If you haven’t noticed in my reviews, I have a degree of reverence for the eight (plus one) Kenner figures that first pushed the vintage line beyond the inaugural twelve figures in 1978.  I think it was because at the time, the concept of toy lines expanding was foreign to me.  Not that it wasn’t done, but it didn’t occur to me.  I had lived my life to that point thinking that the Star Wars toy world did and always would consist of Luke, Vader, Han, Leia, Ben, Stormtrooper, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, Jawa, Sandpeople and the Death Squad Commander.  That’s all there was and that’s all there would ever be.  So when the line expanded to twenty figures plus one mail away, it shattered my world view.  It meant I could be buying Star Wars toys in a year, two years, or even forty two years!  Who knew?  For that reason, I get a little bolt of excitement whenever there are releases of figures from those 8+1 characters that formed the first ever expansion of the Star Wars action figure line.  They are Luke Skywalker X-Wing Pilot, Hammerhead, Walrusman, Snaggletooth, Power Droid, (not) Death Star Droid, R5-D4, this Greedo, and of course, the legendary Boba Fett (initially as a mail away figure). 

I get a little nostalgic thrill with this figure, particularly the packaged product.  Hasbro payed homage to the artwork on the original card.  Kenner literally cut, pasted, and airbrushed Greedo out of the poorly contrasting and dimly lit cantina alcove, and onto a complimentary green background.  Hasbro did the same digitally for the 2006 release.  If this figure had been released after 2010, I don’t think the Kenner card example would have been followed.  Hasbro has since set a precedent of “fixing” these Kenner eccentricities as they did with the cards for 2011’s Ponda Baba and 2012’s Emperor’s Royal Guard.  I honestly don’t fault either approach.  Some of the vintage cards are really bad, so I don’t mind modernizing them.  But because Greedo has such “member berries” ties for me, I’m glad a facsimile of the original card was attempted.  Again, I don’t think this would be done gain today, so it’s a little bit of a 2006 time capsule when Hasbro was still figuring out the rules of their “modern vintage” universe. 

The figure itself is a very strong offering even fourteen years later, except for one imminently correctible flaw.  On screen, Greedo’s Marty McFly jacket appears to be made of some sort of quintessentially 1970’s polysynthetic fabric blend.  I’m pretty sure it stays impermeable to water at up to six hundred fathoms and takes ten thousand years to degrade. The figure’s vest is made out of another 1970’s staple:  velour.  It’s quite distracting.  Many fans have taken to using the plastic vest from the OTC Greedo figure for this reason.  That vest is really the only major complaint, however.  Otherwise the figure checks all the boxes for the minimum standard of super articulated.  It has fourteen points of articulation with ball joints at the shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles, a ball and socket head, and swivels at the wrists, torso and hips.  All the articulation works for either completely neutral poses as well as more dynamic poses.  It’s also one of the best sitting cantina figures.  It still holds up well today.  It doesn’t interact well with the included blaster, which is enveloped in the figure’s hand,  but that is also the case with the actual costume thanks to the weird Rodian anatomy.  This figure scores an above average 8 out of 10 with the primary deduction courtesy of the unfortunate soft goods.  While this figure doesn’t need to be updated, a re-release with a plastic or more natural looking soft goods vest would be welcome.  If it were updated, it would actually benefit from ball jointed wrists for the “Oonta goota, Solo?” scene.

One last note about the figure is that it’s actually a two-fer.  There are two Rodians present during the cantina scene.  If you remove the vest, you have a passable figure of the character Neesh, who is actually the more prominently seen Rodian up until Greedo’s confrontation with Solo.