When the Black Series Jawa was announced, I immediately made plans to pick up these things by the gross. I intended to buy every single one I saw, and if they were ever to be offered in solid case packs, I would happily buy them by the case, too. I envisioned Jawas in every nook and crevice of my home — Jawas *EVERYWHERE*. So when I got wind of their hitting Amazon as part of the second wave of the 40th Anniversary figures, I camped out and waited in manic anticipation to score one. And score one I finally did. Now that I have a Black Series Jawa in hand, I’m sad to report that I think I’ll be capping off my Jawa army at just this one figure, rather than the scores of them I had originally intended to purchase. Why? Let’s take a look.
Okay, so the packaging is fine. It’s awesome seeing the original Jawa image and the small blister containing the figure. Nostalgia craving appropriately slaked. And I sort of wish I had just left it carded and went about my life. But I opened it.
Now, the sculpt is decent. The robe has a texture sculpted into it, his gear looks cool and convincing, there’s some weathering on the robe, his face sculpt looks creepy — the figure looks like a Jawa. But I am a fan of soft goods and I’ve mostly been a fan of Hasbro’s usage of it on past figures (apart from farmboy Luke and maybe Leia), so this is a case where I am just baffled by their giving it a complete pass here. The Jawa wears a robe — that’s prefect for soft goods, and even the old Kenner figure was eventually re-released with a soft goods robe that fit over the figure, and it was awesome. Sculpted robes aren’t my favorite in general, but this is a worst-case scenario because it does much more harm than good, but we’ll get to that. In the meantime, let’s stick to what’s good.
The head sculpt is so creepy. In the movie, we really didn’t get to see much apart from a pair of glowing eyes, so their actual face was something of a mystery. I’ve read descriptions that make them sound pretty gross, and that’s what the sculptors captured here. It’s a borderline horror show. His hood is its own separate piece attached to the back of his head, so we do get some head movement, so this was well-executed too. And his eyes do glow in the dark. That is actually an awesome little touch that they totally didn’t have to do, but it is so cool that they went the extra mile with the glow-in-the-dark paint apps for his eyes.
So that was the good. Now on to the bad (read: everything else).
The first thing that made me scratch my head is his weapons. He comes with two rifles, one of which is attached to his gear via a plastic cable, and they are constructed so he can’t hold either of them in a way that implies he’s firing it. The way he’s gripping them in the above pics is pretty much all he can do, which is infuriating. I had pictured posing him like he is depicted on the card art: with his gun aimed straight at R2-D2. But he can’t do that. He can only hold it as though he’s toting it somewhere. And both guns are made of a softer plastic, so it’s difficult to get either inserted into his belt holster without feeling as though the plastic is about to tear. So I’m having trouble finding a way to make either of these guns useful for posing. They look good, too, which is a shame since they’re functionally useless. (Seriously, if you can figure out a way for him to hold either like he’s about to fire it, please post below.)
The guns are one thing, but the biggest misstep here is his lower body articulation in relation to the plastic robe. He has some articulation in his legs: ankles, knees, and hips, but it is all completely useless because the robe is such a hard plastic that it completely hinders his legs from doing anything at all. So he’s forced into a vanilla stance at all times. This is a huge letdown because that army I had planned to build? I had all sorts of poses in mind for them: some aggressive and some that would indicate some personality. But no — any Jawa display would have them all standing at full attention due to the robe. Soft goods would have saved the articulation and made it (at least a little more) useful, even with partial soft goods like Hasbro often utilizes. I would have been fine with a hard plastic upper body and a fabric lower robe. But they went all plastic and gave us a figure that can wave its arms and do nothing else, really.
So despite my misgivings, I am happy to have a Jawa, but because of the guns and lower body frustrations, that’s all I am ever going to have — *A* Jawa. At $20 a pop (if you’re lucky), I can’t justify more than one of these. So far, this is the biggest disappointment of 2017 for me. Maybe my expectations were too high? I guess if expecting a figure that can be posed with weapons that can actually be properly wielded is expecting too much, then consider me guilty. Your mileage may vary here, of course. Maybe you’ll like the construction and the plastic robe. Maybe this is all you need your Jawas to do. If that’s the case, then more power to you — help yourself to all the Jawas I was going to buy.
The Jawa can be had at Big Bad Toy Store and Dorkside Toys. If you’re quick, you may also be able to snag one like I did on Amazon.
