If you’ve noticed that we’re half way through and I’ve mostly been talking about the head, it’s because most of the rest of the figure has been reviewed here before by Vault way back in 2011. This figure uses The Vintage Collection Mace Windu as a base. For the most part, that rocks. The ab crunch is downright amazing and the ball-knees and ball-ankles mostly make-up for the t-crotch (21st Century Hasbro, hello!). The only thing I don’t much care for on the main body is the soft goods robes, but not for the reasons you think. I do still firmly hate soft goods on anything smaller than sixth scale, but Hasbro tried out this exact figure with plastic robes and it didn’t help the leg articulation all that much. With this guy being so fun to pose, I’ll take the soft goods here. But couldn’t Hasbro have done a better job matching the cloth to the plastic robes? What went wrong there?
Not all the body was reused though. More new tooling can be found in the arms with the gauntlets and new hands. The range on the ball-shoulders and ball-elbows is comparable to the one Vault reviewed, but what really makes this one shine is the new ball-wrists. The t-crotch hinders some deep posing but the three ball-joints and the great ab articulation really lets Mace get down. Great slashing poses. You almost might be tricked into thinking this guy is a master with the lightsaber. He’s been a blast to play with since I snagged him.
Speaking of that lightsaber, Mace includes two, one powered on and one powered off. I kinda miss those days of the “beam” just plugging in, but whatever’s better for Hasbro is fine with me. The unpowered lightsaber can plug on to the belt while the charged one can be posed in a variety of deadly ways thanks to the awesome new arms. A third accessory, Jango’s helmet is a fun extra piece. It’s very soft, but it can fit on Mace if you want it too. I just need a sad little Boba figure to hold it.
Overall, I still lament that Hasbro couldn’t get the pigmentation right and I’ve seen some fans knock this figure around – it’s technically the third “good” Mace figure when people are still chomping at the bit for other characters to be made, but I’m happy with this one. The figure is reusing a great sculpt, has new, improved articulation and is just a blast to play with. And I sorta love the Clone Wars versions getting “realistic” figures. I don’t know why. Yeah, I mean, Mace Windu is probably a lock for the 6” Black Series, but if they do him there, it surely won’t be this version, so it was a safe 4” pick-up for me and it turned out to be worth it.
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To the point about the lightsabers with the plug-in blade: I have a ton of those from around the time Episode II and Episode III came out, and on most of them the little plug that actually goes into the hilt has broken, or wilted so badly as to be pretty much unusable. I think the solid piece is definitely the way to go.
Fair point!
I agree with this 100%. I have had several of the connector plugs break while just storing them together with other weapons. I believe very thing connectors made from translucent plastic are just way too fragile.
So I like getting a separate hilt and an extended saber as separate pieces.
What, no MotherFlipping Snake jokes, or even Avengers? not to mention FURY???
😉
I kid. mostly.
you’re saving those for the eventual 6″ Mace review, right?
I don’t think I’ve bought a 4″ SW figure since EpI other then “The Separation of the Twins” sets. I even tried selling them in lots last summer to no avail.
as for this guy, I like the basic Jedi design, but still not sure why they wear the armor? his head does look like he just took a roundhouse to the jaw in that first close-up pic and a bit in the empty helmet pic.
and going for the Die Hard gag over the Unbreakable gag? ha!
Can’t blow your whole wad on one review, right?
I don’t know why they were the armor, but I like it. Maybe people try to shoot him in his forearms a lot? I think the two pics you mention might just be because I have his head tilted a bit. I took the pics in a hurry (doing reviews every day is a toll!)
Lightsabres with removable blades were the BANE of my existence. I’m much happier with one molded piece, thank you.
You must have it easy!! lol
I had a few EpI one-piece sabers break at the hilt when falling off things.
“We’ll NEVER make realistic figures of the animated Clone Wars characters,” Hasbro said.
Gits.
Sweet review, as per usual, with just one call-out: “Through” him off a cliff?!
Through/threw/threau. Just think of how many times I don’t screw up those captions. 😀
I’ll fix it later. lol
Ooh! Die Hard 3 Reference!!
Meh about not quite Samuel Monday-to-Friday L. Jackson
Can never have too many Sam Jacksons around.
He kind of has the Sith eyes look going on a bit, doesn’t he?
Anyways, I’m kind of surprised that he doesn’t have the booby-trapped Jango Fett helmet, as that would make more sense with his Clone Wars appearance.
I really hope to see some new SWB figures. I have only ever seen one figure from anything past the first wave. And I’ve been looking!
Yeah, the eyes are sithy.
I know the actual Clone Wars one has the bomb inside. It must’ve cut into the profit too much this go round. The 4″ ones tend to sell out pretty quick, the good ones anyway, I still haven’t seen Plagueis.
The Clone Wars bomb Jango helmet is the cartoon style sculpt which is thinner and more angular than the realistic version. The realistic version of the helmet fits better with this realistic version of the character.
Man, they REALLY nailed the Sammy head sculpt on this guy didn’t they?
The Vintage Collection of 2012 onwards ushered in a whole new era for Star Wars toys. Gone were stiff plastic clothes and action poses, and instead we got very faithful movie-accurate sculpts. This design philosophy led straight into Star Wars Black in both scales, and it’s a huge relief.
My only problem with the 3.75″ Black series (and yes this line is still 3.75″ rather than 1:18/4″) is that they still stick with swivel hips on a lot of figures. I know I’m sounding like a broken record about the damn hips lol. But the hips are SO important for posing a figure and it’s so restrictive when they can just spin back and forth.
I read a crazy rumor on Rebelscum that George Lucas actually wanted Hasbro to stay with the older articulation because he prefers the aesthetic of cut joints over more advanced ones. No idea if that’s true, but it’s funny enough to think about! Can you imagine Lucas sitting down with the hasbro design team and offering up his ideas? Gold.
Great review as always.
Well, it was Lucas’s idea to make the action figures pocket-sized in the first place, wasn’t it?
According to SW toy expert Stephen J. Sansweet it was a Kenner employee who during a meeting held out his thumb and index finger outstretched and said “How about we make them this size?”
In response to Lucas’s proposal that they be small enough as to feasibly produce and market the vehicles from the film to accompany them?
Yeah. Lucas’ main conceit was that it was vital that a Star Wars line not just be figures, it needed to be vehicles, creatures and playsets. It needed to have affordable, easy way for kids to recreate the movies without asking their parents to buy an unfeasibly expensive X-Wing.
And the Kenner guys made up a scale they felt was a good one from that (previous figure lines being almost exclusively 12″ dolls like G.I Joe and Mego) and that’s how it began.
According to Sansweet anyway.
So you’re saying the Star Wars Black Series got his skintone wrong…?