Gragra - TSC - Basic (SAGA 052)

She may not be one of "the principal 52 Girls of the USA" but she is "52" in her own little way. (We will give special props to any of you who get that reference.) Gragra is numbered SAGA 052 in The Saga Collection. Originally intended to be the very last figure of The Saga Collection before Hasbro canceled the line, it all changed when 22 more figures were confirmed in a surprise announcement by Hasbro during 2006's San Diego Comic Con. (We didn't mind of course.) But before that, Gragra caused a minor stir of controversy in mid 2006. When the rumor reports for the second Return Of The Jedi themed wave of figures were being prepared, many misread Gragra as Gargan (as in Yarna 'd'al Gargan) and as a result there was a brief outcry of joy that we all would get the opportunity to purchase our favorite fat chick from Jabba’s Palace. Well, that didn’t pan out as hoped obviously, but we still got another cool fat chick, but this time of alien origins. Gragra is the cranky female Swokes Swokes that was a gorgmonger on Mos Espa. She raised and harvested gorgs (also known as chubas - that's what they were called in Huttese) to sell on the streets for income. She definitely isn’t pretty, but Hasbro encapsulated her most garish traits well into the 3.75” interpretation of her and we’re proud to have her along for the ride in our collection.

Lady Gragra is an all-new figure. Limited with only nine points of articulation, she has the rare “jaw joint” that allows her mouth to open and close. This kind of makes up for her lack of articulation elsewhere. It’s not often when action figures come with this option, but for someone who has as big a mouth as hers, it’s the perfect addition to the articulation breakdown. Her likeness is very faithful to what we saw in The Phantom Menace and in fact we're quite impressed with how well Hasbro captured her facial details. On top of that she comes with a healthy amount of accessories including a vibro-axe and a bundle of delicious gorgs. These are of course the goods that Jar Jar Binks attempts to steal and ends up throwing them in Sebulba’s cocktail, splashing him. For someone who really just stands around, Hasbro has done a fair amount of good to this action figure, but perhaps it would be nice to see a revisit of her somewhere down the road where the swivel elbows are removed and some lower body articulation is added instead. (She has no articulation below the belt.) This will likely be next to never since she is a very obscure background character. Perhaps we should just count our blessings that she was even made.

It is also important to note that Gragra has a wonderful paint job. While this was never documented clearly in the collecting community, we absolutely remember seeing Gragra with two distinct paint jobs. One had a very pale wash in the face while the other had much darker wash which brought out more details. The specimen in our gallery is the "darker" detailed version.) Despite the good possibility that Gragra will never be visited again in the basic figure line, we feel she is essential to the basic figure line. And she really is an indirect tribute to the classic vintage line that ran from 1978 to 1985. What do we mean by that? Star Wars collecting has always been about the cool background aliens and weird and obscure humans that pepper the Star Wars universe. Here in this instance we get someone who actually speaks lines (albeit in a foreign language) and comes with a cool weapon and vittles for hanging. With all the incessant rehashing of main characters and army builders in the basic figure line, it’s nice to know that Hasbro is still committed to bringing collectors these wonderful one-off alien figures. Gragra is a great addition to the Star Wars line and we absolutely adore her mouth articulation. We wish Hasbro would steer away from the statuesque tendencies many of their recent action figures seem to be emulating 100% below the belt line, but even so, Gragra is one action figure where you can forgive her limitations and appreciate what positivity Hasbro has given her instead. This figure shouldn’t be missed.