I’ve picked up four store exclusive Black Series figures last week and today we are going to look at one I wasn’t really going to buy until I saw him on the shelf, Yoda (Force Spirit). I don’t have the Obi-Wan Force Spirit from Hasbro, so I was kind of curious to see how they achieved the Force Spirit in the Black Series.
The box is somewhat interesting as it’s changed up with a Force spirit appropriate blue replacing the usual red.
Yoda comes with his cane, a removeable robe, a removeable necklace, and removeable belt. The robe is a really bizarre, glittery, mesh affair and does not hang well on the figure at all. I’m a little sad he didn’t come with the snake. A translucent blue snake would have been fun, if nonsensical.
The figuret is re-used from the original black series figure as are the accessories, the main change here being paint and the shimmery cloak and new paint. The hands and lower legs are cast in translucent blue plastic while the head is painted with an oddly dark green with metallic blue highlights.
The shiny paint does convey a bit of a glow effect, but I don’t think it feels like a Force Ghost to me. I’m used to Force Ghost figures coming in all translucent blue, and even though that’s not really how the ghosts look in the film either, I think I prefer that to this.
I get what they were trying to do here, and I appreciate the attempt, but it’s just not working for me seeing Yoda’s body through his sheer cloak. It kind of reminds me of seeing the ghosts from the Haunted Mansion with the lights on.
Playing with this guy also reminded me how much I hate the articulation choices they made for this figure. The double elbows without a bicep swivel and lack of knees are just baffling choices to me and make playing with the figure less fun than the usual Black Series figure.
I don’t enjoy giving a negative review, but I don’t like this figure much at all. I wasn’t planning on buying it because the promo shots weren’t exciting to me, but I was feeling very Yoda positive when I found this figure and I was already buying Jedi Luke anyway. It’s still a nice portrait and I did like how he looked with Old Man Luke, so I think he’ll still get a spot in the TLJ display.
