Ree-Yees - TBS [P1] - Basic (#28)

One of the lowlife criminals in Jabba the Hutt's palace on Tatooine. Ree-Yees is part of the excited crowd that eagerly watches Luke fight for his life in the rancor pit.

The character Ree-Yees, as an action figure, has an interesting trend. It gets updated about once every decade and a half. And that’s a span of time that could send obsessive compulsive collectors to the loony bin. Kenner made the now classic version of this Gran drunkard in the original vintage line all the way back in 1983. Then Hasbro decided they’d make us wait and delivered a relatively stellar version of him for The Power Of The Force “2” line Freeze Frame phase in 1998. But that figure proved difficult to lock down. Then another "lifetime" passed us by and we FINALLY now have the definitive update in the controversial The Black Series line. (Oh how a modern update to a classic Kenner figure like this makes our hearts terribly ache that The Vintage Collection is on indefinite sabbatical!) As you can see, intentional or not, Hasbro makes collectors sweat. But in their defense, we probably would never give them any indication that we’d be thoroughly content anyway even if we got all that we wanted. (There would always be something else they didn't update.) And they could never keep up with the demand of what characters we would want to see realized in 3.75” scaled plastic and with all of the brutal roadblocks in their path the last few years (whether it was Hasbro generated or not). It hasn’t been easy for anyone involved to support the line it needs to be a raging success whether due to distribution issues or lack of interest in the products they make. Thankfully, Hasbro is still leaking gems into the line, and you can rest assured that Ree-Yees is one of them. Not completely perfect, but almost there, we can hopefully assuage your fears that Ree-Yees brings positivity big time for lovers and collectors of the collector-focused basic figure line. And honestly, it is so encouraging to see characters associated with Jabba the Hutt given attention and still get made with such precision and love 30 plus years after the fact.

Jedi Temple Archives attended Hasbro’s 2013 New York Comic Con Preview Part event, and during a Q&A session with Hasbro, Jeff Labovitz (overseer of the boys’ brand at Hasbro) let is slip to JTA that Ree-Yees was confirmed and in production for The Black Series line. By our reaction (eager surprise and excitement), he realized he let this tidbit slip out accidentally and the blood began rushing out of his face. He obviously was concerned over the newly leaked info. After all, JTA reports confirmed stuff the moment we come across it. The news was on our front page within five minutes. But it was hugely newsworthy of immediate attention because collectors had been waiting over a decade at the time to see this classic character get the much deserved update he needed. We’re happy to report that although not entirely flaw free, Ree-Yees should excite all fans of this Return Of The Jedi character to a very high degree, and those who love heavily articulated action figures will be happy to get the most articulated version of Ree-Yees to date. Ree-Yees has a dynamic and amazingly accurate sculpt. This is greatly enhanced with the flesh-colored wash Hasbro gave him. When compared to the very good POTF2 version, you can see how much modern technology allowed Hasbro to update and correct things that just weren’t up to par in the past. Ree-Yees is able to move like he never could before now and that alone is reason for celebration. And aesthetically we don’t think Hasbro could have designed a more screen accurate version of him. This is it folks! The 1998 POTF2 version, while great, has overstayed its welcome at this point and looks instantly obsolete when compared to The Black Series version (although the paint operations were better in 1998 sadly). And with just a few paint operations issues on the 2014 TBS release (not terrible by our own assessment), we can easily confirm that Ree-Yees meets definitive status for our discriminating eyes and we believe the same will be true for you.

Ree-Yees comes with 12 points of articulation. And before any of you have a hissy fit, there is no reason he needed to be given articulated ankles. He is absolutely perfectly articulated. If you feel otherwise about this we're telling you you're wrong. Even the articulation he does come with at times can be inhibited. Ree-Yees is wearing an outfit where the hem of the jacket dips below his waist line, so his leg movement is already slightly hindered at the hips. So why would anyone obsess about no ankle joints? Ree-Yees has a strong center of gravity and is flatfooted so you will have no problems posing him in any display. And for us, this is one of the most important details an action figure can have. He comes with plenty of premium articulation including a ball-socket head, ball-jointed shoulders, ball-jointed elbows, swivel wrists, a ball-socket waist, swivel hips and ball-jointed knees. He has all the articulation you need to be relevant. This is only bettered by his base paint job which is quite impressive. His outfit doesn’t have a metallic sheen to it like the POTF2 version, but who knows if that was even accurate and not a random decision of Hasbro’s to make the figure more interesting. Interestingly, he comes with two guns, a blaster rifle and blaster pistol which mimic the the same weapons the POTF2 figure came with and it’s a gesture we appreciate thoroughly. The vintage Kenner long barreled gold gun is nowhere to be found, but that’s alright. The biggest issue we have are his eyes which were sloppily applied. They could have been tightened up, but we’re not going to obsess about them, otherwise we will sacrifice the joy we feel in our hearts for this spectacular release. Ree-Yees meets 99.9% of our expectations, so we won’t let those issues that make up .1% of this figure ruin our day. Neither should you.