Rey (Starkiller Base) - TFA - Build A Weapon (Snow)

Rey is a resilient survivor, a scavenger toughened by a lifetime of dealing with the cutthroats of the harsh desert world of Jakku.

Admittedly, we aren’t too keen on the Desert/Forest/Snow/Space designation of the figures in The Force Awakens mainline. It doesn’t seem to be gelling too well and figures that seem for example like they should be in the “Desert” category are actually in the “Snow” category and vice versa. Maybe this will make more sense once we all see the film. or maybe this is just the latest Hasbro convention and fancy way of still saying Collection 1, Collection 2, etc. The color coding is attractive on the packaging and for the most part it seems to work. But even still, there is still a bit of murkiness hanging around the way The Force Awakens line has been organized. Moving along, we feel quite strongly about something. Where Hasbro seemed to have dodged a bullet with the troopers in The Force Awakens line, it seems that not all is as great when it comes to human characters. We feel that this applies to Rey (Starkiller Base) a little. We don’t deny that the sculpts are pretty much fantastic, but a great sculpt will only shine by how well it’s been painted. Let us clarify.

The Force Awakens figures are a world away from the inferior figures we received in the Star Wars [Darth Vader/Revenge Of The Sith] and Rebels lines. yes, there were many great exceptions thank goodness in both, but these lines were the beginning of budget action figures and it was evident that Hasbro had a great deal of work to do before these figures were eligible to even receive the lowered MSRP they were given. The Force Awakens line is proof positive that the line has finally reached a new pinnacle with excellent sculpts and great paint operations. Yes, we acknowledge that. But as well as Rey (Starkiller Base) is sculpted, she still suffers from some sloppily applied paint that really messes with the figure’s aesthetics.... and you might be unwilling to appreciate just how good the figure is because of this. In particular, her eyes are just too sloppy. Why is Hasbro still having issues with this? The flesh-colored paint also looks too messy in spots. Another issue is that she looks like a porcelain doll. Painted faces on action figures always create this phenomenon, but Rey (Starkiller Base) looks too plastically for our tastes.

Where the figure remains strong however is in the sculpt and in the included accessories. She has a rather static pose, although one leg rests a little bit ahead of the other. Her arms are down by her sides and she has a ball-socket head joint which gives a nice range of movement that most of Hasbro’s simply articulated figures just haven’t had for a while now. It’s nice to see the return of this enhanced articulation point. She comes with a tall staff (perhaps some sort of unique blaster) with a strap attached to it. And then Hasbro gave her a very nice backpack that requires the collector/kid to plug the straps onto pins so she can wear it. It’s like almost having a real accessory for a 3.75” action figure. it’s very, very cool. Her outfit looks very nice, aside from those earlier paint operations issues and for the most part has a strong center of gravity. (She did fall over a few times while trying to photograph her for this review.) Rey (Starkiller Base) is a nice figure, it’s just that we wished Hasbro took a few different approaches with her instead. You’ll like be happy with her is you can deal with her simple articulation.