Price: lame. Figure: good.
I won’t get into the whole “is one of these faces really Rex” debate, because apparently that’s a whole thing. Nik Sant, Rex, your guess or preference is as good as mine.
What I am certain of, is that the entire Endor section of Return of the Jedi is exciting stuff, and it’s taken too long to finally get an Endor Trooper in the Black Series line. Luckily, it is an excellent figure. Unluckily, he comes in at their “Deluxe” price point, which is egregious.
And yet, I still bought one at that price.
One born every minute.
But I won’t buy two at this price. I want a second, but I’ll wait for a sale. Take that, plastic overlords!
Complaining about ridiculous price increases aside, I love this figure. The Black Series does these trooper figures quite well. The Hoth Trooper was another standout, with a similar face-swapping gimmick. While the Endor trooper doesn’t have the same Zartan-esque carrying capabilities, I still like the idea of switchable face plates for dudes like this.
The figure is an all new sculpt, which is quite well done. The swivel-disc elbows and knees have an impressive range despite bot being double joints. I have been iffy on the switch from double joints to single joints on the legs, but I will admit these have a pretty decent range. I still can’t get the full range of motion like I could with a double joint, but there’s enough plastic cut away so what is there is very usable, and doesn’t give me that claustrophobic feeling of articulation gone wrong.
He doesn’t have a torso joint, but there is a ball-jointed waist that does decent work. There are butterflies at the shoulder, and his ball jointed neck gives him an impressive range of head motion. The right hand has an up/down joint, while the left has an in/out.
It’s very important for a trooper like this to be able to kneel, and we’ll all be glad to know that he can perform an exceptional kneeling stance.
For accessories, the trooper comes with a backpack for keeping his sandwiches and Kool-aid. It slides on and stays on despite no connecting peg.
He has a rifle and a blaster, so you can choose between which instrument of death he swoops into battle with.
The face plates swap in and out easily but stay locked into position. He comes with the older bearded face that is whomever you wish him to be, and a younger face. If I get a second one, I’ll give that one the younger face, but for this one I prefer to have the grizzled older face on him. Regardless of who he is, he looks like he’s seen some shit, and that feels like the face that needs to stay affixed to this figure. Both head-chunks are nicely sculpted and carry unique personalities.
The various Jedi, Sith, aliens and armored villains are all major draws, but sometimes a well-done Star Wars soldier fills in just the right whole in the collection. Getting yet another update to a vintage figure is always appreciated. This one is a lot of fun.
If you had a bit of sculpting talent to make a head you could use the face on a Scout Trooper body for the scene where Nik Sant also masqueraded as an Imperial.
Man I love this fig…hopefully they’ll do another one with a POC headsculpt like the older Saga Collection line.