Jaina Solo.  She started out as a nice young lady.  She trained as a Jedi under the tutelage of her Uncle Luke.  She was an accomplished starfighter pilot.  She fought heroically against the Yuuzhan Vong.  But then she murdered her brother.  Whaddya gonna do?  She had survived the events of the New Jedi Order storyline, as a Jedi Master, before the EU was gut punched into Legends status.

For fans of the EU, this was a great character that was a long time coming in figure form.  Along with her twin brother, she appeared in the (mostly) hard to find final wave of The Legacy Collection, which consisted of all EU figures, and was exclusive to a place called Toys R Us.  Hasbro did fans a service by releasing both twins in the same wave.  Of course, we never got Anakin Solo, but that guy was a schmuck anyway.  Jacen Solo, as a figure, was excellent.  While the outfit wasn’t particularly memorable, it was well executed by Hasbro.  The figure is highly posable, and included some highly unique accessories in the form of serpentine Amphistaffs.  Does Jaina live up to her twin’s high bar in the world of action figures?

Nope. This figure is a real disappointment.  But let’s start with the good.  The sculpt is nice looking.  Jaina has a pretty face, and while I have no frame of reference for a likeness, it still works well as a figure.  The outfit is standard Jedi Order fare, and is executed well enough.  The paint applications, while simple, are also sharp.  The paint on the face is done well.  The long hair prevents full movement of the head, but isn’t too much of a bad thing.  The figure comes with a lit lightsaber, which she can grip well in each hand, or both with a simple THWG.  The arms are short, so you won’t be doing anything crazy like an overhead chop, or even any two handed swinging poses.  But you know what?  None of that really matters because there is one fatal flaw which I can’t get past.

The hard plastic skirt renders the lower body articulation irrelevant.  This is terrible.  With less than spectacular upper body range of motion, and almost none with the lower body, we have a Jedi that might as well have been made into a 5POA figure, or worse yet, a salt shaker.  There’s simply not much more to say here.  I’ll throw in one other nitpick:  The figure has a peg hole in the belt, but of course, there’s no unlit saber included.

It’s a decent looking figure of a fan favorite EU character.  But it really is a sub-standard effort.  We normally say that Jedi figures from this era could stand a modernized upgrade with Jedi-Level Articulation (ball jointed waists, hips, and wrists, or rocker ankles).  But this figure is simply in desperate need of a soft goods skirt to allow free movement of even the basic swivel hips.  When all is said and done, this figure is probably the only Jaina Solo figure we will ever get.  It is substandard, so we can’t even call it “good enough”.  But, guess what? It’s going to have to be “good enough” because there won’t be anything better coming down the pike. 6/10.

Credits

Carded sample on loan from the collection of Matt and Luke Decker.

Build-A-Droid 

Jaina Solo contains the body of BG-J38.  This worker drone droid served as Jabba the Hutt’s personal dejarik and hologames droid.  Source:  Return of the Jedi

Verdict: No Action (for the main line) 

This may be the dullest and most poorly executed of the TRU EU wave figures.  The hard skirt makes it barely better than a 5POA figure.  It’s nice looking, and displays well standing next to her brother Jacen, but it really is an underwhelming offering.  The allure here is the rarity, and I’ll make the same recommendation as I did for all the previously reviewed figures from the EU wave.  As a novelty, Hasbro could re-release the entire wave together as an exclusive set.  I do not believe that these no-longer-canon figures deserve a place as regular releases for TVC - especially this one.  As it is, expect to pay something like $75 for a carded sample as of this writing.  That’s a lot to pay for a substandard figure.

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.