Obi-Wan Kenobi (A New Hope) - Ultimate Quarter Scale

Name: Obi-Wan Kenobi

Homeworld: Unknown

Born: 57 BBY

Species: Human

Height: 1.79 meters

Affiliation: Jedi Order

A Jedi Master of legendary status, Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi was directly involved with the meteoric rise and subsequent fall of Anakin Skywalker, his one-time Padawan and friend. Though he attempted to atone for this by hiding the existence of Luke and Leia Skywalker from their father, Kenobi viewed the creation of Darth Vader as his most significant failure.

Exiled to Tatooine after finding new homes for the newborn Skywalker twins, Obi-Wan took the name Ben and continued his vigilance over young Luke for many years before finally revealing himself and Luke's own Jedi heritage. His training of Luke and subsequent death at the hands of Darth Vader set the stage to finally fulfill the Jedi Prophecy and restore order to the Force.

The Ultimate Quarter Scale line is sadly at a disadvantage. Collectors tend to think that if something is bigger, its likeness should be better. Seemingly this trend proves itself over and over again, but when it comes to the UQS line, there is no guarantee that likeness will be spot on, even in this large-scaled format. Obi-Wan Kenobi, who actually has a frustratingly great head sculpt is made inferior by its paint job. The eyes are too blue and the wrinkles etched into his skin to show his aged appearance are made smooth thanks to an outer coat of applied paint. And these two factors work against would normally be a very impressive 1:4 scale figure. The Ultimate Quarter Scale line is going to constantly reuse their standard buck body to make all the characters they can from the Star Wars universe (and other licensees as well) so the line is going to feel similar in many ways from one figure to the next. This is why it’s extra important for Diamond Select Toys to throw all of the tooling dollars they can to design a brilliant portrait with an even better paint job to ensure that the best looking products come to retail. If anything, his head shape is a bit rectangular instead of the natural oblong shape we saw in Episode IV.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (A New Hope) is honestly a figure we’re thrilled to see made in this large scale, but we wished that a few precautionary measures were taken to give us DTS’s best. A simple Jedi gets a simple costume, but DST held nothing back when they designed the clothing for Obi-Wan Kenobi (A New Hope). His outer dark brown robe is long and has a wire in the hood to allow for maximum posing. It’s hard to imitate the exact drape of the hood from the film when he wore it in the “up” position, but you can accomplish quite a bit with it nonetheless. The figure comes with a total of four interchangeable hands. This is about the most we ever want to see of interchangeable hands, so this makes us very happy. Obi-Wan Kenobi also comes with his signature lightsaber and it’s been designed in two separate pieces: blade and hilt. The hilt is cast in a soft plastic however and its’ hard to maintain its straight shape. It wants to curve. And lastly, he comes with a training remote and “invisible stand” although it’s kind of useless without a Luke Skywalker farm boy figure to make use of it. Obi-Wan’s layers include an outer robe, belt, tabards, inner robes, pants and shirt. There is a lot of clothing here, but it’s what helps beef up the inordinately thin frame. DST did a great job here.

One thing we abhor in any of our collectibles, but especially a line like this that we believe is intended for collectors is the inclusion of electronics. Diamond Select Toys has deemed it necessary to add electronics here and a string of movie phrases. If you enjoy this type of things then more power to you, but it’s something we love to see abandoned altogether. Between the admirable attempt at the likeness and the generous amount of accessories, Obi-Wan Kenobi is the ideal quarter scale collectible on the market today. Sure, it won’t have the finesse of a Sideshow Collectibles piece, but don’t discount it for what it is. This isn’t obviously ideal if you’re looking for ultimate authenticity, but we suppose it’s the next best option we have since DST is committed to keeping this line significantly under $100 which given what is included with these figure no small feet. These aren’t rotocast hollow “figures”. They’re solid plastic action figures and are quite hefty. The amount of plastic DST has included here is staggering and we’re simply amazed how they have managed to keep the MSRP of this line at bay. If there is an extra saving grace here, you’ll find that the further you are from Obi-Wan Kenobi, the better he looks. He is attractive by distance. Maybe that too isn’t ideal, but there is charm with this UQS figure and we can’t wait to check out the others.