Here we have yet another jawa figure from Hasbro.  As you may be able to tell from my Disqus avatar, I’ve always been a jawa fan.  I don’t know why, in particular, I just really liked them when I was a kid.  I love the soft goods robe on the vintage figures, and I believe I eventually ended up with two, which was super duper at the time.  Now I have, I don’t know, 300 jawas.  Not really, but it seems like that.  The problem is, they’re all very different.  Since the POTF2 days, Hasbro has tried all kinds of approaches with this character, and while they generally do improve in most cases with each new iteration, there’s something lacking from them.  I feel that it is the soft goods robe from the original. While Hasbro has had some difficulty in successfully executing fabric robes at this scale, I think they should give it a try here.  Hasbro’s Jedi robes are famously bulky and silly looking.  In particular, the hoods never seem to fall properly.  Often times collectors end up preferring plastic robes.  I, for one, do not, because of the impact the plastic has on limiting the range of motion of the joints.  Over the years Hasbro has tried jawas with light up eyes, jawas with “salt shaker” lower bodies, jawas with multiple accessories, jawas in pairs and jawas with droids.  But this is the first modern jawa that has soft goods clothing.  What’s interesting is that there was an all plastic Jawa (and TpWED Droid) that was released in the Blue TLC Line a year before this one, and then it was re-released on a red card very close to this one.  They are VERY different aesthetically.

Unfortunately, it’s not particularly satisfying.  There’s actually a lot to love here, but it’s almost as easy to be annoyed.  First and foremost, Hasbro opted to give this figure soft goods lower robes.  They certainly don’t look bad, but it’s almost like a tease.  I feel that they should have just gone for the full robe, rather than go halfway.  That’s not to say that the plastic upper body isn’t a nice sculpt.  It does look very good.  The jawa is super-articulated from the waist up, and can be displayed in simple but effective poses on your shelf.  The figure comes with a removable bandolier (as in past reviews, I didn’t bother trying too hard to remove it for the gallery), a working holster, and a blaster.  All of this is good stuff.  As for the lower body, the soft goods skirt is definitely good, but perhaps looks a bit off when viewed as a whole with the plastic upper body.  Underneath the skirt, is a pair of independent legs with swivel hips.  Sadly, the articulation is more or less moot, as the lack of knees and ankles means you’re pretty much going to have to keep the jawa standing upright.  This is a little more disappointing since the skirt would allow for some range of motion, so having the jawa walking or running would be have been feasible with more articulation.. 

The two pack is rounded out with what you might think is the star of the set, the 2X-7KPR Security Droid.  This droid pretty much rounded out the scene for the jawa sale at the Lars Homestead, and that’s very exciting.  Completing any iconic or otherwise significant scene is a bit of milestone for collectors. Like for Solo:  A Star Wars Story.  You know, how you can complete that scene where Han Solo stands alone in front of a grey background.  I love that scene.  The droid doesn’t do a whole lot, and it’s small.  The head does rotate, and it has rolling wheels.  But that’s probably more than we even should want.  The key is that it’s a new character, and fills a need.  At this point, it just puts the onus on Hasbro to give us a damn new Uncle Owen, since the POTF2-era version is pretty terrible.  In fact, I’m not even sure Chris acknowledges it as a viable figure.  I’d confirm this with him, but I haven’t seen him in ever, guys.  IN EVER. 

While the jawa may elicit a sort of disappointment, it’s still a good jawa figure, and the 2X security droid was a long-awaited character. Together, they make a nice single-carded offering from Hasbro.  You should get it if you don’t have it already, so that you can display it in front of your Hasbro sandcrawler (or your stupid, black market, counterfeit, bootleg, pirated plastic Disney imitation nonsense thing.)

It may be time for Hasbro to issue a soft goods Jawa, with light up eyes, on a TVC card.  The jawas we have now are generally pretty good, but there’s something missing from them all.  You can pick and choose your favorite.  I like this one, but I also several others for different reasons.  People have also been asking for a new sandcrawler.  I think that would be a tough sell at regular retail, unless it included some awesome pack-ins, like an all new TVC carded (box in a box!) jawa, maybe an all new carded Owen and Beru, and some of the homestead accessories like those weird boxes or more vaporators.  A V-35 landspeeder would be awesome.

Build-A-Droid 

Jawa and 2X-7KPR Security Droid contains the head and third leg for the astromech R4-P44.  This droid could possibly be seen inside ARC-170 star fighters as part of Obi-Wan’s Fifth Fleet during the battles of Coruscant and Cato Nemoidia.  Source:  Revenge of the Sith.