Super behind on these awesome figures, let’s take a look at
one my wife got me for my birthday over the summer: Ronin Boba Fett. As was
detailed several months ago with Samurai General Darth Vader, this line of
roughly 8” figures takes Star Wars characters and reimagines them in the
aesthetic of feudal Japan. Ronin were unattached samurai that traveled around
seeking employment, which sounds pretty bounty hunterish to me.
Longtime favorite character Boba Fett is already a great
visual character, and one that feels like it slips into this creative
reimagining effortlessly. Already being a person wearing stylized armor, this
version simply trades the space armor for samurai armor. I say “simply,” but
this is the precise kind of reimagining that is usually so, so difficult to
execute well and not have it come across as “just” being an armor swap. But the
design here pulls it off really well, again in that way that seems effortless
to one unfamiliar with design and sculpting. From the helmet to the sandals, this
is a painstaking adaptation of perhaps one of Star Wars’ most iconic looks, and
it hits on every level. Visual details such as the Madalorian insignia and the
little chest detail that I’ve always thought was the planet Saturn are there,
as well as the basic design of the chest plate. Touches like Boba’s wrist
rocket are present, this time in the form of a throwing knife. We’ll get to
this, but the rocket backpack is outstandingly rendered in this feudal style,
and these synonym moments help establish this figure as something new and
different from the original, which is probably the most exciting thing about
the series.
Fett’s helmet by itself is a masterpiece of artistry,
absolutely capturing the source material while simultaneously being a thing
never before seen while ALSO being completely familiar outside of the context
of Star Wars. It looks like a helmet that would be on a displayed suit of
armor, vacant and empty, yet somehow exhibiting life from behind a deep black
interior. The panels that form the sides of the helmet are not attached to the
black underneath, truly creating a sense of mystery as there is no visible
face, but this is also not a visor as is found on actual Boba Fett. So, maybe
like a haunted suit of armor. There are details all over the helmet, including
the metallic painted and moveable antenna on the right side. The dark maroon
paint that surrounds Fett’s visor is very dark and matte on this figure,
looking like paint the warrior would have applied to his own finely crafted
helmet, a touch of personal modification as opposed to something that was added
to the helmet as part of a plan. Simply put, the helmet is gorgeous, and
captures attention for full minutes at a time upon every viewing.
The paint is a really interesting teal, more seafoam than
green or blue, with excellent weathering on the forearms and legs. The chest is
relatively clean, but the clothing underneath the armor is dirtied up quite a
bit. Accessory-wise, Boba Fett comes with a ton of hands in various stages of
openness, ranging from closed fists to almost flattened palms, allowing him to
gesture and hold his array of weapons. The weapons range from various throwing
knives and blade weapons, most of which can slot into grooves above his ankles,
to a samurai sword, to his trademark EE-3 blaster, another piece of the figure
that is magnificently reimagined into this aesthetic. The blaster even has a
moveable hammer, and the scope is legitimately a spyglass. The stock of the
weapon is rendered to look like wood, and the barrel metal. But it looks like
an old musket rifle.
The rocket pack is also a total masterpiece, a highly
stylized and detailed piece painted in a slightly dull silver. So, not anything
shiny, but like the helmet, a detailed piece that is well painted and thus is a
real attention grabber. There are metallic blue highlights on the engines and
cones of the rockets, and they make for excellent highlights, though I don’t
know if they are supposed to indicate anything about the actual rocket pack:
they are not scorch marks or anything similar, although if I had to guess I’d
probably say they were supposed to represent heat effecting the metal that the
backpack is made from. So, not scorch marks like burns, but clear indications
of the metal having been heated and cooled from use. (I like that, let’s run
with it. –mr) The thrusters look like they should be moveable, but I haven’t
seriously tried to do so, as they seem to be attached via a thin peg and I’m
not interested in stressing or breaking it. The entire pack is removable.
Boba Fett has a great assortment of joints, including double
elbows and knees, wrists, ankles, and a waist, a ball jointed head and
shoulders and hips. The various skirt pieces and shoulder pads do get in the
way of some movements, and the figure, and the series of figures in general,
require some patience when posing do correctly deal with all the moving parts.
Boba Fett’s posing is complicated by the fact that this piece enters the Coffin
collection having been previously owned, so some of the joints are already
really loose. The ankles in particular on this piece are loose, or were at very
least, as some clear nail polish tightened them up a lot, but needed several
coats to do so. I think back with General Darth Vader I’d been wondering what
would happen if the joints began to betray a figure like this, and the answer
is not at all good. Prior to some polish, this guy was real floppy, and would
without provocation pitch forward on the shelf because the ankles would just
let go. It’s those smaller joints that seem to suffer, ankles and wrists,
although other parts, like the shoulder armor, which attach via a simple and
small ball and socket, and those types of joints do tend to wear out anyway.
Again, some nail polish fixes things at least for the immediate present, and
these are not toys that get a whole ton of in-hand time anyway, so even if nail
polish is used to solidify an ankle for standing, the end result is a stable
and attractive figure.
 |
| Psht. . . nothing personel, kid. |
This figure, like the others in the Movie Realization
series, are so unique and so stylized that I find them really difficult to talk
about. They are things that need to be looked at to be appreciated, and talking
about them like “normal” action figures doesn’t seem to do justice to them. It
makes me feel like I lack the language to really work through a review of them,
but they are so terrific that I feel that I have to try regardless. This Boba
Fett is really difficult to come by, and if people buy these figures based on
their aesthetic value, it’s easy to understand why. On the shelf that houses my
entire collection of these, Boba Fett explodes out thanks to the amazing color
scheme against a group of Stormtroopers and Sith lords. Future releases for the
line look to include New Trilogy characters, so that shelf is no doubt going to
grow ever more crowded over the next few years.
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