Part of the final “lost” wave of basic figures from the Rogue One line, Fenn Rau finally made it out to the public through online retailers, mostly Entertainment Earth.  It was a long winding road, but after a reveal months earlier, the figure was finally saved from the Hasbro black hole.  It retailed for $10.99, so you had to pay a bit of a premium for it, simply because of its scarcity.  I was actually going to pass on this figure, due to the cartoony sculpt, but Chris made me buy it.

Along with his wave mates from Rogue One (Lt. Sefla, Galen Erso, and Admiral Raddus), Fenn Rau was released long after he was first shown by Hasbro.  Even then, this figure took a little longer to be rescued by EE, when the other three were offered first.  Only 3 waves of 5POA figures for Rogue One actually made it out to brick and mortar retail, and then this 4th wave ended the line.  A total of 16 figures from the actual Rogue One film were released in the basic line, along with 7 figures from other media (TFA and Rebels).  It was a sad effort overall, but it was a veritable cornucopia of collecting joy when compared to the utterly pathetic representation in the Walmart Black Series line.

Hasbro certainly has no problems pumping out Mandalorian characters.  Whether they be from the films, the old EU, or The Clone Wars, there’s no shortage of Mandalorians available to add to your collection.  Hasbro even produced clone troopers with our logo stamped on their armor, just to drive home the point that everyone loves Mandalorians (and Banthaskull.com).  Hasbro also has released 274 different versions of Slave I, as well as a Mandalorian Transport and a speeder.  So it was certainly time for Hasbro to honor the Mandolorian culture with a figure from Rebels, and so, we have Fenn Rau.

Fenn Rau is a decent sculpt.  While there’s the typical lack of fabric detail with the cartoon figures, everything else is pretty good.  The jumpsuit is covered with various pieces of armor, all of which are painted fairly sharply.  The chest control box has a slot, which allows the hose from the removable helmet to plug in securely.  The helmet fits well over the head.  The head sculpt is okay, but it looks a bit too much like Buzz Lightyear for my tastes.  It’s painted nicely, though.  As is usually the case with the recent 5POA figures, even though the head has a ball jointed neck, there’s not a lot of freedom of movement, so it almost might as well be a swivel joint.  There are holsters sculpted directly onto each hip which, also as usual, would elevate the figure if they were separate pieces.  The twin pistols fit snugly inside the holsters, but a little less firmly in Fenn Rau’s hands. 

Most Rogue One figures came with silly accessories, although less ridiculous than the build-a-weapon parts from the TFA line.  In this case, the accessory is almost worthy of the figure itself, but it is overdone and has one major flaw.  The jetpack itself looks like Hasbro put a bit of extra work into it.  It’s a little bigger than Fenn Rau might use in the show, but it looks okay.  Hasbro opted to have slightly retractable wings.  It’s a little more effort than was necessary though, because they barely retract, and don’t really offer much in the way of variable display options.  The jetpack attaches to the figure via shoulder hooks, which is cool because the alternative would be a peg that would require a hole in the figure’s spine.  The big flaw?  My sample can’t stand up straight due to balance issues when wearing the jetpack.  He needs to hunch forward to a degree, which makes it look like he’s leaning into a launch attempt.  Meh.

Overall, it’s decent and, as discussed, everyone loves Mandalorians.  It’s probably a good character choice from Rebels, to be translated into plastic, but it’s too bad it had to take up a very rare Rogue One slot.  It has decent accessories, but the higher-than-MSRP cost ($10.99 from EE) and the cartoony styling keep this figure down at a 3.