Kylo Ren - TFA - Build A Weapon (Snow)

A dark warrior strong with the Force, Kylo Ren commands First Order missions with a temper as fiery as his unconventional lightsaber.

Critics of The Force Awakens had MANY bones to pick about the film, but one of the funnier jibes was focused on teenage temper tantrum raged cry-bully Kylo Ren and why he even bothered wearing a disguising helmet. If you think about it, it is quite humorous. And if you think about it in a converse manner, it’s truly funny when you consider it some sort of reverse parody to Dark Helmet and the irrelevance of his gigantic helmet in the fan-favorite "Spaceballs" film. Maybe Kylo Ren’s isn’t as big, but it’s just as pointless. It doesn’t help him breathe. He doesn’t need it for the cold weather on Starkiller Base. He also wears it and doesn’t wear it whimsically, and he certainly doesn’t use or need it for disguise. Clearly, the helmet is completely irrelevant. Anyway, the first few Kylo Ren action figures in The Force Awakens Hasbro line were all pretty decent sculpts. But they only presented Kylo Ren with the helmet on and/or the hood up. Now almost six months after Force Friday, collectors can finally get Kylo Ren without the helmet on and we have to say that the figure isn’t all that bad. By now we should expect to get main characters in every iteration possible. But this one is truly unique.

You might be surprised to learn this, but Kylo Ren is a completely all-new figure. Every last part of this figure has been tweaked, retooled or just completely revisited from any previous version of Kylo Ren. His stance is widened, and we have to say that we’re quite impressed with how Hasbro addressed the flow of his lower robes. Inside you can clearly see his pant leg sculpted into the robe portion, yet it feels like we get a genuine drape as well as a functioning leg with articulation. We have no doubts that Hasbro is now aggressively considering how to make simply articulated action figures look as good as they possibly can. Kylo Ren is an absolute testament to that. For us, the head sculpt looks a little too large, but maybe that has everything to do with all of that flowing hair. But if you compare the head size of this figure with another one of the earlier Kylo Ren action figures, we imagine that you’ll also find it improbable that his head would fit underneath of it. In fact, even the included removable hood that comes with this figure just doesn’t place perfectly enough for us. It’s placement on the figure is off and a little more tweaking should have been done for a better fit before Hasbro considered this a final figure.

Kylo Ren also comes with his signature lightsaber, and with any figure in the 5POA range, you aren’t going to be able to attain really cool poses because of the limited articulation. But in all fairness, the figure’s sculpt is pretty nice and we imagine most will be happy to add this figure to a display. We think the all-new likeness of Ben Solo is pretty nice. Hasbro paid attention to the actor’s strong nose and setback eyes. That has been translated beautifully into the sculpt. His hair is full, but not nearly as messy as the onscreen character had. The head sculpt has simple paint operations, but there aren’t too many details to worry about here. If we had to offer our suggestions, we would strongly encourage Hasbro to work on the eyebrows of their figures. As a rule, they’re painted on much too thick and generally look unnatural. This is true for Kylo Ren too. Kylo Ren comes with a Build A Weapon part that looks like a scythe that was stolen from Death himself. It also comes with a “fiery” projectile for additional play value. If you combine his part with the other Build A Weapon parts from the other figures in this way you can form a large and sillier weapon. With all said, Kylo Ren will be a popular figure to acquire for your collection. You best not delay!