A Padawan must exhibit patience in order to become a Jedi Master. While this Star Wars Elite Series General Grievous is an okay-looking figure, it’s enough to annoy the Sith out of any mild mannered collector.
I don’t like not liking a toy. I spent money on it; I want to like it. And as most of you know, this rarely happens to me. I even tried to keep my chin up after the unboxing, but the more I fiddled, the more the dislike grew and festered until . . . ugh.
Grievous looks good enough in the package. Just based on this I was hoping for at least a placeholder until a more 1:12 scaled figure came along. My hopes were up.
Okay, it’s definitely Grievous. These figures are made of metal, so I expected a little variation in sculpt, but to see it up close really pushes the fact that the sculpt is soft. Not terribly so, but enough to be noticeable.
What little paint on the figure is passable. The eyes stand out at me as good. The tan armor parts seem to chip easily if rubbed against another part. But then the mouth lines, which I think are supposed to be sculpted, look like they were drawn on with a Sharpie.
Articulation is limited in the elbows and neck, but pretty good in the hips and shoulders. I go through all of that in my video review, which starts out optimisticly and spirals into despair.
Basically, while the shoulders have a good range, they are just too loose to be useful. You raise the arms and they slump back down. You can kind of get the back arms up as long as the front ones are down, so there’s that.
To make things worse, the legs are in perma-step. There is no ankle articulation and the right foot is in a step-back position, the left in a stepping-forward pose. You always have to pose Grievous walking. Which makes it impossible to stand without either the base or the cape.
It’s a nice sculpt. I like the quilted look on the inside and the designed logo on the outside, even though I don’t remember it being there. The cape is a bit heavy and not very flexible, but you can use it as a kickstand to keep Grievous upright.
But using it in this manner will eat up a lot of real estate on your shelf. It sticks out the back quite a bit.
Those pics bring me to the lightsabers. He comes with four individual weapons. They are nicely sculpted and complement the overall look of the figure.
That is, if he could hold them securely. The right hands have a smaller grip so you can kind of fudge them in there, but the lefts are loosey-goosey as all get out. You have to find an angle where the lightsaber will just rest there without falling out. Which seems to happen with a light breeze. Or not moving the figure while putting in the next lightsaber.
Or having it shift position while doing it, knocking out the other lightsabers.
Or just completely falling over.
Comparing Grievous with the Black Series Obi-Wan, it’s a shame that I had so much frustration because it actually does work for the most part.
Sure, he looks a bit large, but it’s fudgeable.
And after spending an evening with Grievous, that’s all I can muster. Fudgeable. He’ll placehold until some other company decides to make one. We just saw the S.H. Figuarts version over the weekend, so maybe that will be solicited soon. Because even though I’m a sucker and will put this on my shelf for the time being because I paid money for it, I won’t shed a tear the day I am guaranteed a replacement.
Hell, I’ll be downright giddy.
If you absolutely need to have a Grievous in your display right now, he should be back up on the Disney Store soon.
