Plo Koon can be seen in all 3 PT films, even though he had no speaking lines in any of them.  In The Clone Wars animated series, Dave Filoni made Plo Koon an important character.  He turned out to be a particularly wise Jedi Master, and was notable because he had discovered Ahsoka Tano and brought her back to Coruscant for training.  He maintained a close bond with her throughout her career with the Jedi Order.  George Lucas also selected Plo Koon as one of the Jedi to be killed on screen during Order 66.  Hasbro made sure that Plo was a key part of our collections, as several version of the character were released over time, including a holographic version, and several figures in animated form. 

ROTS Concept Art for Plo Koon

With this release, Hasbro gave us a fully articulated figure, and included some off screen and concept accessories to increase the display value.  In the concept art shown to the left, you can see that Plo Koon is wearing an outfit that is very similar to that worn by Ki-Adi Mundi in another piece of concept art.  Hasbro treated us to that figure.  In this case, they opted to sculpt Plo Koon in his traditional on-screen Jedi garb, but they did give us the double-bladed gauntlet accessory, which is pretty neat.  The blades for the toy are blue, matching his actual lightsaber color, although the concept art depicts them as being green.  The gauntlet fits nicely on the figure’s wrist, and does not hinder the movement of the arm.  Also included is a removable breathing mask.  Personally, I hate this @$%#*& thing.  It doesn’t stay attached, and I’m pretty sure I shaved a few days off my lifespan trying to complete this gallery.  The mask falls off at the slightest provocation, and is almost enough to ruin this figure.

EU accessories aside, this is an outstanding figure, and a nice upgrade from previous versions which all sported limited articulation.  The sculpt is excellent.  The face is detailed, and looks good both with the mask (if you can get it to stay) as well as without.  The figure is painted rather simply, as most Jedi are.  The skirt is soft goods, which allows you to execute the lower body articulation to it’s fully intended extent.  It can achieve a variety of poses, despite the lack of modern Jedi-Level Articulation (JLA) such as ball jointed hips, rocker ankles, ball jointed wrists, or a ball jointed waist.  This figure is generally a big upgrade from the weirdly articulated ROTS figure.  Check out that figure.  You can see it (or really, one of the repacks) in the gallery above.  Technically, you could say he has what amounts to ball jointed knees.  But they’re actually a primitive combo of a hinged joint and a swivel cut.  Bizarrely, the right leg has the cut below the knee, while the left leg has the cut above the knee.  Insane knees aside, that figure actually has a feature that should have been carried forward here.  This figure does not have a belt peg hole, nor does it come with an unlight saber hilt.  All Jedi should have this feature, and in this regard, it takes a small step backward. One other interesting note about that sculpt is that it was re-released a couple of times, most notably in the Legacy collection only about year before this figure came out.  If you wanted to get Plo Koon’s astromech, R4-F5 (pictured in the Republic hangar dio shot), than you got stuck with that figure again, even as Hasbro was already planning this upgrade.  HASBROOOO!

You could also argue that the ROTS headsculpt is better, because the lack of a fit-inducing removable mask can be considered the preferable option.  I even tried something that I rarely do:  I did a headswap.  I know, everybody just calm down. No groins were harmed in the making of that “custom”.  I had a long discussion with my groin, and explained that it was only temporary and that the proper parts would be returned to their rightful owners as soon as the gallery was complete.  Yes, this required me to negotiate with my groin.  Again, these are the things I do for this website.  Anyway, the skin tone of the different heads doesn’t match the hands, and NO I didn’t try to swap the hands.  I’m not an animal!

One last element is missing from this figure, and that is a soft goods Jedi robe.  As far as I can tell, Plo Koon wears his robes in all the scenes in which he is visible, whether at Geonosis, on the Jedi Council, or getting blown up in his starfighter.  As such, it’s a strange omission from not only this figure, but the aforementioned ROTS version as well.  The only place to get a fully robed Plo Koon is with the POTJ version.  It looks pretty cool, but the sculpted robes make it more or less a salt shaker.  Also, the figure came with a yellow lightsaber.  So help me god, a yellow lightsaber! 

If this figure came with a sculpted mask (or if the removable version would just STAY IN PLACE), a robe, a hilt, and a belt hole, it would probably score a 9.  As such, it scores a 7.  It really is a terrific figure, but the frustrating mask, and the lack of the robe, which he wore in all his movie scenes, definitely hurts. 

Build-A-Droid 

Plo Koon contains the head and blaster of YVH 1, a battle droid developed to help fight against the Yuuzhan Vong.  Source:  New Jedi Order - (Legends).

Verdict: Re-sculpt (VERY Low Priority) 

This figure is oh so close to definitive.  A re-sculpt with molded mask and a peg hole could make this definitive, if it included a robe and a hilt, even at the expense of the gauntlet.  Granted, the priority for such a re-sculpt would barely be measurable on our scale, so there’s no rush here.  I’m just saying, this figure could use a tweak or two and then we’d never need to think about it again.

Verdict Guide:
Re-sculpt = The figure is not definitive, and a new version should be developed.
Re-issue = This version is definitive (or close enough), and shows sufficient secondary market demand to warrant a straight repack.
No Action = This release does not require new attention.