Thursday, July 26, 2018

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 2,502: Maz Kanata (Solo: A Star Wars Story Line Look)

MAZ KANATA Talking Edition
Solo: A Star Wars Story Force Link 2.0 Basic Figures
Item No.:
Asst. E0323  No. E1676
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: n/a
Includes: Blaster pistol
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $7.99
Availability: April 2018
Appearances: The Last Jedi

Bio: Maz Kanata was a Force-sensitive humanoid female who was born over a millennium before the brewing war between the First Order and the Resistance.   (Stolen from Wookieepedia.  Packaging has no bio.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

Availability: Click here to buy it at Entertainment Earth now!

Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Commentary:  While almost identical to a figure we got a few years ago, this Maz Kanata will not be the figure's last appearance in toys this year.   She seems to be selling well despite a similar Maz Kanata [FOTD #2,273] being sold in 2016.  The problem, like so many problems since the reboot, is we are generally given a choice between new characters we don't know yet (some of which turn out to be pretty insignificant as toys go) and barely different versions of characters we own - Solo's line really leaned in to those.  Maz is a bit more interesting than her 2016 version, but to the typical fan she's the same figure with a new gun and a non-removable jet pack.   For most, the desire to have a Maz figure should be enough. Weirdly this one is desirable, but the 6-inch one is not according to Amazon pricing at press time.

The figure does a good job delivering the character in a costume from her cameo in The Last Jedi, where we found out that she has a labor dispute and her hobbies may have been described by Russ Hanneman.   She has 5 points of articulation including the ball-jointed neck, with deco that's pretty good to the naked eye.  Numerous dongles and beads and gems are painted, plus her hands seem to be the right color - which wasn't the case all the time in 2016.  Her necklace, belt buckle, glasses, wrinkles, socks, toes, and just about everything is well-textured and decorated.   This is great, as Hasbro and other companies often leave details in whatever color the rest of the limb happened to be.   More detail is always welcome.  She's by no means perfect, but given the size and price point we get a pretty good paint job here.  She's stable and the jet pack - and I have no idea why she needed one in the movie - is a nice touch here.   I'd rather have had a figure of a new character instead since she has tooling changes, but I guess that's life.

Hasbro did a great job here - the fact that I don't see her, or a lot of wave 1 Solo figures sitting, says to me either Hasbro did a great job or isn't done shipping the wave yet.  I would not classify this as an essential purchase, but it's certainly very good and I'm not sorry I have it.  

Force Link 2.0 Notes: "I am no Jedi, but I know the Force."  "I assume you need something.  Desperately."  Blasters.  These do seem to be taken from the film archives - and there are more, but the Force Link 2.0 band eats "AAA" batteries.  I probably got about an hour of play out of this set.

Collector's Notes: I got mine from Entertainment Earth.   This figure was originally slated to be a part of the first Force Link line for The Last Jedi but got bounced to this wave for some reason - other figures from those waves were bounced to Entertainment Earth as exclusives.

--Adam Pawlus


Day 2,502: July 26, 2018

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