Tanus Spijek is one of those deep backgrounders that fans and collectors love.  He can barely be seen lurking in the shadows of Jabba’s palace, usually in a sitting positing somewhere in one of the alcoves.  He was also on the Sail Barge.  We only know this from some behind the scenes shots from the set of Return of the Jedi.  To the best of my knowledge, he didn’t actually make the film cut of the sail barge scene.  That’s somewhat notable because Hasbro gave this figure the parenthetical sub-title of “Jabba’s Sail Barge.”  The diorama shots in the gallery above are such that they serve two purposes.  First, they drive home that Tanus Spijek was way deep in the background, so he’s not really the focus of any of the shots.  Second, I was too lazy to take more shots so I swiped them from some other galleries.  And to go back to this well, here’s a behind the scenes shot of Tanus Spijek on the Khetanna:

One of the best behind the scenes stills of J’Quille and Tanus.

A recreation using Saga J’Quille, Saga Tanus Spijek, and POTJ Tessek. 

As we discussed when we recently presented the J’Quille (Jabba’s Sail Barge), both of these figures share a significant portion of the sculpt.  Hasbro decided to kill two porgs with one stone, which is likely the only way we were going to get either of these guys.  The strategy of retooling/repainting figures is a long used cost saving technique that many collectors find annoying,  But this has allowed us to get a lot of minor characters that add to that depth we keep talking about.  You know what would be a great opportunity to try this again?  A DS2 flap down Luke.  While that has nothing to do with this figure, it doesn’t change the fact that we need a flap down DS2 Luke.  You know what would have been a great opportunity to release such a figure?  In that Luke Skywalker 3-pack that was announced at Celebration.

Back to this guy.  Tanus Spijek is an Elom.  Elom kind of a mole-like people, a result of their cavelike habitat on their homeworld (at least according to Legends).  The face on the figure is pretty spot on, and it’s hideous.  The body is large.  Exactly as large as the J’Quille figure.  Whipids should be taller and thinner than Elom, but due to the duplicate sculpt, that bit is lost.  That doesn’t really bother me personally, as again, I’m glad we even have these characters.  Besides the all new head, there are other differences between the figures. Tanus has different hands, with 4 fingers (J’Quille had 3 fingers).  J’Quille had a belt.  This piece was replaced by tail for Tanus.  Additionally, the abdomen is different here.  Also, the belly is different, to reflect whatever Tanus has going on there.

The joints are swivel, and don’t lend themselves to very many interesting poses, but I suppose you don’t need a ton of articulation to just lurk in the shadows.  Tanus comes with the same WWI-inspired weapon as J’Quille, which he grips awkwardly.  He also comes with a figure stand, which was standard for this phase of the Saga line.  The figure serves it’s purpose as a deep backgrounder, and adds some nice depth to your Palace and Sail barge displays.

As with J’Quille, I’m giving this figure a 6/10. It could be much better, but there’s really not much a of a need for this.  So, as per our rating system, I’m saying that this figure is in need of a complete resculpt, but the priority level for this action is negligible.  We should be fine with this figure for a long time, but if for whatever reason Hasbro gets this character on its radar, it should get an overhaul.  In the meantime, you should definitely have this figure in your collection.