Grand Admiral Thrawn - TBS [P3] - Six Inch Figures (47)

When Governor Pryce of Lothal wanted a stronger commander to dismantle the rebellion, the Empire answered with Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn was a male Chiss, with striking blue skin, red eyes, and an angular face, known for his brilliant strategic mind and ruthlessness.

One of the highlights of The Black Series [Phase III] San Diego Comic Con exclusives of 2017, Grand Admiral Thrawn got quickly repacked without all of his cool accessories and added to the first wave of figures for Force Friday II. Now Grand Admiral Thrawn (47) gets mainstream treatment with a boring red and black box and a sequence number so that everyone else in the collecting community has a chance to secure him for their collections too. Grand Admiral Thrawn is a stunning 6” figure. He easily falls under the “Hasbro’s best” banner with one simple look. Plus, Hasbro fixes a key paint operation error which makes us very happy and makes the figure screen accurate to its appearance in the Star Wars: Rebels television show. The sculpt is dynamic, and the paint operations are about as near perfect as you’d like to see, especially now. Granted, Grand Admiral Thrawn is NOT a complicated figure to paint correctly, but with Hasbro’s inconsistent effort on human and quasi-human characters’ paint operations, anything could have gone wrong here with Grand Admiral Thrawn. So let’s be honest about that. Grand Admiral Thrawn is a realistic interpretation of his character from Star Wars: Rebels. While we only get his blaster pistol with this release, it’s nice that Hasbro is keeping all of those other amazing accessories to the exclusive release. We’re not saying that $49.99 was value for the exclusive Grand Admiral Thrawn, but it’s nice to see that these extras won’t be easily attainable through other means.

Grand Admiral Thrawn comes with the standard 28 points of articulation. This count is across 17 areas of articulation. You don’t get any double hinge-jointed elbows with this figure, but you do get a nice range of movement from all of the ball-jointed points of articulation. His lower skirt is very pliable and allows you to pose his legs generously without being blocked. As you know well now, the “rocker” ankle joints are typically the saving grace for the center of gravity issues, and the same is true for Grand Admiral Thrawn. We’re extremely impressed with Grand Admiral Thrawn’s portrait. It’s different than you might expect it to be for a realistic interpretation, but Hasbro did a magnificent job in capturing the attitude of the character in this action figure’s facial expression. His arms and legs are proportionate and make sense. Some 6” figures come across as too lanky, but this isn’t the case at all for Grand Admiral Thrawn which makes us very, very happy. For us, it has been a chronic problem. But we’re proud to see it remedies here. He has a permanent, but functioning, holster. He comes with a blaster that can be housed beautifully in it when not in use. What’s more, the blaster pistol fits perfectly in his hands and he looks natural while pointing the gun as you see fit. Grand Admiral Thrawn has a great silhouette and truly looks the part an Imperial leader. We’re so happy the new Disney Star Wars Entertainment hasn’t completely turned their backs on the old Expanded Universe.

Perhaps the greatest “extra” here is fixing an error that is present in the exclusive version. For the San Diego Comic Con Grand Admiral Thrawn figure, Hasbro forgot to paint the background of his ranking badge silver in color. The red, yellow and blue rectangles on the badge were set against a white backing plate, and it looked off and stood out like a sore thumb. Now, Hasbro has painted this background plate in silver and, then they’ve applied the red, yellow and blue rectangles on top of it. We’re thankful that Hasbro has noticed this missing detail and updated the figure to be as screen accurate as possible. Grand Admiral Thrawn is a wonderful addition to The Black Series [Phase III] 6” line. Hasbro hasn’t made too many characters based on Star Wars: Rebels, but they’re certainly coming steadily now. Grand Admiral Thrawn looks fantastic posed next to more colorful characters like Sabine Wren and Hera Syndulla. It makes us appreciate the quality of these figures so much more when we’re able to cull together scenes based on them in the 6” line. Generally speaking, it doesn’t seem like we get enough characters to build scenes. It's great to have Hasbro focus on characters like these from Star Wars: Rebels, but it's the accessories that make the difference. We’re just not getting enough "stuff" with our figures anymore, and it would be nice to see more in the future. The MSRP for 6” figures is now $21.99, and this is upsetting collectors of this line very much. But if Hasbro keeps banging out great characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn, that may quell the complaining, for a little while longer.