down and just call it a review for ROTS 67. 

Just like the previously reviewed figure, this one is a repaint/recast of an existing figure that was rushed to market to fill demand, and it’s also a hologram.  Yay!  But there are some major differences between Hasbro’s choice for Plo Koon and what they did for this Aayla Secura.

First, the base figure is ROTS 32.  This is relevant because it was a new sculpt that was just released a few waves earlier in the same line.  We recently reviewed that figure and gave it an impressive 7/10, which is a huge score for a figure from the 2005 ROTS line.  It is very well articulated, almost to the point of being ahead of its time.  The arms aren’t great with the swivel elbow, but the ball jointed head, shoulders, knees, ankles, and torso were pretty cutting edge, especially for a figure that wasn’t a clone trooper.  Hasbro brought that same figure forward for this release.  This compares to Plo Koon, for which Hasbro opted for the near-statue POTJ figure from 4 years prior.

The other key difference is that in the film, Plo Koon as a hologram is seen sitting in his council chair, but the figure cannot sit.  So you are stuck “pretending” that he’s sitting, which no self-respecting adult should need to do.  Leave that stuff for idiot kids.  Aayla is seen in her hologram form standing at a war table, so along with several other hologram figures, you can reasonably recreate this scene as seen in the final image of the gallery.  I know that Tannith made some heartwarming comment yesterday about how he’s slightly warmed up to the concept of hologram figures, at least for Plo Koon.  But I’m hoping that final image will knock him out of his fugue and return him to his hologram-hating self.

Aayla comes with a holographic lightsaber hilt, a holographic lightsaber, and a holographic jungle figure stand to complete the package.

The figure itself is pretty solid, and recasting in translucent blue allows you to set up a screen accurate diorama, so it’s a good choice for the “repaint” waves as far as I’m concerned.  I’ll give it the same score as the original base figure.  Still, if Hasbro ever wanted to revisit this (they shouldn’t), they would at least use the TVC figure as a base.

5 Stars.
7/10 Banthaskulls.