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Never Forget - The ICMG Petition

Captain Antilles
(Senate Security)

Oh Hasbro, how you taunt us so! Yes, the toy god’s have spoken, and this week’s figure for review doth sucketh. Hasbro is so unimpressive with this latest offering that it’s amazing that this figure even got through the design process without some kind of intervention. Aside from him being about as interesting as cream cheese, Hasbro just managed to also make what is arguably one of the worse figures in the entire Revenge of the Sith line so far as well.

I speak of course, of the good Captain Antilles (Senate Security), for he is the figure that reminds me that not all is well in Rhode Island, and that the basic figure line can take a turn for the worse at any given moment. I guess that whole thing about softgoods accessories, articulation, and “collector-oriented” figures went out the window with this guy (and his wave in general).

But, is he REALLY that bad? I mean, does Antilles really have no redeeming qualities? Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but he’s pretty up there in suckage from my point of view, and he’s gonna take a good old fashioned pummeling for it too! But he only gets what he deserves. Hasbro’s proven they can do better than this, and they fell far short of the benchmark with this one, especially when compared to the Bail Organa figure most folks would want to team him with on their shelf. And with that, we’re onto the beat… err, I mean the review...

PROS

-Sculpt: Personally, while I’ve heard some criticism of the figure’s looks, I actually felt Hasbro did well with the sculpt of Antilles. From head-to-toe he’s not bad, and lives up to Hasbro’s usual standards. It’s a rare thing when they really botch something up in this department anymore… Likenesses may be off though, but they actually seemingly got this guy’s mug down pretty good as well so there’s at the very least a satisfactory sculpt here if not a pretty sharp one.

For instance, the uniform features a lot of folds and such that add realism to it. The pants tuck into the boots and whoever sculpted him made sure to add extra creases and folds at this very spot. The look is one that makes you think the pants look tremendously realistic and like they really go into separately sculpted boots almost, and it’s a neat little effect.

Also the uniform features almost a “bib” of sorts that covers the torso on the front and back. It’s sculpted so it actually looks like it’s sort of separate of the body… Not totally, but it’s still a neat effect that sets this figure’s sculpt apart from some figures. The uniform also features some nice striping sculpted into the legs, arms, and “bib” thing, as well as these two lines sculpted on his collar and shoulder for some reason. These are all nice little details added to the figure and that only increase the quality of it.

Details like the character’s gauntlet, belt/holster, and footwear are all also nicely sculpted, and stand out on the figure. His left arm features a gauntlet that has ribbing and a small artistic design sculpted into it, and is very intricate and tiny. It’s one of those things that’d be easy to overlook on a figure marked by many shortcomings but it’s definitely nice to see these little details sculpted into the figure.

The figure’s belt is a separate sculpt with a working holster (always a nice feature), and it looks pretty sharp hanging off the figure’s hip. While Organa’s holster was molded to the leg, Antilles’ is hanging off the belt and that’s something I can dig on one figure but not on another. For instance, on VOTC Han Solo it’s not so cool since the holster is to tie to his thigh and thus move with him… But on, say, a Rebel Fleet Trooper, a free-hanging holster is cool. On Antilles here, it looks pretty good since the holster is just to hang there, and it actually looks a bit more realistic than Organa’s.

Antilles’ boots are no less interesting to look at, as they’re sculpted to have many folds and creases in them, and they do look tremendously realistic. There’s sculpted on buckles on the top of the feet, and on the sides some more artistic design/patterns are sculpted into them. Little details like that are neat, and apparently spiffy footwear and gauntlets are carry-overs in the Alderaan military or whatever because Organa features similar little details in his figure’s sculpt. But, on the issue of the boots, I will say that the sculptor unnecessarily sculpted them pre-posed unfortunately, but we’ll touch on that one in the “Cons” portion of the review.

The headsculpt also stands out as fairly well done and accurate to the character’s picture on the card. While it would’ve been nice to have the scars sculpted a bit just so they didn’t look so weird painted on, that’s about my only gripe. The sculpt features the terrible hair-do that the character had, and there are plenty of subtle lines sculpted into his brow and the hair to make the figure look a little more realistic than some past sculpts.

Sculpt is a big part of the equation on every figure, and Antilles has that much going for him at least. He’s got a long ways to go though to live up to the standards of the ROTS line, and sculpt isn’t everything, by far.

-Paint Aps/Deco: Antilles wins another positive mark with another important aspect of any figure; the paint applications. The keys that make Antilles good are the various colors, the clean application overall, and the little extra efforts with “washes” on some parts. There is a drawback on the painted-on scarring on Antilles’ face, and that’s something I’ll touch on later but the rest is pretty spiffy.

The figure’s nicest application of paint, as I can tell, is on the shoes and gauntlet. These parts are colored a brown or purplish plastic however Hasbro put a hefty darker brown wash on both the boots and gauntlet that give them a very realistic leather look.

The striping around the uniform also features a bit of paint application and my sample doesn’t have paint bleeding onto the uniform which is nice. The stripes are painted grey and it’s pretty clean all over. The stripes on the collar and left shoulder also feature a clean application of black paint that sets them off from the light color of the uniform.

Antilles’ head features painted-on brown hair, and the paintjob on mine doesn’t bleed onto the face at all. The eyes and eyebrows are painted nicely and if you look REALLY close you can see that the eyes are layers of paint for the whites, iris, and pupil. The eyes are so small on this figure though, it’s tough to see that extra effort, but in the end they’re straight as well so no complaints from me. I’ve yet to see a clone with his helmet off that wasn’t cross-eyed though.

So aside from the scarring, the paintjob’s not bad at all on Antilles. Like sculpt though, paint applications are only a single spoke in the wheel of a great figure. They’re a part that can often go awry though, depending on just how good (or bad) quality control was on the day your figure was made, so let’s move on and see how Antilles stacks up in other ways.

-Accessories: Captain Antilles actually comes with a decent number of accessories, and for a dull figure that’s pretty good. It makes him look a little better in the packaging. Like he’s a little more bang for your buck I guess. He needs it too, that’s for sure.

Antilles comes with a removable plastic cape, a newly sculpted blaster pistol, a small headset, and a multi-colored stand that has been used with other figures in the ROTS line. That’s not a bad count, and the cape features a nifty paintjob too. The cape is even a dramatic improvement over the cape that Bail Organa came with I believe. The cape Antilles comes with actually has a bit of texture sculpted into it that the Organa cape doesn’t have, and a nicely painted line around its edges similar to Organa’s.

The pistol, while similar to Organa’s gun, is an all-new sculpt and when compared to each other you notice they’re completely different. It’s a very nice little gun with lots of detail, and cast in silver. It looks like Alderaan and Naboo have the same arms dealer because their guns don’t look anything like the guns from the classic films really. The pistol fits snugly into its holster too so that’s always a plus. Hasbro got everything right there.

The headset is a weird little accessory similar to the one that comes with the Senator Mon Mothma figure in the ROTS line. It just sort of rests on the figure’s head, but it’s tiny and has a lot of detail. It too is a nice little extra, and my figure’s headset seems to almost hold itself by hooking to the figure’s ears, though there are no noticeable holes or anything. It just has a very snug fit I guess.

The last accessory is the base, which has been re-used among many figures in the ROTS line. It simulates deck plating on a ship, or a floor of a building on Coruscant or something. It’s nice and the ones that come with Antilles and Organa are painted uniquely to have small white bits on the little section of “wall” that the base has, which I assume is to imply that they’re in the hallway of the Corellian Corvette they ride around in.

That’s a fair number of unique accessories there, and I like the cape a LOT more than Organa’s. Antilles comes out a winner then with accessories, but he’s got a ways to go yet and it’s pretty much all downhill now.

CONS

-Articulation: Without a doubt, Antilles is an IMMENSE letdown when it comes to articulation. Hasbro kind of had me used to nicely articulated figures even since back in the Original Trilogy Collection Line. The Rhode Island crew had really improved the modern line by leaps and bounds, albeit through little baby steps over the years, and now with ROTS they really had some nice figures on their hands. Lots of super articulation, or at least close, within the Collection 2 figures, but suddenly then stuff started to trail off. It started with the Neimodian Warrior wave and now the Captain Antilles Wave seems to be even another step backwards.

Captain Antilles features articulation at:

-2 standard shoulder joints
-2 standard wrist joints
-2 standard hip joints
-1 angle-cut right elbow joint
-1 ball/socket neck joint
-1 standard waist joint

And with a total of 9 points of articulation, the good Captain Antilles is starting to not look quite so good. This is obviously this figure’s biggest downfall, especially when he’s compared to even the Collection 2 Palpatine figure in his black robes! I mean, when that old fart has more articulation then something is amiss.

But more than that, Captain Antilles is such a similar figure to the Bail Organa figure released on April 2nd, that it really shows the figure’s shortcomings for poseability. Organa features ball/socket joints galore, elbow joints that match and he just turned out substantially better than Antilles. It’s a huge letdown, and probably the single-worst feature of this figure. You give this guy the same articulation points as Bail Organa and I guarantee you all that this review would be a polar opposite. I could take any other flaws he may have and still give him a thumbs-up if it weren’t for the terrible articulation.

The ultimate point here is that this figure should’ve at least had the same articulation as Bail Organa for it to be considered of any level of quality. Boring or not, it’s a huge disappointment for the guy walking with Organa to not be as poseable as he is, and as a collector it’s unfortunate. I even think some re-used parts from Organa would’ve been acceptable (the upper legs and upper arms), however for those wanting a straight re-use of the Organa sculpt for Antilles, they are completely different outfits so that’s not good at all. Not if you care about accuracy anyway.

But I easily could see them re-using the parts I listed, and giving us an Antilles figure that can hold his own among the other figures of the ROTS line. As of now though, he’s one of the weakest, and that much more dull of a figure than he already was. Huge thumbs-down on articulation this time, and I really hope this isn’t a bad sign of the future of the line.

-Bad Scars: In an otherwise nice paintjob, Hasbro really didn’t do swift with the scarring on Antilles. It looks like he just had a mishap while correcting some homework when his red market went awry. It’s maybe not entirely Hasbro’s fault on the scarring though, as Antilles’ scars looked pretty damn goofy in the movie too. For some reason Anakin just scars better I guess.

In the end this is minor, but it’s of note. It stands out, especially being on the figure’s face, so it’s something of note no matter who is at fault. A sculpted scar/line there with a bit of a lighter color maybe would’ve looked a little better. The paint they used just seems a bit bright to me. This is definitely not something helping him though.

-Preposed Feet: One thing I really dislike to see on any figure in the line, and it creeps up from time-to-time with various figures, is when the figure’s sculptor decides he/she is going to get a little flashy and pre-pose a figure in some way or another. Sometimes it’s very subtle though, but it’s still detrimental to the end-result. That’s the problem Antilles faces, as a subtle sculpting of his ankles in a walking/bent position winds up being a bit of a problem with standing the figure and just how he generally looks. Couple that with weak articulation and you’ve got an ugly scenario.

The ankles on Antilles are bent, as I noted, so the left foot must be posted behind, and as if the figure is walking. My sample’s got a tough time standing then, or when I do get him standing he’s relatively easy to topple. His stand’s nice for that problem, however I don’t think any figure should fall over easily really, and every figure should be able to be posed without the stand when you want to.

With knee articulation, the slightly posed ankles can be less of a problem. Case-in-point, the Ki-Adi Mundi figure has posed ankles that I don’t care for but his ball/socket knee joints makes up for it since you can get him in some different poses and you can get him to stand without his stand quite easily. Antilles though, not so lucky, and the ankles were completely unnecessary to be bent and “posed” like this.

OVERALL

OK, it’s no secret I’m not fond of this figure. I didn’t care for Captain Antilles when I saw early pictures of him and now that I have him in my possession I just feel that my suspicions of his potential craptacular status are now justified. My question then is whether or not this is what we can expect in the future of the line? If this is the future, I can only view it as a huge evolutionary leap backwards for the modern line.

As I said, the Original Trilogy Collection really wowed us with lots of great character choices, detail, and of course there was a lot of articulation being thrown around. I mean, all 3 figures from the “Cantina Wave” were sporting 12 points of articulation each! That’s sometimes not even the best, most diverse articulation, however it’s still a lot and just that articulation would’ve made the Captain Antilles figure so much better. I’m not asking for super articulation, just nice articulation, and Bail Organa’s figure should’ve been the standard that Captain Antilles would meet. Sadly, he fell way short.

The sculpt is fine though, the accessories are great, and if only his articulation were better then this review would be a complete 180 of its current harsh tone. Sadly, Hasbro decided to skimp on a figure that I can only assume we won’t see resculpted in the modern line. My opinion’s a big thumbs-down though.

And since we have him now, all I want to know is who the hell this guy is. Raymus, Colton, or a combination of the two names… This guy’s identity is all over the place anymore. Given that the guy in A New Hope and the guy in Revenge of the Sith appear to be around the same age, I’m going to just assume these two aren’t the same man. The fact they have different hair colors doesn’t help any argument that these are the same guy either. I’m just lost on who is who, but I’m going with the idea the two Captains from the two films are NOT the same guy despite what some people are saying. I can’t bite on that.

Anyway, what was going on? Oh yeah, Captain Antilles (Senate Security) is a pretty bad figure. He’s one of the worse in the ROTS line, and definitely a figure who needed more articulation, hands down. I say pass unless you’re a completist or just want someone to stand next to your fun, poseable, Bail Organa figure. Hasbro can, and should do better than this figure, so let’s hope he’s not showing us a potential trend for the future.

 

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