After years of speculation and fanwank, Star Wars loyalists were looking forward to Episode 2 for its promise of revealing the history of their favorite blank-slate bounty hunter, Boba Fett. After all, if the man himself was so cool, how much better must his dad have been?
When Jango Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi meet,
the Jedi's questions and the bounty hunter's replies are civil and bland. But beneath the surface of this polite conversation runs an undercurrent of suspicion and menace as they size each other up, both anticipating that they will meet again under less agreeable circumstances.
You know, it'd be cool if the scene in question really played out like that. Oh, I'm not contesting that that's an accurate enough retelling of the movie, it's just that some nameless Hasbro copywriter has managed to wring more drama out of the meeting in two sentences than George Lucas managed in five minutes of screentime. Why? Because George didn't push his actors to deliver that kind of nuanced performance, so it barely got beyond the "civil and bland" level. Yeah, the idea was that they were both lying to each other and pretending not to notice, but the reality missed that mark.
We've had a lot of Jango Fetts over the years since he debuted in Attack of the Clones, but none like this. What's his secret? Removable armor! There have been Jangos before with a removable helmet, or even chest armor (though strangely, never at the same time), but none have gone as far as this. This figure, #57 in the 30th Anniversary Collection, is our first fully civilian Jango.
In the package,
Jango's got his helmet off and is wearing a big blue poncho - because he's getting ready to skip town and it's always raining on Kamino. The helmet fits on decently, though the figure's nose makes the front bump out a little bit. Since the helmet is hollow, the antenna can't swing down in front of the eye, but that's no big deal. The likeness of Temuera Morrison is quite good, especially considering the small size of the head.
Remove the poncho, and you'll see Jango's ready for a fight: he's got on his armor and his gunbelt. His guns fit in the holsters, and his jetpack plugs into his back. In fact, the only real difference between this Jango and a "normal" version is that instead of gloves and gauntlets, he has his sleeves rolled up. The shin guards snap off easily, and you just need to pop his head off to remove the chest armor. The belt is glued together, but if you desperately want it off, you can shimmy it down over his legs with some difficulty. The plain clothes beneath all that armor are sculpted just as well as any otherStar Wars figure - not bad for a guy in his pajamas.
Jango has balljointed ankles, knees, elbows and shoulders, peg hips, waist and forearms and a ball-and-socket neck, none of which is impeded by the armor or poncho. His clothes may be more purple than you expect, but not so much that he looks wrong. One side of the poncho has a sticthed-in wrinkle, and it exists on all samples. What's the point of that? Ah, it doesn't really matter; with three different choices for displaying your figure, this is the best Jango Fett Hasbro's made yet.
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