No planet is more “Star Wars” to me than Tatooine, and nothing says “Tatooine” to me like the Tusken Raiders. Jawas and Moisture Vaporators might be a close second, but the Tusken Raiders made an early impression on me as a child and was the most frightening thing in Star Wars. I was very impressed with the Black Series prototype last year at SDCC, so I hopped on an early, overpriced release of this figure in the Black Series red and black box. Let’s take a look!
The Tusken Raider comes with a couple of accessories: a gaffi stick with three interchangeable ends and a rifle.
Both items are made of a slightly soft plastic so they can bend a little. The gaffi stick, the traditional club like weapon of the Tusken Raider, has three different ends that plug into the main piece. The pieces stick together pretty solidly and it’s nice to have options.
The gun is really nicely detailed, but the right hand isn’t designed to hold the rifle in a normal rifle-firing pose. You can kind of fake it, but a dedicated hand to hold it would have been good.
The sculpt is fantastic with lots of detail and cloth texture in the clothing that matches up well with the texture and color of the soft goods. The soft goods do seem to be removable, but they are kind of shoved up under the collar piece, so I didn’t pull them off and probably won’t until I get another one.
The articulation is what we have come to expect from the black series with the following POA:
- Swivel/hinge neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, and ankles
- Ball-and-socket head and lower torso
- Double-hinged knees
- Thigh swivel
The ball-and-socket waist gets a really nice range of motion with good forward and backward movement. The skirt is a fairly soft plastic, but it still impedes leg movement a little. It can actually move quite a lot, but the stiffness looks awkward when moved too far.
The paint is hit or miss. I really like how they did a good job matching the main plastic cloth outfit with the soft goods piece. There’s a nice wash on the wraps and around the bottom of the skirt that shows off the sculptural detail well.
The mask has a little sloppiness here and there that detracts from the overall look.
I’m a ’70s kid, so I remember well playing with the old Kenner figure of the Tusken Raider. He had that old vinyl cape with the weird collar and his hands were designed to hold the gaffi stick over his head, so my main requirement for this figure was that he could hit that pose.
That’s a pretty low bar, but I love that he can hit that pose and many others with perfection.
The figure is absolute hand candy, fun to pose and good looking on the shelf. The only downside is I need at least two more to fill out the Tusken Raider army that I now need.
