Finally, the long national nightmare is over.  This review was supposed to happen like 2 weeks ago, but there was stuff and things that got in the way.  I didn’t even get to write about the Knicks crushing Atlanta.  But that’s okay.  They just yesterday swept Philly in Round 2.  The Knicks are absolutely humiliating their opponents, winning 7 straight (including 3 games by over 30 points) after a slow start to the Hawks series.  Now here they are, in the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight year (waiting for either Detroit or Cleveland), and a chance to make it to The Finals for the first time in 27 years. I’m starting to get a little emotional. 

Here’s a neat set.  We get what should be a definitive update to a nearly 20 year old Main Character from the PT, as well as what should be a definitive update to a nearly 20 year old troop builder figure. 

For whatever reason, Hasbro decided to put out this very much needed Obi-Wan Kenobi from ROTS through a special 2-pack with an Airborne trooper via Walmart.  There’s a lot wrong with this.  Obi-Wan should be a basic carded figure available everywhere.  He also comes with a fairly popular troop builder figure, which should also be widely available.  I assume there must be some variants on the way in some other “expression”, but this ain’t it, Chief. 

While being paired with a Clone from the 212th makes decent sense as they served together on Utapau, the choice of an Airborne Trooper instead of Commander Cody is a bit odd.  I didn’t bother looking, but I’m not even sure Obi-Wan and the Airborne clone had any screen time together.  Nevertheless, Obi-Wan got this odd release, while the “Sith Eyes” Anakin (which seems to be a good partner figure especially due to the “Force hands” which were employed during their duel on Mustafar) also got a multi-pack release in the Anakin 3-pack - although that figure was technically from the World Between Worlds scene in Ahsoka. Also, Walmart is just the worst, so I hate that they are the retail partner for this set.  However, I will admit that the online ordering was flawless, and I got my sets with no hassle. 

The customer experience aside, how are the figures themselves?  Starting with the Airborne Clone, it seems to be nearly perfect.  Everyone knows about the newest Clone buck by now, and it is used well here.  For varying reasons, we scored previous releases at 9/10, but this one seems to solve the issues that prevented us from giving perfect 10’s before.  Like releases that followed the initial figure (VC309), this one bypasses the removable helmet, so we don’t have the weirdly shaped or oversized bucket - although a swap out Temuera Morrison portrait would have been a nice touch.  The other fix that we dinged previously was the lack of value.  This one has the soft goods kama, the body harness, and a shoulder pouch, making it feel more valuable. 

The figure poses well, even though the knees and elbows only barely go past 90.  The figure still has the one-plane wrist movement, and the arms and head have very slight restrictions on range of motion due to the extra body accessories.  The Airborne Trooper figure from yesteryear had some nice carbon scoring and weathering, but that’s omitted here.  The helmet itself might suffer just a bit from pea-head syndrome, but it’s not killing me.  One other feature missing is a little “easter egg” that was included in the original figure.  There was a pistol embedded on the back side of the shoulder bag, but Hasbro skipped that for the TVC figure.  Again, not a big deal because it isn’t anything from the big screen, but it was still a neat thing that was ignored here.  All of these tiny nitpicks are somewhat inconsequential on their own, but together, deduct a point, offsetting the positive gains mentioned above.  All in all, still an outstanding 9/10.

Obi-Wan is also an excellent figure at first glance.  It’s a great sculpt, and the posing of the lower body is perfect.  The soft goods lower tunic is executive perfectly, and does not hinder the leg range of motion.  The knees bend just a tic past 90.  That’s better than nothing, but again, I wonder why Hasbro can’t just make the knees (and elbows) go past 90 as the standard. 

However, there are issues with the upper body articulation.  While the sculpt is outstanding looking, the extra long sleeves pretty much render moot the wrist articulation.  Not only that, they make it difficult for the hands to grip the saber, depending on the positioning of the hand relative to the cuff.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  Additionally, the shape of the tunic’s shoulders inhibits the range of motion of the upper arms.  Hasbro engineered a rather clever soft plastic tabard overlay piece to go over the main hard plastic torso to accomplish the overhang of the shoulder fabric - and it looks great.  Sadly, it still doesn’t allow the shoulder joint to fully engage.  Coupled with the wrists, it’s a really big problem for posing.  Ironically, the elbows on Obi-Wan do, in fact, go well past 90 (hooray!), but that doesn’t compensate for the upper body flaws.  A Two-Handed Weapon Grip is difficult to achieve, and I was only able to do so in the most rudimentary pose with the saber at the ready in front of the figure’s chest and face. It’s a significant problem, especially for main character royalty such as Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

The paint is simple but effective.  However, the face doesn’t quite nail Ewan McGregor’s portrait.  It’s not bad by any stretch, but there’s something a bit off about it.  In these days where Hasbro has so often absolutely nailed human facial likeness, it stands out as a bit of a miss.  I think the underlying sculpt is probably perfect, but the Photoreal application misses the target just a bit.  And to finish off the list of nitpicks, the knee pin joint is the wrong color, creating an odd result at the top of the boots.

Obi-Wan comes with an unlit hilt (which fits nicely in the belt) and an ignited saber.  Again, the sculpting of the sleeves/cuffs severely limits the effectiveness of his handling of the saber for various action poses.  Also, he comes with a soft goods robe, which is nice, although I’ve seen better efforts from hasbro.  The sleeves are bit billowy.  He’s got the permanently stitched hood, so he can’t wear it over his head, but I think that was a fairly rare occurrence in ROTS if I’m not mistaken. 

The restricted arm articulation and the missed facial likeness definitely impact the figure.  I’ll give it an 8, and will unfortunately have to say that with the #MaketheMains campaign in full swing for the past 2 years, it’s another figure that frustratingly fails to hit a home run. It gets 8/10.