Ah, the Black Series.  Even before it was handed over to Walmart so that it could be systemically destroyed over a two year period, the Black Series was always lacking in…everything.  This figure has a certain charm to it, but it just doesn’t seem to be an inspired effort by Hasbro, although I can’t knock them for giving us a background astromech droid.  It harkens back to a more civilized age.

For some reason, Hasbro decided that R5-G19 was the character that needed to launch Phase 2 of The Black Series.  The card art for this line depicts a TIE Pilot.  So maybe figure #01 could have been a TIE Pilot.  Or, perhaps just any character that was actually on screen.  Fundamentally, I have no problem with Hasbro making this figure.  R5-G19 was just off screen, seen only in behind the scenes shots of the Home One briefing room from Return of the Jedi.  Back in the glory days, Hasbro had so many figures coming out in a year that fans were treated to some of the more esoteric characters, many of which were from blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments, deleted scenes, or concepts that never made the cut.  This character was meant to be in ROTJ, but was literally just off screen.  It’s actually pretty cool that we have this figure, it’s just weird that Hasbro honored it with the designation of being #01 in the line.  That’s almost as weird as when Dengar was made VC01.  Dengar’s cool and all, but #01 for TVC?  There’s no going back now.  We’ve got Dengar forever.

The astromech droid that was eventually named R5-G19 can be seen clearly in this image from Wookieepedia.  Technically, the droid has never been canonized, as he was named only by Hasbro for purposes of this release.  Although the images of the droid on the set of ROTJ are from official LFL sources, R5-G19 was never a character in any story from the old EU.  Basically, that means that you, reading this review on Banthaskull.com, have the ability to write R5-G19’s backstory.  Feel free to do so in the Disqus section below. 

In the meantime, I’ll handle the less exciting task of reviewing this figure.  The good news is that this figure is the well-liked build-a-droid mold.  The bad news is that the mold has been around since as long as Banthaskull.com.  It was already about 6 years old by the time R5-G19 here came to be.  We just got an updated mold which Hasbro used to great effect in the 5POA line, with TLJ’s R2-D2.  That figure had the weird secondary leg holes filled in on the body.  But alas, this figure pre-dated the update by about 3 years, and it adds nothing.  Nevertheless, it was the high bar for astromech molds at the time.  The parts are removable.  The head rotates 360 degrees, the legs swing, and the ankles swivel. The third center foot is removable.  All the feet have actual rolling wheels.

The paint applications are fairly sharp throughout, with the exception of the top of the dome, which is very sloppy.  The colors are simple, with only some panels painted a burgundy-ish color, and a few silver details throughout.  The figure comes with no accessories, nor do any of the panels pop out, nor is the antennae removable.  Interestingly, the aforementioned updated R2-D2 from the TLJ line is $8, including the Force Link chip.  This figure, 3 years older, with nothing but the 6 year old mold, cost about $12 at the time.  Meh.

Overall, the figure is good, but it has little value with no accessories, and cost more 3 years ago than the updated mold costs today in the budget line.  I do appreciate that this was one of the final attempts by Hasbro to release an obscure astromech.  That is something that should not be minimized.  It seems that such a character would stand zero chance of being made today, or in the foreseeable future.  While it is kind of dull, I’ll still give it a standard 7 for a collector grade figure.