Nien Nunb - TFA - Build A Weapon (Snow)

A Sullustan pilot who was vital in bringing his people into the Rebellion during the Galactic Civl War, Nien Nunb continues to loyally serve Princess Leia Organa as a member of the Resistance.

It appears that as Admiral Ackbar gets lighter with age, Nien Nunb conversely gets darker. Well, at least this is true in the action figure world. Aside from the three main heroes Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa, the next best announcement of characters were the “B status” main hero alien characters like Admiral Ackbar and Nien Nunb. Long time Star Wars fans were ecstatic to see these characters in the new Star Wars film. Not only was their addition to The Force Awakens relevant to help tie things closer together between Episode VI and Episode VII, fans love these characters for their role and antics during the Battle of Endor. It is truly wonderful to see them in a slightly different light in The Force Awakens. They’re still carrying the torch of freedom fighters, but they’ve slid a little farther into the background, which is fine because they had their heyday in the greatest trilogy of Star Wars films ever created: the Original Trilogy. Perhaps Hasbro felt they could capture the old timer collectors by adding them into the Build A Weapon line, but we think the gesture would have been much more widely appreciated had they reserved them for The Black Series [Phase III] Walmart exclusive 3.75” line. Well, we know we would have appreciated it so much more.

Let’s be frank. Nien Nunb looks pretty darn good. He isn’t perfect and Hasbro has once again jerked us around with regards to his proper height (we don’t care what Wookieepedia says – we look to the Original Trilogy visuals for our facts). We should also point out the paint operations on his face are still problematic. Why is it so difficult to master the appropriate coloring of his facial features? For us it is a bit maddening and we wish someone at Hasbro would pay keen attention to what would make Nien Nunb completely screen accurate. So what do we address first? Let’s talk about Nien Nunb’s height. In the Hasbro line alone, he has gone from normal, to extremely tall to extremely tall back down to normal (what we consider the TFA Build A Weapon figure). If you line up all of your Nien Nunb action figures to date, you’re going to find that you have a rollercoaster ride of varying sizes. It’s almost comical really. But the saving grace here is that Nien Nunb has an awesome and simple sculpt. He has a decent center of gravity too. We’re especially taken with his head sculpt as well as the range of motion that the ball-socket neck joint gives the head. It’s all been done very nicely here.

Nien Nunb’s face looks a little to dark to us, but Hasbro totally missed out on painting his mouth that famously slobbery red color. 2012’s TVC Nien Nunb (VC106) figure is much too pale. This one is much too colorful. And the just right sadly falls with 1997’s POTF2 [FF/TKC] Nien Nunb basic figure. Hasbro, decoratively, hasn’t gotten Nien Nunb right since the 1997 release. That’s a bit sad for us. That being said, Nien Nunb doesn’t look terrible. The coloring of the figure is rich and has incredible texture. Even though it isn’t 100% screen accurate, they did do a great job with what they did give the figure. He comes with a small Resistance blaster pistol, identical to the one they gave to the other Resistance figures. But we want to know what happened to his helmet. In our eyes, this was the item that gave Nien Nunb his exclusive The Force Awakens look. And Hasbro should have expended the extra money to give him his exclusive helmet. It’s a shame really. Without it, Nien Nunb just comes across as a “no new ground broken here” action figure that may look pretty good, but certainly doesn’t bring anything more to the table. He comes with a complex Build A Weapon accessory that looks like some sort of contraption you would find in the movie “Se7en”. Creepy.