Star Wars: The Black Series 6" First Order TIE Elite Pilot

         The First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter comes with a pilot figure, basically a red striped version of the TIE Pilot from Episode VII, a 6” of which there will be later on this year. The First Order Pilot is a much different figure from the Original Trilogy TIE Pilot, which is something of a surprise to me. I’d basically expected the new pilot to be the old pilot body with the new helmet, and probably some new chest equipment; I’d never thought that a pilot, the most overlooked of the Imperial figures, to be so different from the old design, at least toy wise.
 
         If you took the 3.75" pilot, blew him up to 6" and gave him some good articulation and detail, you'd have this guy. 

Star Wars: The Black Series 6" General Thoughts

      My wife is an incredible person. Last year, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, she sort of prompted me to get in to the Star Wars Black Series figures, a line which I’d liked from afar, but was for some reason reluctant to start collecting. I knew why, or at least, I’ve always told myself that I knew why: we currently live in a one bedroom apartment, and we have a very finite space for our collections. We both collect things, so there are times where our displays run into each other, and I know, after being with her for years and going through a number of arrangements in terms of displayed toys, that too much stuff out and around starts to make her upset. I try to maintain a degree of restraint when I start putting my figures around the place, and for the most part, I guess I do a decent job because she only on very rare occasion tells me that I’m getting out of hand. That’s good, right? Happy wife, happy life and all that.

       My concern with the Black Series was that I liked what I’d seen of them, and I know myself and my collecting quite well. If I like something, I tend to commit full bore, at least in the beginning. I don’t even know how many Transformers lines I’d gone completist on, and let’s not bring up my 3.75” Clone trooper collection right now. If I got into the Black Series, I’d end up buying THE Black Series, and for a few reasons, I wasn’t ready to indulge that idea. If I just stuck to the Empire, I’d be doing ok, right?

      I’m new to the world of 6” figures, only having a few DC or Marvel figures in that size. My primary action figure size has always been the 3.75”: it’s what I had as a child, it’s what I continued to buy as an adult.

      I really like the Black Series for their visuals. They are basically 6” versions of the best era of Star Wars figures, that run from the Revenge of the Sith toyline until The Legacy Collection was coming to an end, I think around the middle of the run of the Clone Wars television show. The 6”ers are visually appealing, and accurate as all get out, with some really great articulation. Double jointed knees, elbows, ab crunches, ankle rockers, thigh, wrist and elbow swivels, and a ball jointed neck make for very poseable toys, and each one comes with some accessory which are generally real screen accurate. But that’s something that Star Wars figures have usually done very well, looking like they do in the movies. And, since the 3.75” figures are apparently going down the 5 points of articulation road for the foreseeable future, I needed a Star Wars toyline I could buy and feel good about, feel like I was getting my money’s worth for and not buying essentially because there was no other way to get Star Wars figures.

      SDCC 2015 brought the first images of toys from the new The Force Awakens line, including the Black Series. One of the reveals was a First Order TIE fighter large enough to hold two six inch pilots. How huge must such a vehicle be? One seeming limitation of the Black Series is that the figures are just too large to occupy vehicles, because the vehicles would have to be really large. The only vehicles to date are two versions of the Imperial speederbike, and, if you loosely define vehicles as any thing a figure can mount, then a Taun Taun. Any vehicle, in order to maintain the accuracy and a general sense of scale, the vehicles would have to be huge.

      I’ve been wanting to write about the Black Series figures for a while now, but as with all things Coffin-related, the time just hasn’t been available. I grabbed Kylo Ren on Force Friday, and thought “This is what I’ll do my first review on,” but that didn’t happen. Two weeks ago I got a Toys R Us exclusive First Order Snowtrooper Commander, and I thought, “This is what I’ll do my first review on.” But that didn’t happen.

      My first Black Series review needed to be something big, something really big.

     And then, it happened.

     Yesterday, my wife and I stopped at a Toys R Us. Toys R Us had the gigantic Black Series TIE Fighter. My wife, being an incredible person, gave me the coaxing I needed to buy it. The next few posts will be a review of the Black Series TIE Fighter.