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SaeSee Tiin and Plo Koon



One set of Star Wars figures you can never have too many of are Jedi Masters.  Well, and bounty hunters of course.  But everyone loves Jedi, and Hasbro has provided two more of the members of the council.

Neither Saesee Tiin or Plo Koon had big parts - they're 'blink and you'll miss them' characters - but now when the actors who portrayed these aliens show up at the comic conventions to do signings, you'll have a cardback for them to scratch their John Hancock upon.

I picked up both at Wal-mart, $5.86 each although they were marked $6.74.  Word is they are also showing up at Target, and should be hitting Toys R Us soon.

Packaging - **
Same package, different day.  God, I think I've already said that before.  Deja vous is setting in...

Articulation - ***
Both figures have decent articulation for this scale.  Saesee has 7 points - neck, shoulders, waist, hips, and the left arm has a cut joint for swinging that saber.

Plo Koon has him beat though with 8 points.  He has cut joints on both arms, allowing him to have quite a few interesting poses.  This is a step up for Hasbro, and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised.

Of course, the solid robes make the use of the waist and hips pretty much useless, and these robes are almost impossible to remove.  Even if you could, the arms would no longer match up.  I suppose Hasbro figures you can't have it all.

Accessories - ***
Jedi's only need one thing - their light saber.  Both characters have one, nicely sculpted, that fits in their hand nicely.  The arm joints make it possible for them to show off the sabers as well.  

Let's not talk about the stupid little pieces of paper that also comes with these. I think I've made it clear just how worthless these are in past reviews.

Sculpting - ****
Occasionally Hasbro gets it right, and on both these figures the head sculpts are fantastic.  I am particularly impressed by Plo Koon, but Saesee Tiin is also extremely well done.  I wish they hadn't sculpted the robes to make them so impossible to remove, but the head and hand sculpts make up for any other shortcomings.

Paint Ops - ***1/2
This is were you have to be careful.  The paint operations on both figures I picked up were great, but I did see quite a bit of variation in Saesee Tiin figures.  All the Plo Koons I've seen looked good, but the amount of spray and color on Tiin's face varied tremendously.

Value - ***
At six bucks each, these are pretty much on target.  Since Hasbro has had a suggested retail price of a buck lower ever since they dropped the Commtech chips, you'd think more retailers would follow along.  I think that only Wal-mart has dropped their prices so far though.

Overall - *** for Plo Koon, ***1/2 for Saesee Tiin
We're up to, uh...six Jedi Masters?  And I'm not counting Qui-Gonn, Obi-Wan or Anakin.  I was truly disappointed in Aurra Sing, but these two figures prove once again that when Hasbro is on, they do a great job.  Aurra proved that when their off, they suck like a Hoover.


Figure from the collection of Michael Crawford

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