Star Wars Resistance is a new Star Wars cartoon that airs on The Disney Channel and debuted in October 2018. It felt a little odd to me that there were no figures or really any merchandise at all supporting this show at the time of the premiere since I’m used to big, synergistic, merchandise releases preceding a new Star Wars show or movie. I guess in a world where Disney produces Star Wars content year round, it’s tough for the toy companies to keep up, but they did finally release wave one of the Resistance figures on January 15. Let’s take a look!
Held at many stores with a street date of 1/15, I was able to grab the whole wave by hitting the stores early that day. The wave consists of single figure packs of main character Kazuda Xiono, Racer pilot Torra Doza, Scavenger and sometime Pirate Synara San, First order pilot Major Vonreg, The golden First order Stormtrooper Commander Pyre, and a standard First order Stormtrooper.
The packaging is actually quite striking with each character getting their own individualized package cut to shape around some striking character artwork.
I skipped the standard trooper because I have so many in the Black Series and I just wanted the unique characters. They also released two two-packs, one with Poe Dameron and BB-8 and one with Kaz’s mentor and former Rebel Jerek Yeager and his eccentric astromech, Bucket.
I’ll get this over with to start, I’m not a fan of 3.75 inch figures much any more. It’s what I grey up with, but I just don’t enjoy them as much as I like the six inch figures. These figures have limited articulation for the most part featuring the standard five points of articulation:
- Swivel shoulders and hips
- Ball and socket neck
I do tend to only buy them now for characters I have a particular love for or for the animated shows. I think the graphic nature of the animated designs, their bright colors and bold lines make the more dull and less detailed figures stand out a bit more.
Plus, I’m really enjoying the show. It centers on a fuel station (The Colossus) on a water planet and it’s about a New Republic pilot (Kazuda) tasked by Poe Dameron to find out what the First Order wants there.
It’s aimed squarely at kids with some more simplistic plots and a lot of silly humor, but it still feels like Star Wars and features some eye-popping visuals. They employ 3D animation, but they are rendered with a cell-shading technique that makes it feel like a classic old anime like Robotech. The lighting and design is always top notch, and in some ways more appealing to me than a lot of the duller colors we see in the films.
Kaz, Synara, Yeager, Vonreg, Poe and Pyre all come with blasters, most of which are variations on Poe’s pistol from The Force Awakens. They are painted in a nice metallic paint and are so tiny that I’m a little afraid they will disappear on me.
Kaz has a removeable helmet cast in a flexible translucent plastic so that you can see his eyes underneath the visor. It’s a little touch they do often in modern starfighter helmets, but I still love to see it every time.
It’s light years ahead of the X-Wing Luke of my youth and matches the show art well. Kaz is such a goofy guy on the show, probably the most animated of animated characters in Star Wars since Jar Jar that the super stiff 5 POA feels particularly stifling, but the sculpt is a good match for his show look and the bold colors are refreshing.
That almost primary green was a little tough to get used to at first, but I love it now.
Vonreg has some standard looking TIE pilot gear, but with a unique helmet and in a shocking red.
The show does feature cameos from Phasma, but Vonreg and Pyre are the main First Order antagonists so far.
They don’t actually have a lot of personality, so while Vonreg’s bright red, slightly clone trooper inspired helmet is cool, it’s not a substitute for character they haven’t developed yet.
Pyre is in a similar situation to Vonreg as he’s literally a faceless trooper without much in the way of personality or characterization on the show and an all gold armor doesn’t quite make up for it. The figure has a decent metallic paint job, but it’s not quite the shiny gold that’s depicted in the show.
Poe is also on the show sparingly so far, giving Kaz missions and loaning him BB-8, but the figure is a good representation of his show look.
It’s also probably the best looking Poe Dameron figure they’ve released so far. The removeable helmet also works really well here. The BB-8 that comes with him is super cute as the Resistance team took the original BB-8 design and tweaked him slightly for maximum adorableness.
The figure has a slight flat part so he can balance, though sometimes it was tough for me to find that part when posing. BB-8 also has a ball and socket joint where the head connects to the ball.
Synara San is a Pirate who gets stranded on the Colossus and while spying for her Pirate gang starts to form relationships with the other residents of the station.
She has a flexible helmet that recalls the design of Lando’s Jabba’s Palace disguise. The benefit of the larger, cartoon style eyes is that you can see them clearly through the visor of the helmet.
Like the rest of the pirate gang on the show, Synara’s gear is a mix of old Imperial armor and standard clothing and it’s fun to recognize the pieces like Biker Scout knee pads, etc. Synara is a bit above the other figures for me because she has a holster for her gun.
Torra is probably my favorite design from the show as I love the blue, orange, and white color scheme and dirtbike gear inspired armor. She also has a fun anime vibe with the pony puffs and face paint. The figure is so tiny that it’s tough to see the detail of the face paint, but it’s otherwise really nice.
I really like that they made two swappable heads as I think her hair would have made a removeable helmet nonfunctional. The helmeted head is two pieces so you can see her face under the visor. The heads are little tough to swap because the plastic on her neck peg is softer than the plastic on her helmeted head, but it’s doable.
Jerek Yeager runs the garage where Kaz works as a mechanic as cover for his spying activities. Jerek was a Rebel pilot and a Racer, but wants no part in either any longer. It seems inevitable that he’ll be pulled back into the fight with the First order. His figure is an excellent representation of the animated model and comes with a swappable, helmeted head.
I assume they did this because his long hair would preclude a removeable helmet. The helmet head has a clear visor, but there is no head within. It has some sparkles in there that make it tough to see through, but it looks a little off. It’s definitely not as cool as what they did with Torra.
Yeager’s astromech droid is probably my favorite of the figures from this wave. He’s got a lot of mechanical detail as he’s basic astromech with a lot of his paneling and his entire dome removed. The little pilot helmet he always wears is glued to the one position, but he has ball and socket joints on the main two legs and his “eye” for maximum poseability.
Well, that’s the first wave and I think they did mostly great work within the constraints of the format. The paint is all pretty clear and clean for such tiny detailed figures. The show has been renewed for another season, so I’m hoping they’ll get a wave two that features the other Ace pilots and Kaz’s friends Neeku and Tam. If they made Torra’s ship or Kaz’s Fireball in this scale I would buy those too.
