Kamino Confrontation Ultra sets

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

There have been/will be several rereleases this year, but so far only two Ultra figures. Last year when these will be released, they were very hard to find, so these are a good choice. But are they good figures?

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Kamino Confrontation)
As far as I know, this figure is same as the one last year, save the new name and package. For the figure, it's . . . alright. This is the wet-look version of Obi-Wan, and the only AOTC Obi-Wan so far with a plastic cloak. His hair was meant to be wet and weighed-down, and it was pulled off pretty well. It doesn't realy look like Ewan, and none of them have, but this one's pretty bad - not horrible, just bad. His left hand is held out and has a small hole, which is no more noticeable than the magnets from 2002 and 203 figures. His right hand can hold the oddly transparent saber with an unpainted hilt. His articulation is head, shoulders, right elbow, and waist. He stands on a Kamino-themed base.

The action feature of this figure doesn't work too well. He has a small part of the Kamino platform with a short, stumpy, odd-looking pole which is pushed down to blow air through a tube on the bottom. The tube is connected to Obi's left arm and shoots out air from the hole in his hand. It is supposed to shoot air and push some debris off a clear base, but it doesn't work unless it's pretty close to him. The hole should've been bigger, then the feature might work. It should have been used on a TPM Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan to get rid of battle droids like in the actual film, but it was used here and not very well.

Obi-Wan looks okay, but he doesn't really do what is promised. He looks much better with the Jango set than without (which I will review on here tomorrow). Grade: B-

[B'Omarr Monkey]

I just found this as well as the Jango Fett that goes with it. I never saw them the first time around. Now I know why everybody hated them. I liked the idea of the connected environment for the two figures, but in person, the two set pieces look really cheap.

Obi has that same flaw in his cloak that the Saga Qui-Gon does where you can see the tan shirt through the arm holes in the vinyl outer cloak so that it looks like he is wearing a dark brown cloak vest over a shirt with a tan torso and dark brown sleeves.

Jango is essentially "Force Flipping Jango Fett." You launch him off a base and he's suppoised to cling to one of the columns with magnets in his wrists, sort of like David Letterman's velcro suit from years back. I don't know if this feature works, but based on my experience with the Force Flipping figures I can guess, since I haven't opened mine yet.

I would pass unless you are a completist, which is why I ended up getting them.

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

Jango Fett (Kamino Confrontation)
This figure is kind of cool, but if you only collect to display, then you might not be happy. From the looks of it, Jango is mostly kitbashed from previous Jango figures. His head is the 2002/2003 rerelease Kamino Escape version, but the helmet is glued onto a head that doesn't have stubble or painted hair (from what I can tell). You can see part of his shirt and all of his neck, so this seems like an odd choice for a figure from this scene. The good thing about the head, though, it that it moves side to side and up and down, and I don't remember it doing this last time (though it probably did). I bet they chose to use this head because of the absense of the Geonosis dent, but they could've gone a little farther and make a new one. The torso is your average run-of-the-mill Jango torso, but it seems as though they made the jetpack fit in it a little tighter. I can't tell if it's removable or not. This time, he only comes with the missile that shoots, but it sometimes shoots during the flying feature, so put it in but not all the way. His arms are kind of in the pose from KE Jango, but they have large magnets in the sides and don't have a cord. His hands hold the guns pretty well. His legs are probably also from KE, they have holsters for the guns and a 2001 foot-stamp.

The thing that makes this Jango different from the rest is his feature and base. There is a column, but it is larger than Obi-Wan's and in a different design. A large portion of it fits into the bottom but easily comes up, it was probably designed like this for packaging reasons. Pull it out until the little bumps on the outer/bottom half click into the grove near the bottom of the top/inner half. The top half has a large metal section for Jango's magnets, but the back is designed like the rest of the column. The column fits into a base, which can be connected to Obi-Wan's column base to make a larger (and better) playset environment, though the designs don't exactly match. There is another base for Jango's feet, with a button you push to push Jango up and (hopefully) onto the column. The button is kind of cool, it has the clone design (which is also on the sleeves of Lama Su's clone youth and the speeder bike clone). The bases can also be connected, and the feature works much better when they are. You have to place Jango's arms out so they can latch onto the column. This feature works very well, if you position him the right way, which is a lot easier to do than with the flipping figures from 2002.

If you see these sets and only have $10, then get Jango. He's not the greatest figure, but he's pretty fun, and it's as close as we're gonna get to a flying Jango figure. Unlike Obi-Wan, this set is fine enough on its own, but even better with its companion. Grade: A-

[Hellboy]

I saw these the other day and they looked just as bad as they did last year IMO.

The one thing I did find odd upon examination was the hole in Obi-Wan's hand. Didn't the original have a magnet in place? If so why remove it if it's part of the "Force Push" action feature?

[plasticfetish]

No, the "force push" comes from air pumped through his hand. The hole enables a gust of force-d air "to send the debris flying."

Silly toy... but I'm sitting here with a 6 year old who's saying that it looks like "fun." I think it might be fun to fill the pump thing with grape jelly and see what happens.

[Kidhuman]

I saw these the other day and they looked just as bad as they did last year IMO.

I second that. Now Ihave 3PO and these Ultras clogging pegs. I wont be able to get the Ewok now.

[Hellboy]

No, the "force push" comes from air pumped through his hand. The hole enables a gust of force-d air "to send the debris flying."

A wind bag Obi-Wan? What will the great minds over at Hasbro think up next.

[bobafrett]

I picked up both the Obi Wan, and the Jango, but only because I try to be a completeist, even though if one were to examine my collection closely, I am far from one. They will be left carded, since that is what I do with 95% of my figurtes anyway. I can say that just by looking at the figures in the package, I think they could have done much better with the paint jobs on the figures and the platforms. I don't like Oni Wan's right arm, as they have his dark brown plastic robe up above his elbow so his arm can bend at the elbow, and his tan sleeves clung tight to his wrists. If you notice on the picture, the tan sleeeves drape on his arms. They could have used a soft goods robe, and been able to make it so the elbow still bent, and iusing a soft goods robe would have also elimanated the gaps at the shoulders where you can see the light colored shirt.