Figure of the Day: Day 238: Commander Gree

COMMANDER GREE Battle Gear
Revenge of the Sith Collection 1
Item No.: Asst. 85173 No. 86660
Number: III-59
Includes: Blaster, firing rifle, antenna
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $5.24
Availability: Late 2005
Appearances: Revenge of the Sith

Bio: On the planet of Kashyyyk, Commander Gree serves Jedi Master Yoda and helps the Wookiees fight the invading Separatists. When the secret Order 66 is issued, Commander Gree suddenly turns on the Jedi, but Yoda senses his betrayal and quickly eliminates him. (Taken from the figure's cardback.)

Image: The toy shelves of Adam Pawlus.

Commentary: After seeing the movie Revenge of the Sith, fans immediately started screaming out for a figure of Commander Gree, the Clone who tried to kill Yoda. Well, Hasbro listened, and gave us a figure that doesn't really look very close to how he looks in the movie. If you look at the carded image under "more images" below, you can see that the helmets really don't match. And that the suspenders are painted on. And that the shade of green is way wrong. (And if you look at the movie, he's missing the correct backpack.) So for a quickie Gree, it's an OK figure because it used the best available mold as the base for a pretty good repaint. The problem was that it wasn't good enough- the missing sculpted details might be easier to overlook if the coloring was a bit more accurate, but it wasn't, so fans today are still waiting for a new one.

Collector's Notes: There are two major variants. The first has a very light yellowish green visor. (Shown above.) The second has a much darker green visor, which is not shown here. The second release is much harder to get and came in around the same time as the corrected (and equally hard to find) Commander Bly. Any version of Gree is quite popular, so unless Hasbro makes another one, be prepared to shell out some money for one on the secondary market.

Day 238: December 30, 2006