Old school Star Wars fans were cautiously optimistic for The Mandalorian.  Cautious because reaction to Star Wars under Disney to that point had been mixed.  Optimistic because the show was being run by someone who was not only a lifelong Star Wars fan, but who had already demonstrated how to handle well established properties.  I already had some of my chips in just based on the premise of the show and its showrunner, and then the trailer came out.  Once it showed a whirligig of lethality in the form of an IG-series assassin, I was all in. The character, that we would come to know as IG-11, could contort and rotate his limbs for an omnidirectional field of fire.

I was always enamored by IG-88 as a kid, but the character was nothing more than potential.  It was virtually a stationary prop in The Empire Strikes Back.  In The Mandalorian, IG-11 finally made good on the promise of the IG-series assassin droids.  It would be a tall task for Hasbro to translate the droid with 360 degrees of rotation at every point of articulation.  I’ve been throwing around the phrase “figure of the year” a lot here at Bantha Skull, and I really need to stop.  Or do I?  Once again, Hasbro knocked another newly tooled figure out of the park.  These amazing new sculpts are part of why it is so bitter when Hasbro uses decade-old molds to cross off core Original 96 figures.

With this IG-11, it’s not just that it has all the requisite articulation to strike all manner of dynamic shooting poses.  It’s that there is absolutely no encumbrances on any of that articulation.  The joints have outstanding ranges of motion, and nothing in the sculpt prevents them from reaching their full potential.  With a bend of the elbow, along with a twist here and a twist there, IG-11 goes shooting facing forward to shooting behind his back.  I would love to see what The Imperial Communique could do for a stop motion review of this figure.  It would almost match the on-screen IG-11.

If I had to critique one thing about this IG-11, it would be the hands.  They are sculpted in an open grip which makes it somewhat difficult for the figure to hold the included DLT-20A rifle and E-11 blaster.  I assume that the hands have been sculpted in this “flat plane” style for the aforementioned omnidirectIonality.  When flipping the arm around IG-11’s back and rotating the hands, they don’t look “upside down” as a result.  It’s part of what really makes this release tick, so I can’t ding Hasbro for this decision.  I’m somewhat relieved that The Emperor was a bit of a dud.  Otherwise you’d think the review score was stuck on ten, as this is another 10 out of 10 figure to go along with the recently reviewed Ahsoka Tano and Lando Calrissian figures.