The hardest reviews to do are about action figures of characters you know nothing about. Sure, I know the basics. It’s Star Wars. His name is Finn. And…that’s about it.
But, on the other hand, it makes you focus on the action figure itself. The sculpt, the paint, the mechanics. So it’s a double-edged sword. No emotional attachment, which is why I usually buy toys, but a more practical approach, which I usually can’t do with figures I’ve been wanting for years.
Life is hard, boys. Let’s get started.
The packaging has been redesigned for the upcoming movie. Nothing drastic, we’re still getting a mostly black box, but the accents are now red and it has some layout refinements. I like it, as much as I can like something that holds my attention for about the ten seconds to cut the tape and get my prize.
The figure itself is….unremarkable? Don’t get me wrong, I like it, it looks fine and everything seem to work, but when it comes down to it, it’s a dude in a jacket and slippers.
Again, that comes down to me not knowing a blasted thing about Finn and his role in the Star Wars universe. I’m mostly okay with that until I see the movie. But right now I can only hope I like him after learning his story, at least enough for the figure to give me that tingle. Because really, Han is a guy in tight pants and a vest, and Luke is wearing a pirate shirt. It’s the characters I love, and I love getting figures of those characters.
I’ve seen people say the head sculpt is off, but I think, once again, that the paint does the likeness no justice. The paint is pretty clean, but there is no detail work or extra touches to bring out a life-like quality. So, toy. Ignore the hairline and focus on the face. Not too bad at all for a twenty dollar mass retail figure.
The rest of the body is nicely sculpted. There is a texture on the shirt and the wrinkles on the jacket and pants are nice. The slippers throw me. I guess I’m just a boots kind of guy, but in the end I’m good with it. I do have one gripe with the body though. It seems a bit squat. A little wide, long torso, short legs. But I’m alright with different body types.
Finn comes with a blaster. It’s big and chunky clunky, evoking the style of the original trilogy. I like that. I really like that. It even has a dark wash to make it grungy.
The paint on the rest of the figure is clean, what little there is. There is drybrush of a white sandy color on the bottom of the pants to simulate running around on a desert planet. The rest of the figure is pretty plain.
Articulation is what you expect in a Black Series figure. I break down all of it in my mass Wave 1 video review.
But the one point of articulation I find interesting is his right wrist. I’m avoiding spoilers but I did see the one pic floating around, so I’m going to warn you now.
Very slight spoiler follows.
The right wrist is hinged up and down for lightsaber wielding poses. Based on the first trailer I would have guessed that Finn would use a lightsaber but that dang pic. So now I know. And I just happen to have a second X-Wimg Luke and an extra lightsaber.
He looks great in one-handed poses, but can barely strike a two-handed grip. Like I said before, he’s a little wide and the jacket impedes the arms from coming in front of him a bit. It can be done, but not very dynamically.
If you’ve seen the trailers then you know that Finn starts out as a First Order Stormtrooper. This can also be accomplished with the figures. Finn’s head pops off easily but the Stormtrooper’s head takes some elbow grease.
The size of the figure seems good, but I don’t know the actor’s actual stats.
All in all, a fairly good figure of a character I don’t know yet. If you pass on him now he’ll be re-released a few more times in upcoming waves. As it stands right now though he seems the most probably to pegwarm. Kylo Ren and the Stormtrooper are cool villain characters, Chewbacca is a classic character people already love, and Rey, while new and unknown, comes with BB-8. That cute little droid is everywhere and just simply adorable. Let’s hope Finn kicks ass in the movie.
