Obi-Wan is almost a good figure that has a few issues working against it. As is he’s not terrible, but with just a few tweaks, he could have been perfect.
The prequels are one of the most divisive subjects in Star Wars history and have resulted in massive amounts of rage-hued opinion sprayed across the Internet. The defenders are ardent, the revolted are strident, and George Lucas is rich. I guess we know the winner of those debates.
While from a story perspective, I have huge, gigantic spaceworm-sized issues with the prequels, I have a bit of “source separation” when it comes to the different characters or versions of characters that the prequels introduced. New characters like Qui-gon Jinn, Darth Maul, and Count Dooku are all welcome in my Star Wars world even if I don’t fully dig where they came from. Of all the various prequel iterations of well-known characters, Obi-Wan and the Senator Palpatine probably fared the best in my eyes. Palpatine is obvious — get the same actor to reprise his own role, especially one with the skill set of Ian McDiarmid, and you’re going to get a straight line interpretation of a great character. But Obi-Wan was different. Casting a younger actor to embody that perfectly performed mentor/father figure/role model whose lines were few but left such long footprints is not easy. Ewan McGregor proved more than capable of filling those shoes, and embodied exactly how one would imagine a young Obi-Wan would be — even if what he was given to do was less then impressive.
Long story short, I had no issue with getting the younger prequel-styled Obi-Wan. Unfortunately those issues I mentioned dimmed what could have been a bright figure.
First, let’s focus on the good. From a quality standpoint, Hasbro’s Black Series continues the trend of making solid, sturdy figures with great engineering and articulation schemes, combining soft plastic and fabric for figures that move very well despite what could be burdensome designs. Despite a few issues, it’s overall a fun toy, and even the issues don’t take away from that. He poses well, he can get into all kinds of various sword-fighting stances, and he looks good. The clothing is well sculpted and he has presence.
The few issues mainly have to do with his ability to wield his signature weapon. Obi-Wan’s saber hilt is a thinner one, and the use of those trigger fingers on him means that the lightsaber kind of bobbles around a bit too much for my liking. He can hold it OK, but everyone’s grip hand will benefit from being heated up and closed a bit more if you want him to have a tighter grip. I would like to see more dedicated saber-holding hands in the future. Sure, Obi-Wan has used a blaster, but he thinks of them as “uncivilized,” so he’s not going to be doing it often. If anything, a pair of swappable hands would have solved the issue, especially since he came in so light with accessories (the lightsaber is his only one).
The second major issue is his ability to grip his lightsaber in the standard dual-hand grip.
To be brief: he can’t. His robe is too stiff, and that major visual component of all lightsaber wielders is forever denied to him. I’m not sure if this is an issue that can even be solved, but it is a bit of a bummer not to be able to have him easily two-hand his saber.
Another issue I’ve read is his head size and likeness. Honestly, neither of those bother me as much as the lightsaber issues, but that depends on where you fall on the aesthetic scale, of course. I’ve had figures with smaller heads, and he looks like a dude with a beard, so I’m not sure if I really need a photorealistic likeness for me to believe that this is young Obi-Wan. Again, that’s me, so your ideal may vary.
Despite so many people complaining about Leia or Artoo, for me Hasbro has been batting a thousand so far with their Black Series, so it’s unfortunate that this figure suffers some shortcomings, especially when a prequel figure may need every plus on its side. While it doesn’t ruin the figure for me like it probably might for a lot of others, there are some issues that could be made better for a more playable, poseable and overall fun toy.