Mini Review : Plo Koon

[pthfnder89]

I recieved several of AOTC figures in the mail today, so I thought I'd post a review for anybody who hasn't gotten to see these in person.

Plo Koon : He's my favorite Jedi, and even though he didn't do much in Ep1, his packaging says he leads the Jedi into battle on Geonosis, so I'm looking forward to him having a much larger part!

His AOTC figure has good articulation, at his head shoulders, both elbows, waist and legs. These are basically the same joints as the POTJ Plo, except that since he doesn't have full length robes on this time, his legs are allowed to actually move.

His paint job is very mediocre compared to the excellent POTJ version. The patterns on his head just appear muted somehow. On the rest of his body however, the paint is fine. Nothing outstanding, but nothing to complain about.

The much lamented "force effect" is actually kind of cool in my opinion, but one thing bothers me. The figure just holds it by gripping a small pole in the back. It looks good from one angle, but from another angle you can see that he's just holding onto a peg and it ruins the effect. Overall though, I like these and I hope they keep adding them with the Jedi figures.

His lightsaber is something that really has me guessing. Since Plo was never seen on screen with a lightsaber in Ep1, his yellow POTJ saber was designed by Hasbro. In AOTC, Lucas wants all the lightsabers to be either blue, red, or green (with the single exception of Maces purple saber), so the new Plo Koon figure comes with a completely different saber than the POTJ version.

Two things are strange to me here:
1. Plo has a small hole on his belt for the detachable lightsaber handle to fit into, just like Eeth Koth. The REALLY weird thing is his saber handle DOESN'T HAVE A PEG. I don't know why they included the hole when the lightsaber itself can't hang from it, but it's damn wierd.

2. Plo's new saber handle is the EXACT SAME as Mace Windus lightsaber in Episode 1. What I mean is it is exactly the same as the real model that was identified as Mace Windus in publicity photos and reference books. It's NOT the same sculpt as the saber that came with the EP1 Windu figures. The new saber sculpt looks excellent, but I keep wondering why they gave him that one based on an old design...

My personal theory is that since they let Samuel L. Jackson choose a completely new saber handle for AOTC, they just decided to give his old design to another Jedi. This makes perfect sense, as Plo Koon never actually had a lightsaber in the first movie, and Samuel L. Jacksons saber was never really shown on screen. Still, it surprised me .

Well that's it. In the end, I like this figure, but it still leaves me with questions about the rest of the new toys. The paint jobs are what concern me most, but I'll have to wait until April to see all the figures.

Overall, I like this Plo figure, but

[DahrJin]

Blue, red or green.....what about Saesee Tinns purple saber? Will he be getting a blue or green one? Why mess with something we already have?

[pthfnder89]

Originally posted by DahrJin
Blue, red or green.....what about Saesee Tinns purple saber? Will he be getting a blue or green one? Why mess with something we already have?

Saesee Tinns new saber will be green. You can see pictures of him in the Toyfair photos.

[Darth Evil]

What other figures did you get?

[pthfnder89]

I got Shaak Ti, because she was the only other Jedi I could find for sale, and I got the regular Battle Droid.

I'm definitely not opening Shaak Ti , but I might open up the Battle Droid soon. He looks great BTW. He comes with two little electricity things that twist around him like the POTJ Boomer Damage Droid, and he has a blaster with a muzzle flash accessory. The neat thing is that he has a tiny peg on his chest so that you can take the muzzle flash off the gun, and stick it on his chest, so it looks like he's getting hit instead of firing.

[Beast]

Originally posted by DahrJin
Blue, red or green.....what about Saesee Tinns purple saber? Will he be getting a blue or green one? Why mess with something we already have?

The lightsaber colors that we have on the E1 and POTJ figures are based on the comic books, as well as Hasbro's own choices. Someone a while back said that they tried to make a student film that used yellow, orange, silver, and other colors from the comic and it didn't look right, so I assume they faced the same thing with the lightsaber colors for the actual movies.

I think Lucas also wants to suggest some reasoning behind the color choices also. Lucas loves the use of color to suggest things, like his use of red for the Sith Saber's and the Emorer's Royal Guards. Mace gets purple because he is the head of the council. Jedi's with Green Saber's probably earned some honor in battle or award for service. And Blue sabers are for regular Jedi's that haven't earned an honor or award. Besides, I think that the use of the 3 basic colors of lightsabers, and their variations, like Mace's Purple saber (that can be considered a varient of blue) is a great idea. Frankly I didn't like the idea of Adi Gallia with a Crimson lightsaber anyway.

MTFBWY and HH!!

Jar Jar Binks

[evenflow]

I really liked the idea of having many different colored sabers, I thought it was cool. Too bad we are back to three colors.

[neimoidian85]

4 colors!

[BlahBlahBlah]

Man, and I was looking forward to seeing Yaddle with an orange lightsaber, Plo with a gold saber, Saesee with a purple saber, and Adi with a crimson saber instead of just green and blue all around.

[PloKoon2385]

Hey where'd you get them and for how much?