Obi-Wan Kenobi/Super Battle Droid - LC - Geonosis Arena Showdown (2010 Edition) (1 of 6)

The Jedi Knights rush to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padmé from execution. The Jedi brandish their lightsabers against the Geonosian warriors and the massive army of battle droids, super battle droids and droidekas. All hope seems lost that any Jedi will survive this battle, then Yoda arrives with an army of clone troopers. Although many Jedi are lost that day, others survive this climactic battle that ushers in the Clone Wars.

We unfortunately have to report one setback in the 2010 Edition Geonosis Arena Showdown sets. All of them are just simply amazing, but the first set, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Super Battle Droid leaves a bit more to be desired. And it’s not because Hasbro used inferior sculpts. No, they actually used awesome sculpt for Obi-Wan Kenobi and even updated the Super Battle Droid and included ball-jointed ankles (bet you didn’t know that, right?). The problem with these figures is their paint jobs. We absolutely have no clue what in the world happened to Obi-Wan Kenobi at the factory level. After the stellar 2009 TLC Obi-Wan Kenobi (BD 44) figure came out, we pretty much all new that the definitive Episode II Obi-Wan Kenobi had arrived. Hasbro took that great sculpt and washed him out and nearly destroyed the awesome portrait paint job by making him look very similar to the catastrophic Luke Skywalker from the Battle At The Sarlacc Pit TARGET exclusive Battle Packs set. Well, to be fair it isn’t that horrific, but something went wrong with Obi-Wan Kenobi somewhere and we are very disappointed. Obi-Wan Kenobi is washed out and poorly painted and it hurts us to say that this is a version of Obi-Wan that should have never been released.

The thing to get excited about in this set is the Super Battle Droid. But don’t get 100% excited, maybe just 50%. A new Super Battle Droid is in the fourth wave of The Vintage Collection (released about three months after this figure set) and if we were betting people, we would assume that the Geonosis Arena Showdown Super Battle Droid may just be a “pre-paint” to the upcoming TVC Super Battle Droid (VC37) figure. (Editor's Note: Sadly, Hasbro opted to use the earlier sculpt of the Super Battle Droid for that release.) Yes, the Super Battle Droid has all-new ball-jointed ankles which do this figure a world of good. The additional articulation works wonders for the droid and we are ecstatic that Hasbro has enhanced the Super Battle Droid in this fashion. We have not seen this before and it helps out tremendous while attempting to pose this figure in action stances. Previous Super Battle Droid figure releases have been rather stagnant since the sculpt of the legs are in some sort of action pose. This is very encouraging that they are perfecting some of their best sculpt to make them even better than before. This is absolutely the direction we want to see Hasbro in to tweak figures when they seemingly get released time and again. It’s little things like this that make a purchase of another Super Battle Droid worthwhile. It took a while, but there is no better time than now to be happy about it!

Unfortunately, the Super Battle Droid got stuck in the weakest Geonosis Arena Showdown set thanks to the terrible Obi-Wan Kenobi. But the Super Battle Droid isn’t entirely perfect either. The droid is painted much too lightly. Thankfully, it appears that the correct color will be used for the basic figure in The Vintage Collection as production photographs have already proven. Still, it’s hard to not get excited over the inclusion of ball-jointed ankles on this imposing Separatist droid! The Geonosis Arena Showdown exclusives collectively are some of Hasbro’s finest exclusive work. (Editor's Note: Now we know this is the ONLY place you can secure a highly articulated Super Battle Droid with ball-jointed ankles.) They have chosen a key sequence from Attack Of The Clones are gave it the respect it deserves. As we have mentioned countless times before, we hope this isn’t the end for this series. We think it has a lot of life left in it. But in order to ensure its success, Hasbro is going to need to change up the figure and tweak them wherever possible. The Geonosis Arena Showdown sets are certainly responsible for piquing interest in a film that tends to get overlooked. The Obi-Wan Kenobi/Super Battle Droid set has its share of issues, but this upgrade to the Super Battle Droid is very noteworthy.