Hey, guys! It’s DrunkWooky here back with another Action Figure review! Today, I’m taking a look at the Star Wars Black Series General Obi Wan Kenobi. Stateside, this is a Walgreen’s exclusive figure and it actually hasn’t started to be distributed to stores yet. I was lucky enough to grab one from my homeland over across the pond and I’m glad I did! This is the Obi Wan figure I’ve been waiting for!
If you have the Captain Rex Black Series figure or any of the other clone troopers, you should know what to expect for most of the body here, but Obi packs a few surprises. Use the nifty headings below to navigate! Let’s get into it!
Packaging
There’s nothing new here for long-time fans and collectors of the Black Series line. A nice big window box display with another beautiful Gregory Titus illustration on the lower right-hand side.
Sculpt
Like I said before, if you have the Captain Rex Black Series figure, you know what you’re getting here. Obi Wan isn’t a complete re-use of parts as there are unique aspects to him, but the main parts are the same sculpt as Rex.
Obi has his communicator sculpted onto his forearm armor together with the circular lapel armor pieces that hold his robe in place. There’s also a peg hole where Obi Wan’s lightsaber clips into his belt.
Of course, the main event is the head sculpt. While General Kenobi’s clone armor appearance is from the Clone Wars cartoon, the head sculpt is very much a Ewan McGregor head sculpt. To say that Obi Wan’s clone armor appearance is from the Clone Wars cartoon is to say that it’s from the Genndy Tartakovsky cartoon and not the Filoni computer animated cartoon. This figure is very much a mash up of live action Star Wars and Tartakovsky Clone Wars.
There’s a great level of detail in the beard and hair, with well-placed blue eyes that are crisp and clear. The shape of the face all seems to be correct as far as my impression of Ewan’s appearance and generally (pun intended) I’m happy with the head sculpt. If I have anything to complain about, I wish they would have done something to limit the exposure of the black neck join right under the chin.
Articulation
The articulation on Obi Wan is familiar if you already have Rex and some other clones. He has a ball and swivel neck joint, ball and swivel shoulders, double-swivel elbows and ball and swivel wrists. His waist twists, and if there is any crunch, it’s limited by the shape of the lower-rib portion of the armor. There are ball joints at the hips with bisected thighs hidden in the black under the white thigh armor. His knees are double-swivel jointed allowing for some nice bend and running poses, and the ankle is a ball and swivel. The ankle on the right foot of my Kenobi was a little stiff as I’ve come to learn is a common risk with Black Series and Marvel Legends figures.
As you can see from the picture above, Kenobi’s range of motion in the shoulders upward is a bit limited by the white shoulder pads of the armor. This small issue comes up again in the elbow. He’d be able to get well beyond 90 degrees of bend if it weren’t for the upper arm armor getting in the way. Whether or not these limitations throughout the armor are an issue is up for debate. In real life, if this armor were worn (as anybody in the 501st could tell you) the person inside would be limited in their motion. However, as you’ll see from the shots below, Obi’s posing options are numerous enough to get you just about all the poses you need. He can even achieve a double-handed cross-body lightsaber hold which is kind of my rule of thumb for arm articulation for Jedi.
Soft Goods
Obi gets a special category that not all Black Series figures get: soft goods! Unfortunately, this is one of the lower scoring areas of this figure. In terms of standards for Black Series soft goods, 40th Anniversary Darth Vader probably sets the expectation. His black cloak, while not wired, falls nicely with an adequate amount of weight to allow it to follow each pose Darth is put into.
Obi, on the other hand has a somewhat lighter brown cloak and tunic which basically comes as-is and won’t do much for you in terms of posing. You can shimmy his tunic under the belt to somewhat re-position it, but the cloak falls where it falls. Fortunately, it mostly falls in the right spot and isn’t an issue. The other issue is that the brown material is a little shear and a little too shiny for a battle-worn garment.
Paint/Accessories
And while we’re on low points, let’s address paint. Obi Wan’s face and hair are well done, which is important. The hair has a proper amount of blonde highlighting to match Ewan’s dirty-blonde/ light brown hair and beard, and the eyes are well-placed, clear, and smudge-free. Where Obi Wan gets into trouble is his lightsaber.
On first impression, I was wowed by the sculpt of Obi Wan’s lightsaber hilt and the gold paint on the small details. However, as I investigated further, I noticed that the rest of what should be the metallic silver hilt is just the color of the light gray plastic it’s cast in. I don’t know if this is an oversight on just my figure or uniform throughout, but this hilt should have a base coat of silver with flashes of black and gold on top of that.
Besides that, the accessories are great if not spartan. We expect nothing more for a Jedi General than a lightsaber, but he also comes with the triangular Black Series foot stand we first saw on the Gamestop Jump Troopers. This is appreciated for sure and I wish it were included with all Black Series figures. So far, just some exclusives have received this bonus. I guess all we could have asked for in addition was a Rex or Yoda hologram for Obi’s forearm, but that’s wish list stuff and I’m off to Photoshop to make that happen!
All in all, this figure is great fun! He really rounds out a clone collection of any size in spite of his minor faults.
That’s all for now! Thanks for reading! DrunkWooky out!
