No new content today folks, but in the spirit of the ROTS thing we’ve been doing, here’s a look back at a figure that we had reviewed in 2019.  If I were to review it today, I’d definitely give it 5 stars.  Happy Saturday, and enjoy the opportunity to discuss stuff and things in the comments below.

Original Review by Bret, 2/28/19.

A few days ago we informed you that we would be straying from our more or less predictable pattern of reviews, which has been going backwards in time, line look by line look.  We’ll be looking at some random figures from throughout the history of the Hasbro line.  There’s a reason for this, which will reveal itself in due time.  But for now, we hope you enjoy this look back at a figure from 2005’s Revenge of the Sith line.  The line was interesting in its bold new packaging, with the bullet shaped bubble and rounded card back.  The line was introduced with a set of 4 sneak preview figures.  Disney probably would have lost their minds over this, because a few of the figures were from the third act of the film.  Nevertheless, seeing a character like Tion Meddon certainly didn’t spoil anything significant from the movie, and if anything, helped generate some buzz.  Instead of freaking out, Disney should be taking notes.

Ki-Adi Mundi featured fairly prominently among members of the prequel-era Jedi Order.  He was one of the few prequel Jedi not named Mace Windu or Qui-Gon Jinn to actually have some lines of dialogue.  Mundi stood out because of the character’s intriguing design.  It worked well, while I specifically recall laughter coming from the audience when Yarael Poof’s pin head was on screen momentarily, moving with the creepy swaying of his long neck.  Ki-Adi Mundi was taken seriously from the moment he was first on screen.  We’d gotten a couple of different Ki-Adi figures over the years, including a EP1 5POA figure, a holographic version based on that same sculpt, one articulated at the knees to sit on his Jedi Council chair, one wearing a costume from a comic book, and most recently, an ROTS concept art figure.  But this 2005 version remains, sadly, the best screen accurate version to date, about 14 years later. 

The face sculpt, is by far the best part.  And if you ask Chris, he’ll tell you it’s one of the best head sculpts in the history of the line.  He may be right.  It really is excellent.  The rest of the figure has some good points, but is mostly a disappointment, especially given the passage of time.  On the good side is the Jedi robe.  It’s not a robe so much as a long cardigan with a hood.  The sleeves are short, and the robe itself goes to the knees.  It fits quite well, and gives Ki-Adi a different look from many other Jedi.  The robe is held in place with a removable belt. When you unhook the belt, the robe can be removed easily, revealing the Jedi attire underneath.  It also gives a clear view of one of the figure’s flaws, which is the tunic “skirt” being a hard plastic.  This inhibits the movement of the hips.  Today, we’d expect a Jedi to have ball jointed hips, so the swivel hips on this figure don’t quite cut it, even if the skirt was pliable.  If you wanted to display Ki-Adi without his robes, you could re-attache the belt (even though he has one sculpted to his tunic) so that you could attach the saber hilt.

On the downside, besides the aforementioned restricted hip movement, Ki-Adi has swivel elbows and no ankles.  This is obviously way below standard for today’s super-articulated figures.  The knees are ball jointed, but do very little to accommodate any real lower body movement.  The figure comes with a lightsaber hilt, and the dreaded removable blade.  The tiny peg that attaches the blade to the hilt is a menace.  60% of the time, it breaks every time.  We should all be very glad that Hasbro has moved on from this design.  And finally, like many figures in the ROTS line, Ki-Adi comes with a base that typically is sculpted to represent the setting of some key scene that the figure was in.  Ki-Adi Mundi was either on the Council or on Mygeeto, and this jungle base doesn’t really represent anything that makes sense in Revenge of the Sith.  These bases had a rudimentary interlocking ability, if you wanted to daisy-chain a bunch of them to create a more robust “floor” for relevant figures, but it wasn’t really executed well enough to do it convincingly.  Basically, the base is decent if you display your figures in a lineup.  I have tossed most of mine into a bin for good.

This figure shows what Hasbro was capable of back in 2005.  It’s one of the better figures from that time.  And while the head, general sculpt, and robe/belt combo are executed extremely well, the dated articulation, hard plastic skirt, and removable lightsaber blade prevent this figure from achieving a score of 7, which is our baseline for a collector grade figure.  Still, it’s the best Ki-Adi Mundi, and it’s not necessarily an embarrassment to display in your collection.  But we do need an upgrade.  For now, it clings to a 6.

C’MON!