The Last 17: Is The Paploo Box Checked Off?

 
Kenner Name: Paploo

Modern Name: Paploo

Vintage Release: ROTJ 79-Back (1984) [No. 93680]

Does It Exist In The Modern Line: YES

Does It Exist In The Vintage Collection: YES

Latest Modern Release: The Vintage Collection (2021)

Is The Modern Release Good Enough: DEBATABLE

Review: VC190 - Paploo


Since Bret is dead set on injecting our sports rivalries into our content here, I will indulge. The Battle of Bantha Skull is now 1 and 1. His Rangers beat my Bruins who were minus their best player (David Pastrnak). Last night, my Patriots, with their best player (Drake Maye), bested his Giants to even the score. The tie breaker comes tonight in a nationally televised game as my Celtics, minus their best player (Jayson Tatum) take on Bret's beloved New York Knickerbockers. He'll probably win and then strut around here like he's Ulysses S. Grant. Okay, that's enough of that.

Now onto the content you're here for. We continue with entry number two out of seventeen in the Last 17 series. Today we look at Paploo who was the second figure that was released on the Kenner Return of the the Jedi 79-back cards. Despite being a secondary character, Paploo has actually had three releases in the modern line. In sequential order, they were 2002's POTJ AT-ST & Speeder Bike set (not reviewed on Bantha Skull at this time), 2009's TLC BD18 - Ewoks 2-pack, and finally, 2021's Vintage Collection VC190 - Paploo release. The latter ostensibly means that the Last 17's Paploo has a satisfactory modern counterpart, perhaps too satisfactory (more on that in a bit), but I'm not so sure.

Earlier in TVC2.0, Walmart was getting several Original 96 exclusives. The problem is that these releases featured little to no new tooling. It became an exercise in gratuitous "box checking" and lead to some frankly offensive offerings such as VC191 - Princess Leia (Endor) which mostly used fourteen year old tooling at the time of its release. It's frustrating when OT figures get such dismissive, half-hearted efforts because 2025 showed the amazing sales potential of 100% newly tooled definitive OT releases. Meanwhile, the Black Friday sales are littered with 100% newly tooled figures from new media, but I digress. Under these restricted tooling guidelines, 2021's Paploo was just a repaint of 2012's Lumat figure (which interestingly was the other Kenner 79-back) plus some new accessories. Is that good enough?

It's debatable mostly because of the head sculpt. Paploo is one of the "buck-toothed" Ewoks:


If you look at the previous release in TLC, this detail was acknowledged. By repainting Lumat, this aspect of the character is lost. Is that a deal breaker? I can't decide. All I can say is that it's frustrating, and an example of where I accuse Hasbro of "aggressive cheapness."

But what about the card? For the purposes of this Last 17 series, the card is a very big part of the discussion. I would argue that Hasbro was too faithful to the Kenner counterpart. Kenner erroneously used Romba for the film-out on the 1984 release. Hasbro duplicated this error, and I am not a fan of that. My head-cannon for the Vintage Collection universe is that it's a continutation of the Kenner line. It's not an homage to it. The homage is the Retro Collection. In a continuation, mistakes would be corrected. Last 17 purists might object to my take. Another aspect the 2021 release is that it features a conspicuous Lucasfilm 50th logo in the upper left. I was initially unbothered by this, but as time goes on, it irritates me. I want my carded collection to have a consistent presentation. That logo breaks the visual cohesiveness.

In a perfect world where we get 40 super articulated per year, I would say we should perfect Paploo. Give him a new, accurate head sculpt, and put the correct character in the film-out. In the real world where the TVC budget is stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread, we have to let this almost Paploo release suffice as the only Last 17 counterpart we will get. It's been a while since we've had a LOTR reference.

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