Barada.  Poor guy was just minding his business, doing yeoman’s work for Jabba, when that maniac Jedi got loose and murdered him and just about everyone else at Carkoon.  Barada has a long history in the action figure line, going back to the post-ROTJ Kenner days, as he appeared on both a Tri-Logo and POTF card.  Well, sort of.  Barada was mis-sculpted by Kenner.  While the card photo was Barada, the figure was sculpted and painted to look more like Kithaba.  Sorry Kenner, but not all Klatooinians look alike.  A Barada figure isn’t quite as nostalgic as the vintage “92’s” or “96’s” and all that, but Hasbro did make it a point to ensure he was modernized for the POTF2 line.  In the Skiff Guards cinema scene 3-pack, Hasbro gave us Klaatu (a Green Nikto), Barada (a Klatooinian), and Nikto (a Red Nikto named Vizam).  For his part, Kithaba was eventually correctly released by Hasbro much later on, in TVC, as VC56.  All 3 figures were released again, as part of the 2004 Toys R Us exclusive 4-pack Skirmish at Carkoon, in the post AOTC Saga line.  The set also contained a new prisoner Han Solo along with a repacked deck gun - proving again that Hasbro had planned the Khetanna for many years.

In 2006, The Saga Collection was launched as the first Hasbro line to follow the closeout of ROTS’s “completion” of the Skywalker saga.  It meant a return to figures of characters from across the entire 6 film saga.  Many figures were repainted and retooled.  Barada was released as figure #004 in the line.  The mold was re-used, as was the weapon.  The only change was to the paint application, and it was fairly significant.  As you can see in the comparison shot, there are negligible differences between the first two releases (probably essentially unintentional), while the TSC single carded figure is very different.  The face is painted much more naturally, bringing out the details in the sculpt.  The headband is painted more precisely, without the strange blending of facial coloring.  The shirt is an off-white, rather than the previous bright white, which seems more screen accurate, or at least, more believable given the environment of Tatooine.  And the very dark weathering wash that was applied to the belt pouches has been muted, to provide a much better look.

While the figure has a fairly decent sculpt considering it’s from 1999, it has only 6POA (swivel head, shoulders, hips, and waist), and that simply won’t cut it today.  The right arm is bent at the elbow, which gives a much more convincing firing position than those silly robot 5POA craps that are offered today.  In reality, however, Barada wielded a vibro staff just like all of the other guards on the skiffs.  For whatever reason, Hasbro included a strange blaster with this figure.  It’s the same one that came with previous releases, but it should have been replaced with a vibro staff.  As with all the TSC figures, Barada came with a named figure stand, as well as, somewhat randomly, one of 12 different hologram figures.

This was a definite, if incremental, improvement over previous releases of Barada.  However, at this point, he needs a resculpt from top to bottom.  He should be super-articulated, and come with a proper vibro staff.  It doesn’t need to be complicated.  Matching the effort put forth with VC56 Kithaba, or TBS #27 Skiff Guard [Brock Starsher].  While we wait for a definitive version of good ol’ Barada, this barely acceptable figure still has a place in your collection as one of only 4 that currently able to accurately populate the second skiff.  With all the love being given to the Battle of the Great Pit of Carkoon by Hasbro, this figure’s priority has steadily risen in recent weeks and months.  We hope, like with Pote Snitkin, Hasbro considers modernizing the sculpt for TVC.