GENERAL HERA SYNDULLA (Three of Three)
The Vintage Collection 3 3/4-Inch Action Figure
Item No.: Asst. F6878 No. F7318
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #300
Includes: Blaster
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $16.99
Availability: October 2023
Appearances: Star Wars: Ahsoka
Bio: Since 2010, The Vintage Collection has paid homage to the iconic Kenner toy era of Star Wars history. VC300 celebrates the line with General Hera Syndulla - for the first time on a TVC cardback! (Taken from the figure's cardback.)
Image: Adam's photo lab.
Availability: Click here to buy it at Entertainment Earth now!
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Packaging Change Notes: For the first time in years, Hasbro actually updated the template for the back of the card. While it doesn't show upsells for other figures in the wave any more, it does, for some reason, show an illustration of the card front on the back, with the figure you can see in person on the other side standing in front of it. Originally this layout was used to show the original release of the figure - and with a wave of almost entirely new figures, I don't think it's a particularly good use of the space. It is more pleasing to look at than, say,
The Retro Collection's all-text extravaganza. The previous
TVC cardback look was fine, I'd be happy to see it brought back but with even more figure previews. (There was enough blank black space for 2-4 more figures without shrinking a thing.)
Commentary: It's easy to poke fun at Hasbro for congratulating themselves, given how many
Vintage figures had stiff joints and were prone to falling over earlier in the line, but
General Hera Syndulla is actually excellent. At $16.99 I don't necessarily have to be bowled over with a massive array of parts and paint applications, but what we get has to be good. If I pay $17 for a figure with five blasters and one has bad QC, that's upsetting - so I'm glad that Hera is pretty much as perfect as you can reasonably expect in 2023/2024 at this size.
While I do feel it's a bit overkill to give us Retro, The Black Series, and Vintage versions all at once... it's Hera. Hera's cool and I don't think it matters if you like the shows or not, because this figure is a good one. Her revised live action costume gives her a flight cap with goggles, a swell jacket with cool patches, high-waisted X-Wing mom pants, and black boots. She looks like a post-Return of the Jedi figure that you wish was around 40 years ago, but with the face and general build of one Mary Elizabeth Winstead you liked her in 10 Cloverfield Lane, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Passions, Death Proof, and a bunch of other genre fan things - so it makes sense the expressive performer would get a Star Wars.
Thanks to the green make-up, the figure looks fantastic - instead of "did they get her human skin color right," we see a correctly green-molded plastic face with the details of the actress. It may not be 100%, but it's close - the eyes, cheeks, and eyebrows look bright-eyed and more like the character is thinking, rather than merely being there. It's good, particularly since the face is the size of a shelled peanut.
Like most of Hasbro's new-sculpt humanoids, this is a good figure with a nicely jointed body. She stands easily, and balances well. You have the ball-and-socket hip joint with thigh cut, which means she shouldn't have too much difficulty fitting in
The Ghost in the next year. The jacket vest piece looks great, and the gloved hands have no problems holding her blaster. Knee joints have no problems bending to 90 degrees, and the elbows bend just a bit more than that. Given her lekku head tails, the neck also has a good range of movement with non-jointed molded-on goggles above her forehead. It's a good, functional costume that doesn't get in the way of itself like, oh, most of the prequel Jedi outfits.
Deco is also great. She has a painted rank badge, painted patches on her arms, and another painted design on her back. Her lekku have light green patterns on them - subtle, so you might miss it - and everything else is more or less molded in color. The only exception is her shins, as her boots are molded black and the lower pant legs are painted orange. In some lines this can look horrible - orange over black usually looks bad. Here it just looks merely OK, as the amount of paint and the color match was pretty good. I'd probably have preferred to see it molded in orange and painted black for the boots, but this no doubt was the cheaper solution.
You don't necessarily need three versions of streaming Hera, but they're all good examples of their respective lines. I'm biased so I love Retro, but this one is a much better achievement given what they managed to do with the budget. Maybe it could be a buck or two cheaper, but we really don't have much to complain about here. All the joints are good, she has her obligatory accessory, and I'm not left wanting Hasbro to fix her later. This is it, this is good enough, so seek this one out and be glad Hasbro has no reason to do a fancier version down the road.
Collector's Notes: I got mine from Entertainment Earth.
--Adam Pawlus
Day 3,096: January 4, 2024
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