For those of you reading this on the day of publishing (May 30th, 2024) and are wondering what the hell happened with this review, the explanation is complicated.  A combination of a schedule change at work, Memorial Day, Arizona being on West Coast time, 100 degree temps, an ongoing renovation in my house (including my Star Wars rooms), and the Rangers losing Game 4 in overtime of the ECF all played a part in a complete failure in my ability to track time.  Also, and this is important, Chris didn’t tell me what to do.  And for those of you reading this in the future and wondering what the hell I’m going on about, I suggest you stop reading and spend more time building those sea walls to save your coastal cities. 

The Mandalorian Fleet Commander figure is based on the character known to his friends as Unidentified Mandalorian fleet commander.  His closest friends call him Undy, but he doesn’t tolerate that kind of familiarity from anyone outside his inner circle.  This guy appears in the last three episodes of The Mandalorian.  The first time we see him, he is at Axe Woves’ side, along with Koska Reeves, from the bridge of the cruiser formerly known as Moff Gideon’s Imperial Cruiser, prior to their crew of privateers boarding a vessel to seize their bounty, Unidentified Mon Calamari viceroy’s son.  What’s interesting about this kid is that his father has the same name as this fleet commander.  This is a wild coincidence, not unlike the whole “Bail Antilles” thing.  Meanwhile the son himself has no name whatsoever - he’s just known as “the son of the Unidentified Mon Calamari viceroy.”  Now, this took some deep research, but the Unidentified Mon Calamari viceroy likes to be called Big U, and he even has a vanity plate on his personal speeder that simply says “U.” 

We then see the fleet commander again briefly in the penultimate episode, in command of the cruiser formerly known as Moff Gideon’s Imperial Cruiser, when he receives a landing request from The Armorer, flying a gauntlet containing injured Mandalorians.  Then, in the final episode, Axe Woves escapes the battle on Mandalore’s surface, boards the cruiser, and heads to the bridge.  Once there, he orders all the Mandalorians, including Undy, to join the battle below, while he plans to use the cruiser as a decoy.  Axe’s final command to Undy is to tell him to load everyone on the dropships.  As he prepares to leave the bridge, Undy looks back at Axe, knowing he’s about to do something wild.  The last time we see him, he jets off the cruiser, lands on the open boarding ramp of a drop ship, and takes his position in one of the drop seats.  Presumably he dropped into the atmosphere, smashed into a Mandalorian bird of some kind at terminal velocity, and exploded in a cloud of feathers and powdered Beskar.  Presumably.  Or he fought in the battle and survived to take part in establishing a new Mandalorian culture on Mandalore.  Either result is fine.

This is an interesting figure.  When it was first announced, I didn’t pay much attention, and just assumed it was a simple repaint of one of the 400 Mandalorian figures we’ve gotten over the past 3 years, with a new head.  For some reason, Hasbro actually dedicated some new tooling here.  I’m never really good at identifying re-used parts, but other than the torso and maybe some/all of the arms, I can’t find much that is actually re-used here.  A lot of the figure is very similar to previous releases, but it really appears to be significantly new.  The head, the shoulder/collarbone piece, the belt, most/all of the legs, and the jetpack appear to be new.  If someone reading this is able to corroborate/refute this, please let us know. 

The good points of the figure are the sculpt, the overall articulation (with an exception), the paint apps, and the attempt at accuracy with all the new tooling (rather than a lazy repaint) combine to make this a surprisingly solid release.  In particular, the paint job is rather striking.  The color combination, and the notable metallic blue vambraces and thigh armor make for a unique pallet.  The face sculpt is pretty good, bearing a decent resemblance to actor.  The choice to go with a swappable helmet is appreciated.  The color of the helmet seemed odd to me, but after viewing the fleet commander’s scenes, we do get a few short glimpses of his bucket, which do seem to be replicated faithfully on this figure.

There are a few annoying aspects of the figure that bring it down a bit.  First and foremost, the fleet commander has no holster.  While this may (or may not?) be screen accurate, I wouldn’t have complained if a holster was included as part of the belt. Instead, I will complain about it, and the fact that there is nowhere to put the blaster, other than in the figure’s hand.  The other thing I dislike about the figure is the continued trend of the reduced range of motion of the knees.  While the elbows do flex well past 90 degrees (indicating the arms may be re-used), the knees stop at 90 (if that).  I don’t claim to be an expert on such matters, but I’m not sure if there’s any discernible cost difference in the sculpting/manufacturing of the figure if it could bend the knees a few degrees more.  I hate this trend, because we were spoiled from that being the standard for the last few years, and it’s clearly changing.

The last gripe isn’t about the figure itself, but the decision to dedicate so much new tooling to a character nobody really asked for.  I’m not complaining that the figure exists, because I’m all about the deep cut characters - it’s world building.  But in this current era, the new tooling could possibly have gone to a different character that more fans would prefer to see.

Overall, despite the negatives, I can’t really give this figure less than a 9.  The lack of a holster and knee bending thing are seriously annoying, but the figure is otherwise sculpted very well, it has great paint applications, and we got a swappable helmet.  9/10 it is.