Yet another dud in The Saga Collection.  This one is a “repaint” of a previous figure.  I use the word loosely, because it’s really an “unpaint.”  It’s a “re-plastic.”  Here’s another word in “quotes.”  Taking the original 7-year old Darth Maul mold, The Saga Collection provides the update of turning it into a translucent blue holographic figure.  It was an okay figure in its original form in 1999, but really doesn’t pass muster, even by 2006 standards. 

Similar to the Holographic Ki-Adi Mundi that was released in an earlier TSC wave, this figure is based on an on-screen appearance of the character, but fails to accomplish the “iconic” pose that we see in the film.  In Ki-Adi’s case, he couldn’t sit.  He appeared as a Hologram sitting in his Jedi Concil chair, but lacked the articulation necessary to replicate this.  Fortunately for that figure, Ki-Adi appears later in the film standing around a war planning table, so it was saved.

This Darth Maul is unable to achieve the arms-across-the-chest intimidation pose that Maul assumes after being introduced via holograph by Darth Sidious to the Nemoidians.  The relatively weak 1999 sculpt and poor articulation precludes the figure from being able to replicate this pose.  The best it can do is look like he’s flexing his arms like Hanz or Franz. 

To make matters worse, Maul is a completely different translucent blue than his “companion” figure, the 1999 Episode I Holographic Darth Sidious.  That one is a salt shaker with minimal articulation, but at least it looks the part.  Maul just fails.

Again, like Ki-Adi Mundi, Maul includes the superfluous translucent lightsaber.  Totally an unnecessary accessory, but I guess there wasn’t much in the way of an alternative, so it was included to at least give the perception of value.

My sample, at this point, was nearly impossible to stand up.  I don’t know if it just warped over time, or if this was a problem out of the package in 2006.  It made taking the shots for this gallery an extremely frustrating experience, and I nearly tossed the figure in the trash. 

That said, I have no choice but to give this figure a 2/10.  It fails to meet the two basic bare minimum standards of an action figure:  It does not stand well, and it cannot come close to replicating the on-screen appearance.  Fortunately, Hasbro had already produced a “figure” that does both of these things.  It’s from a short-lived sublime of light-up holograms from 2000.  That Darth Maul is best for this display, but it suffers from having zero articulation.