The Cantina represents an unprecedented moment in the entire history of 3.75” Star Wars figures, and it will likewise be an unprecedented moment for Bantha Skull as both Bret and I will be reviewing it.  There are other items in our galleries that we’ve both reviewed, but in those cases it’s because it was initially reviewed by one person, and then re-reviewed later by the other.  This marks the first time we’ll both be providing the inaugural review. -Chris

Chris’s Review:

I mentioned something earlier in the comments that I’m going to repeat here.  The HasLab Cantina is simultaneously a nightmare of “Razor Crest weapons locker” proportions while also being the greatest thing in the history of Star Wars collectibles.  That may seem like a nonsensical contradiction, but I assure you it’s not.  This Cantina will basically make you go on an emotional arc similar to what the Griswold family went through in National Lampoon’s Vacation.  You start out the journey excited.  Then you go through the seven levels of hell getting to your destination.  But when you finally arrive, it’s bliss.  You get to ride all the rides with John Candy, and there are no lines.

I’m almost completely gray, but assembling the distillery section of the Cantina cost me most of the remaining pigmentation in my hair.  It’s an exercise that feels like you’re flirting with breakage the entire time.  You have to push a series of millimeter-thick plastic pipes into peg holes, and it takes a decent amount of force to get them to stick.  And here’s the best part:  I got to put it together three times.  Once initially, a second time when I tried to remove the roof which ended up tearing half the pipes out, and a third time when too many pieces became dislodged trying to move it from my “photo studio” to my display.  I’m a pro at it now.

To that last point, it’s difficult to move the Cantina in general. The bar sections do not stick together well.  Any movement pulls the sections apart. If you merely look at the hookahs, you’re going to dislodge one or more of the pipes.  At one point I actually considered super gluing the hookah pipes in place, but I don’t want to lose the utility of being able to rotate them as needed for display.  I may glue the bar together.  I’m still debating wether or not I should.  I probably won’t.  But here’s the good thing.  This isn’t a vehicle or something destined to be moved.  It’s a display piece.  You just need to set it up, leave it in place, and bask in its glory.

So far what I’ve described is the hellish journey to Wally World complete with its lost luggage, cranky aunts, and dogs urinating on the picnic basket.  It’s all worth it for the destination which is the assembled Cantina.  As I was setting up scenes it was reflexively humming Mad About Me.  Do you know how some people are “set-jetters” where they travel to the filming locations of their favorite movies?  I felt like I was doing that in miniature as I was setting up the figures.  I was in the Cantina through my camera lens. Instead of saying, “this is where Pedro let Napoleon jump his bike,” I was saying, “this is where Dr. Evazan told Luke that he doesn’t like him.”

If all we got was the Cantina itself, this would absolutely be a dream come true for me, but it doesn’t stop there.  We get five incredible figures to include the first ever Tonnika sisters.  I didn’t get to interact with each figure individually like I would for a figure review, so I will leave that commentary to Bret (if he chooses).  All I know is that all the figures did exactly what I wanted them to for the purposes of the photography.  I’m going to display the Cantina in profile so the lack of a roof, and the lack of exterior walls doesn’t bother me.  The only complaint about incompleteness I have is with the entrance.  The back wall should go up higher, probably to the point of being completely enclosed.  It’s just weird that the entrance arch is higher than the back wall.  It’s jarring as you look through it.  It would be like looking into a room in your house, and seeing no roof.

I’m not going to grade this because my heart won’t let me deduct any points even though it’s too far away from perfect to be able to give it a ten in good conscience.

Bret’s Review:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, but mostly it was the best of times even though there were some worst times, so overall it was the best of times, kind of.  My sentiments are similar to Chris.  This set is truly a dream item for me.  It’s something I never thought was possible, and thanks to the existence of the HasLab model, it has become a reality.  As I’ve mentioned before, the Cantina scene is the one the captured my imagination as a kid more than any other in Star Wars.  After 30 years of the modern line and all the patrons we’ve accumulated, we finally have a proper setting for one of the most iconic set pieces in the entire Saga.  It’s got a few warts, but I’m not letting any of that spoil my enjoyment of the final product.

The Barge had the sails and the Razor Crest had the weapons locker.  The best thing I can say about the Ghost is that there wasn’t anything about the assembly that shortened my life expectancy.  But returning to form, the Cantina gave us the distillery.  Chris mentioned the difficulty he had with it.  As you can see from our photos if you haven’t already put yours together yourself, it’s quite a project.  Lots of thin tubes and small pieces that set the stage for multiple heart attacks. Also, when it was all said and done, you’re left with one silver canister that confounded me for a while until I finally accepted that it was an extra piece.  For the truly OCD, I can imagine how sinister this is.

Also, as Chris mentioned, the 4 translucent bar pieces don’t really stay together with a satisfying click, and if there’s any shifting of the bar should you decide to move it, it will likely pop apart.  And based on the shape and the connection design, there isn’t a good way to leverage a proper amount of force to put them back together once the entire thing is fully assembled, as they’re just not very cooperative.  If you do this after you’ve set up all the cups (Oh god, the cups!  Why are there so many cups?), you will likely tip over 90% of them.  Some cups are certainly necessary, although I don’t think we needed fourteen thousand of them.  They become a nuisance rather quickly, so you’ll likely decided to store about half of them in a bin.  While not quite the same deal, getting them in place for the final set up was reminiscent of the aforementioned Razor Crest weapons locker.  I used long tweezers to position them around the bar and on tables in the alcoves.  It was like playing Operation: “Don’t touch the sides, or…BUZZZZZZ” and all the other cups fall down.

But once you get past that, it’s a wondrous set that immediately elevates your display to something previously unimaginable.  The cardboard backdrop from 1998, coupled with the few bar pieces that were released piecemeal over several years wasn’t the worst thing to ever exist…until you compare it to this.  Then you wonder how you even accepted that nonsense as a real part of your collection.  Fools!

For me, the figures were (mostly) gravy, but now that I have them in hand, I marvel at them all.  First, we get Wuher.  As I’ve beaten this horse to death recently during discussions about the LAAT/i HasLab, I wasn’t initially thrilled with most of the figures chosen to accompany the Cantina set.  But I understood that Wuher was necessary as he’s essentially the “pilot” of this ship, and his exclusion would be a crime.  And I also realize that the 1999 Wuher is woefully outdated, even though it was tweaked and repainted in 2006.  This version is insane.  The sculpt is awesome, the likeness is great, the paint job is top notch (especially the chest hair), and the articulation is of the Jedi-Level variety.  For a guy who doesn’t climb walls, he certainly can do all kinds of Matrix-y moves.  He’s got a swappable right hand so he can grip his included rifle well, while the alternate hand grips his included bar glass well.  My favorite part is the pointing right hand, so he can accurately gesture to Threepio and Artoo as he yells at Luke that he doesn’t serve their kind - and the pose is made perfect with the ball jointed waist articulation.  10/10.

Next up are the Tonnika Sisters.  If you know anything about life, you know that 3.75” Star Wars is the Undisputed King of World Building, and they have been conspicuously absent ever since Kenner started pumping out background aliens in the line.  After almost 725 years, multiple changes to the world order, a never-ending barrage of litigation, countless mob hits, Rick Astley, iron-clad NDA’s, The Helmet Catch, and the rise of Bryan Cranston, we finally have the Tonnikas in our collections.  Hasbro went all out, avoiding the easy trap of repainting one base figure and calling it a day.  Senni is significantly taller than Brea.  While they do share some parts, it looks like the thighs/hips, belt/bikini bottoms, and torsos are different.  The left hands are also different, as Senni sports a sculpted bracelet which is absent from Brea.  And believe it or not, the head/face/hair sculpts are different.  While the hair styles are essentially the same, Hasbro sculpted them each into unique parts for each figure. And the faces are definitely not the same underneath the PhotoReal paint applications.  Amazing stuff.  Each figure comes with a pair of blasters reminiscent of those from Naboo, different bar glasses, and swappable left hands (and again, Senni’s has the bracelet).  The figures are an astonishing addition to the line and, for many collectors, are the stars of the set.  10/10 and 10/10.

Greedo was the figure I was least interested in.  Not only do we have multiple versions (3 sculpts and 6 releases were produced in the first 11 years of the line), the most recent version (VTSC from 2006) was pretty good, even if you didn’t like the felty(pern) vest.  I was content with living with that Greedo for the rest of my life, and was annoyed that a HasLab slot was going to this guy.  Then I saw the prototype images during the campaign, and immediately realized how much more awesome he was than any previous version.  Again (beating that dead horse), I would still have preferred a debut character, but this new Greedo is a joy to behold. The sculpt is nothing short of phenomenal.  I would assume some folks may think that something is off with the shape or size of the face/eyes, kind of like Ponda Baba, but I think he’s perfect.  The vest is removable, should you desire to do so, but he doesn’t have the easter egg blaster shot in his chest like the 1999 CommTech figure - which is fine by me.  He’s got a blaster that fits perfectly in either his right hand or the holster, and he comes with a bar glass.  The only thing that might be a bit off is that I feel the fingers on his left hand are longer than those of his right hand.  I’m certainly not deducting points for this, but if I focus on his hands, they do seem a little off.  The only thing I regret is that he doesn’t have a CommTech chip that says, “Maclunkey!”  Just having him stand there, he is one of the best looking figures I’ve seen in a very long time.  10/10.

Nabrun Leids just made it in before time expired, I believe within the last 20 minutes of the campaign.  As with Wuher and Greedo, we already had this figure (along with a significant repaint).  While it looked nice, it was definitely outdated, and his four arms being so limited in articulation made it a legit candidate for a resculpt.  Hasbro did not disappoint, but I would have to admit, if pressed, that looking at the figures side by side, Mr. Leids is the least different from his predecessor - at least at first glance.  I’m not suggesting for a second that the figure isn’t a quantum leap beyond the 1998 version, I’m just saying that if you hold them side by side, the original (well, at least the 2006 silver repaint) ain’t too bad looking.  But in the end, you’d be crazy to pass this guy up.  He’s got a whopping 22 points of articulation, which of course is necessary since he’s got 2 extra arms.  He’s up there among some of the most articulated figures in the history of the line, although he’s a far cry from POTJ FX-7.  It’s probably the most “fun” figure, because of his interesting physiology.  He’s got one swappable left hand, which you can use for either of his left arms.  He also comes with two blasters and a bar glass, which he can wield in any number of ways with his 4 arms.  He also has a swappable hose for his gas mask.  One hangs straight down, while the other has an “s” shape.  You can unplug and swap them, so that either one can be used to “drink” from the included glass.  Despite me being briefly and mildly underwhelmed, I got over it and he still gets a 10/10.

We can’t avoid the elephant in the room, so I’ll do a quick review of the final figure in the set:

If that made you sad, frustrated, or angry, then you know what it’s like to be a Giants fan for the past decade.  If you felt nothing, well then, you’re a soulless husk aimlessly wandering the earth.

Well, like Chris, I’m hesitant to give an overall rating for the Cantina because there are definitely some minor drawbacks that should prevent it from getting a perfect score.  But if I break it down into categories, I would do the following: 8/10 for execution (the frustrating distillery assembly and the poorly connecting bar pieces), 10/10 for overall sculpt and final product, 10/10 for each of the 5 figures, and 4,293/10 for the joy it brings me.  I will also sprinkle in a few bonus points because the arrival of my Cantina forced me to immerse myself in doing this gallery and review at a time when I really needed a diversion.  When you average all of that out, you get something like 54.5/10.  So, I’ll just give it a 10/10 because Chris didn’t program the scale to handle a score of that magnitude.