Vault Review: Star Wars Vintage
Collection: General Grievous

I don’t buy a lot of Star Wars toys, but I’ve always wanted a good toy of General Grievous. And although he’s had quite a few figures since his debut back in Episode III, none of them have really lived up to my expectations. I bought the Vintage Collection Grievous, hoping he would finally be the one I was waiting for.

I’m a big fan of General Grievous, or at least the idea of him. An almost flawless tactician who is trained in the ways of the lightsaber and even uses his massive robotic body as a weapon. A lot of people didn’t see this side of him because Grievous seems to have much more respect in the Expanded Universe than in his short lived asthmatic appearance in Episode III. But even with all this badassery going his way Grievous is ultimately Star Wars’ Snidely Whiplash, an analog of the stereotypical silent movie era villain who would tie a damsel to a railroad track for a deed to her moisture farm. That’s what I love most about him. You can almost hear him twisting his mustache when the deck is stacked in his favor, but when the tide turns he’s the first one into the escape pod.

Grievous can be found in the second wave of the new Star Wars Vintage Collection series. There have been quite a few Grievous figures in the past, but I’ve never been totally happy with them. There’s always been something missing. Sometimes it’s that his arms don’t separate, or maybe they don’t combine, some don’t have capes, some don’t have lightsabers. One was even stuck in this strange crouching position. But when I saw this figure at my local Toys R Us, with its big beautiful cape and loads of articulation, I couldn’t resist buying him. My only regret is not getting the Magna Guard that came in the same wave. My Grievous need someone to follow him around.

Since Grievous’ articulation impressed me so much, I’ll start with that. His head and torso are ball jointed, which allows him the range to lean forward like he’s normally seen when skulking around his command ship. His shoulders and ankles are both ball-hinged. The shoulder joints are split down the middle, allowing the front and back of each arm to move independently of each other. All four biceps, forearms, and wrists have swivel joints and each elbow is a hinge joint. This allows each arm to move and pose freely. Grievous’ hips are swivel joints, but I really wish they were ball joints. It would have given his legs a little more range for those extreme poses. Last, his knees are double hinges, so he can basically squat like Spiderman. This figure has so much movement potential that it’s hard to decide on what pose to pick.

What does cut down on the posing is the type of plastic Hasbro used for this figure. While his upper and lower torso is hard plastic, his arms and legs are soft and gummy. It’s not so horrible that he can’t stand, but you aren’t going to get too many dramatic poses out of him without some sort of prop or base. Some of the crazier poses you see in my review only stood for a second or two, just barely long enough to get the picture. Besides the fact that I’m worried about his plastic degrading over time, I’m also annoyed Hasbro didn’t at least use stronger plastic on the legs. I don’t mind the arms being a little bendy for posing, but the legs are where all the support needs to be, and this figure is too articulated to be sitting all the time.

Grievous’ paint job is simple but nice. Most of his parts are molded the metallic gray of his skeleton with the off-white armor painted on. Underneath his chest armor are the dirty green colored parts that hold what’s left of his organs. There’s not a lot of slop on the figure, which is nice, especially on the smaller places like his eyes or the lines in his mask. Continue to Page Two….

19 thoughts on “Vault Review: Star Wars Vintage
Collection: General Grievous

    1. I was wondering if he was a reissue. It’s amazing how far the cape goes to making this figure even more awesome.

      Thanks for the pic. Why is the Grievous next to him so tiny though? What was Hasbro thinking?

  1. I’ve got the previous release of this mold, and I agree with everything here. It’s way better and larger than the Epidose III sculpts they’ve been reusing, and imperfect or not, the fact that the arms can separate and connect while retaining at least some articulation is very impressive!

    I think the size of the original Greivous has less to do with Hasbros error and more to do with the Lucasfilm’s strict spoiler policies. They seem to give good photo reference to Hasbro and others, but its got to be tough to get a feel of scale or character until seeing the film.

    I had used a cape from the crummy old Grievous mold from one of the overpriced Wal-Mart Darktrooper sets, but seeing the pockets makes me like this, and I had no idea his feet could hold sabers. It is a little bit lame that a few of the vintage collection are rehashes, since they don’t include the card, dice, stand, or bag of clone guns. Not that I want any of that, but the assortment is priced higher because they are supposed to be new stuff. Grievous doesn’t offend as badly as 4-LOM, who is completely identical to his release from like 3 years ago.

    I think its hilarious that I and so many have independently come to the same conclusion about Grievous being a mustache twirling villain. “Time to abandon ship! hahahah…” Who was he talking to? Muttley? Anyway, the photo evidence you’ve provided is fantastic.

    1. Thanks FakeEyes! I agree that with the higher price we should probably be getting a little more. It would have been cool if Grievous had two more lightsabers and hilts at least. But that cape is great, so I can’t complain much.

      I’m almost positive that Lucas, or whomever made Grievous, intended him to be like that. There are so many similarities between Grievous and those old-timey villains that it can’t be a coincidence. I love those villains though, so I’m ok with it.

  2. So he’s a “vintage” Grievous as in in the old-style packaging? Do you have a shot of that?

    1. Sure. It’s kind of cool to see the vintage packaging again. But I’m always annoyed that they don’t have J-hooks. It seems like the figure I want is always at the back of the pegs and I have to take them all off just to get to him lol.

  3. oh wow- I want that for the packaging ALONE. I’m still of the argument that this line should revert completely to that style of packaging.

    Classic is always better- look at the 25th GI Joe line.

    1. I do like the packaging, but I really miss those J-hooks. I never realized how much easier they made toy collecting. 😛

  4. Great Review. Looking forward to this guy. Who’s lightsabers did you borrow from? It’s kind of disappointing he doesn’t come with four active sabers.

    1. Thanks! Yeah, I think he should have come with four also. I used two sabers that came in an Anakin vs. a Geonosian two-pack.

  5. I don’t collect Star Wars stuff, but I really like this character for some reason. I haven’t bought any figures either, for many of the same gripes you mentioned. It looks like this is the one, though! I’ll have to keep an eye out for him.

    1. Good luck! I was at Wal-Mart tonight and found him also. So now there’s at least one more place besides Toys R Us.

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