The carded sample in the gallery above is a gift from Mr. Nomadscout.  Aint he a super-duper sweetie?

Star Wars has more figures of old men in dresses than any action figure line other than perhaps the Lord of the Rings.  I have to admit that the Imperial Dignitaries definitely drew my eye from the first time I saw Return of the Jedi. There’s something mildly disconcerting about them as a bunch of stoic, silent, withering old men.  So to say I’m not interested in figures of them is a lie, but we have to admit that this is where the myth of Star Wars being a toy line comes to an end.  How the heck can a largely static old man with nary an accessory, save for a stand, be considered a toy? What’s the call out on the package?

Hey kids, now you can finally unlock the fun of standing around!

Most of the figure is an inert hunk of plastic.  The entire torso inclusive of the upper arms through the upper legs is one solid piece.  This is precariously close to being a true chess piece.  The lower arms, lower legs and head are plugged into this principal bulk of plastic. This offers a swivel point of articulation at the elbows with another at the wrists.  In the most bizarre point of articulation in the history of the line, there are swivels at roughly the figure’s calves.  Calves don’t swivel, Hasbro dummies!  Finally, the head begrudgingly rotates at the final swivel joint for a grand total of 7POA, which are largely useless.  The hands are sculpted so they can be interlaced at the figure’s midsection.  Rotating them away looks silly.  The only point of the calf swivel is to replicate gruesome football injuries. [Editor’s Note:  To the kids out there, please Google “Joe Theismann Lawrence Taylor.”

It’s very hard to call this an action figure at all.  In reality, it’s an environment or set piece. You could argue that this might as well be a 0 POA figure, but the independent lower arms and head offer a degree of depth to the sculpt which has value from a realism standpoint, even if the articulation is effectively useless.  Of course none of this moves me off my position that I love this, and I’m thrilled that it exists.  Once again, this type of background scene-filing figure is at the very soul of the 3.75” world-building scale.  Because we grade figures with respect to their “job”, this gets a 5 out of 10 because it succeeds in its job of “just standing there and looking good.”

The impetus for this review is that we’re in the midst of an “Original 96” push from Hasbro to include all of the original Kenner releases in the Vintage Collection.  One of those O96’s is the “Imperial Dignitary”, which is the character we now know as Sim Aloo.  I’ve been fairly dismissive of this.  not because I don’t want it, as I very much do.  But I’m terrified of its retail viability.  It feels like one peg warmer that could kill the Vintage Collection at this point.