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Mace Windu
Arena Confrontation

I can't find any new Star Wars figures, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for Sean Teeter, with another great guest review...

It’s Sean Teeter, back again from the film location of The Goonies and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. Here he is, the anticipated Mace Windu, Arena Confrontation from Hasbro’s latest figure release in the Saga line.





Packaging - ***
The packaging is the same blue-backed blister card, blah, blah, blah . . . I’ve pretty much covered this section in previous reviews of Hasbro’s line.

Sculpting - **
What does Hasbro have against Mace Windu? At this point there have been a total of five Mace Windu figures, 2 from the Episode 1 line and three from the Saga line (there’s a sixth one due out later this year with the Jedi High Council Saga Scene pack). It’s a sad comment when the best of these was the original sneak preview figure for Episode 1. 

He’s not as bad as the horrid screaming, broken-arm look of the Geonosian Rescue version, but it’s still pretty bad. He’s permanently hunched over and his body’s balance makes it hard for him to stand unaided. The head bares a passing resemblance to Samuel L. Jackson, but Hasbro’s given him a goofy-looking grin that just ruins his look. I’m sure it’s supposed to look like a sneer or something, but he just looks odd, especially from the side. Mace’s arms are sculpted from soft rubber with plastic hands glued into the ends of the sleeves. They’re made this way for the figure’s action feature. They look okay, but the glue around the wrists is a little sloppy. I wonder how long the hands will stay put with all the bending and pulling from the action feature. From the waist down, everything looks okay. The boots are nicely detailed and the legs have some nice wrinkles. His stance could have been a little wider to compensate his top-heavy balance.

Oh yeah, the best part: there’s a frigg’n hole through Mace’s chest! It’s needed for the action feature, but it just looks horrible. The Jedi robe hides most of it while Mace’s arms are in a lowered position. Raise his hands however, and it looks like Mace ran into one of those chest-bursters from Aliens. The metal rod sticking through it doesn’t help either.

Paint - ** ½
There isn’t really much to paint on this figure. The boots are okay, but there’s some sloppy bleeding onto his pant legs. The face ops are clean, but don’t help the smile sculpt. 

Articulation - ** ½
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water . . .
Eek! Action feature! Any chance of poseability goes out the window on this figure because of its light saber control feature. Mace is designed for such a specialty action that he can’t do much else. He has four standard articulation points: the neck, waist, and 2 hip cuts. The arms are attached to the bent metal rod stuck through his chest. Turn and twist the big plastic tab attached to the end of the rod and the arms will follow. While they do have a decent range of movement, the arms cannot be left in any other position besides thrust out in front of him.  Knee swivels would have been very helpful since he has a hard time standing up. 

The play value of this feature is kind of fun at times, but I feel that a figure designed for such a specific action should have been packaged with some more accessories and sold as a deluxe figure instead of a basic one. Ginsu Action Mace Windu with break-apart battle droids would have been fine. Can’t we get a standard Mace with articulation like the Secret Ceremony Anakin figure? I’d even settle for one that just looks normal. 

Accessories - **
It’s kind of hard to really judge the accessory value of this figure. Mace comes with a metal hilted light saber with a removable purple blade and a cloth robe. The light saber is molded on the end of a long metal rod sticking through him. It’s not designed to be removed from the figure. The actual hilt mold looks okay, but the black paint ops on the handle were already rubbing off because of the figure’s grip. The purple blade is the same as any other removable blade in this series, except for it’s unique color. The peg can be easily bent or snapped. However, it does make an excellent replacement blade for Mace Windu, Geonosian Rescue. Mace gets a cloth Jedi cloak, but it’s not removable. It’s more like a cape since the arms are sculpted to represent the sleeves. The cloak is made from thinner material than the one that comes with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Starfighter Pilot. It looks okay; I just wish it were a full, removable cloak.

Value - **
** is assuming you pay a standard store price ($4.50 to $5.50) for this figure. I have yet to find Mace in stores, but he should be in stock soon. Online, he’s considerably higher. If you want to open him for display, Kebco Toys has a non-mint sale going on, at $4.99 a pop. This is probably the cheapest price online. 

Brian's Toys has him for $11.99.
Star Wars Figures is asking $14.98.
Of course, there’s always my favorite place in the world: Ebay. He isn’t really in wide release right now, and this always creates artificial price inflation in the Star Wars community. Wait for the store price, he isn’t worth paying anything more.

Overall - **
What can I say? The minute I saw that big plastic knob sticking out of his back, I groaned. It got worse when I saw the huge hole through his chest. Is it too much to ask for a truly basic action figure? Mace is a popular guy, yet Hasbro keeps giving us some really awful versions of him. The only other character that’s been constantly subjected to this is Anakin, but in the midst of all his horrible versions, there are one or two keepers. Here’s to hoping that the Mace Windu from the upcoming Jedi Council set doesn’t come with spring-loaded boots or built-in force-action rocket launchers. . .

If you’re a complete-ist, pick one up to hang on the wall with your other carded figures –just don’t pay too much. His light saber control is kind of fun to play with, but it gets old, and he doesn’t display loose that well. 


Figure from the collection of Sean Teeter.

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