We like Klaatu here at Bantha Skull.  When we listed our Top 5 Vintage Collection “Original 92” New Sculpt Wish List, we listed Klaatu at #3.  When we launched our Unproduced Characer Guide feature, we did so with the Skiff Guards / Sail Barge Combatants category.  At the time, we listed Klaatu as the #1 priority even though Klaatu wasn’t technically unproduced having been delivered in the POTF2 era.  We justified this by reserving the right to refuse acknowledgement of any POTF2 figure as part of the modern line (at our editorial discretion).  We don’t really get any hate mail here, but listing a character which technically had a “modern” era figure as the number priority on an “unmade” list caused a little snippiness with the readership.  Such is our love for this character and figure that we were willing to suffer those barbs.

Our passion for this character can best be explained by this quote from the Unproduced Character entry:

Scenes like cantina and Jabba’s palace are a treasure trove of interesting characters.  Some of the characters are deep backgrounders that you can only spot when you pause the movie.  Others you can remember since the first time you saw the movie.  Klaatu counts in the second category.  He’s the first alien Luke engages on the deck of the Sail Barge.

It’s an important character from an important scene.  Further more, the man behind the mask is Star Wars royalty.  Klaatu is played by Corey Dee Williams, the son of Lando Calrissian actor, Billy Dee Williams.  It simply had to be updated.

From left to right:  Wooof, Geezum (unmade), Klaatu, Nysad

As with our Yak Face (Saelt-Marae) review, we can’t move forward without discussing the past.  The first and only modern release of this Klaatu figure came via 1999’s erroneously named “Skiff Guards” Cinema scene (only one of the three characters included were actually on a skiff).  The Cinema Scenes were a blessing and a curse.  The blessing is that it appeared Hasbro was leveraging this platform to get out some of the more obscure characters.  The curse is that I always felt the quality of those figures was inferior to the mainline releases, even by the already low POTF2 standard.  I’ve made a career out of mocking that 1999 figure.  I accused it of wearing a Donna Summer jump suit.  I divisively referred to it as “pillow pants.”  I said the head sculpt looked like someone painted eyes on a rotten avocado.  No sir, I didn’t like it.

Another point we need to address is the fact that some of the photos above feature Klaatu with the kama in front of him instead of covering his posterior.  That is because for the shots in the interior of the palace, that is how the costume was worn (see reference photo inset left).  I’ve read that it was simply a wardrobe gaff and not any sort of intentional decision.  The kama, as is the case for all Star Wars kamas, is supposed to be worn as a sort of half cape, but Mr. Williams erroneously wore it backwards.  Whether or not that is true, I don’t know, but it’s irrelevant.  That’s how the character appears in those scenes, so the “how” matters not.  I was hoping that the kama and corresponding belt would be sculpted as separate floating piece that could easily be rotated around.  It is not.  It’s sculpted as part of the lower torso.  So in order to replicate the palace scene, you have to rotate the upper torso 180 degrees and then do the same for the ball jointed hips.  Since the upper torso break comes at the chest and is furthermore sculpted with a slight angle, this is less than ideal, but passable. Honestly, it would have been “extra credit” if Hasbro nailed this obsessive detail.  It does not affect the grade of the figure. 

As far as displaying the figure “as designed” there is little to complain about.  I could geek out posing this figure all day long.  The Jedi-Level-Articulation places the posing limitations on the imagination of the one doing the posing, and not on the figure.  The figure achieves every manner of melee battling pose with the included vibro-staff. I especially appreciate that the figure can engage in fighting crouches, as well as an approximation of a “charge” position.  The latter takes a little bit of balancing patience, but can be done.  The brown wash over the entire jump suit adds a great deal of detail to the figure and really distinguishes it from its half-hearted predecessor.  The kama belt and upper chest armor have a worn leather look.  With the naked eye, it’s so subtle that it’s amazing that Hasbro even made this effort, but it really adds to the realism.

In a departure from recent Nikto figures (both green and red), the helmet is not removable.  It looks like a separate sculpted piece, but is permanently affixed.  It’s reminiscent of the hair on the VC13 Darth Vader figure.  You might he able to remove it, but only once.  I’m 100% on board with this.  The separate pieces provide the depth of sculpt we love, but by being tightly affixed, we don’t have to worry about that “floating” appearance or having the helmet pop off every time we touch the figure (I’m looking at you, Wooof). The magnified photography is unforgiving to the facial paint apps.  The gold and silver stippled paint apps look odd under magnification.  It’s a bit like zooming into an impressionist painting.  It’s not noticeable with the naked eye.  The head sculpt and paint apps portray a sadness.  It’s probably how you’d feel if you were armed with nothing more than a stick and you were about to engage a laser sword wielding, hack-n-slash Jedi.

Along with Yak Face, this is another 10 out of 10 figure.  There appears to be a lot of love and admiration for the subject baked into these figures.  Buy multiples.  I’m going to buy extra carded samples so I can get them autographed at the next HasCon.

One last bit of trivia.  If you’re a member of the Apple phone cult like me, autocorrect is insistent of changing “Klaatu” to “Klamath”.  If you happen to hit send on a text to Mr. Nomadscout before noticing this autocorrect, he will mock you incessantly. He will mock more than I mock the 1999 Klaatu figure.  He will mock you more than an Australian mocks the New Zealand accent.  He will mock you for a solid hour, and pause just long enough for you to think the it’s over.  But he’s just lulling you to sleep like Peter Griffin with Surfing Bird, and he starts right back into you.  If you don’t believe me, text him and see for yourself.  His number is 555…