"But now, however, we're left to wonder when they're going to throw a new head on their Chewbacca mold and give us Black Krrsantan?"
"Two and a half years later," past-me.
The ferocious and skilled Wookiee gladiator
turned bounty hunter, Black Krrsantan, has worked for the likes of Jabba the Hutt and Darth Vader.
In the original Knights of the Old Republic, you run around collecting a party that loosely parallels the main cast of the movies: short droid, tall droid, Wookiee, old Jedi, hotshot pilot, girl, ship named after a bird... they didn't stray too far from the familiar. When Marvel started introducing characters into the new continuity, they kind of went the same route. Since Vader was headlining his own comic, Kieron Gillen opted to surround him with dark mirrors of Luke's pals: Dr. Aphra was more Indiana Jones than Han Solo, but there was an R2-D2, a C-3PO, and a Chewbacca.
This figure is, in short, not good. That much was apparent when the first stock photos were released, and necessary improvements have not
been made since then. Like all these boxed "Fan Channel" exclusives, the figure is a mix of old and new parts; the new are actually pretty decent; it's just the old that's bad.
Or more accurately, "poorly chosen." Obviously Black Krrsantan is going to be a repaint of Chewbacca, because they're both Wookiees, but that's the problem: Chewbacca is tall, sure, but he's also fairly thin. Like an NBA player. But Krrsantan ("Santo" to those who know him) isn't skinny. He's bulky. Like an NFL player. Being a black Wookiee isn't enough. This figure needs to be about 50% wider than it is, but that would have required entirely new molds that would be unlikely to have re-use potential, so we're left with a Krrsantan who's been sickly and lost a bunch of weight.
The new parts are his armor and his head. The harness is a mustardy yellow plastic, with no paint. It crosses his chest and hangs down by his belt, and features round shoulder pads with four large spikes apiece. It's a little loose on the figure, again reinforcing that the body should have been wider. The head is similarly taller than it should be, rather than having its appropriate width. His mouth is open and he definitely looks angry. He has a few braids in his fur, as he should, and the scar over his eye he got in a fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Very good sculpt, but easily spotted as the wrong shape. And he should really have some gray in his fur, too, not solid black.
Santo uses the Solo Chewbacca mold, not the original, which means slightly different articulation. Of course, the changed are all in the trunk, which is limited by the harness anyway. You also can't really turn his head, because of all the fur that falls down over his chest and back. The arms and legs move well though, so you can get some nice poses out of the toy.
The only accessory is his bowcaster, the same weapon Chewbacca carried. Like, the same mold. It's done as two pieces that need to be assembled once you open the figure, and it can be stored in a clip on the back of the harness if you don't want him to be holding it all the time.
Black Krrsantan is a popular new addition to the Star Wars universe, so you'd think getting this figure would be exciting. But Hasbro's determination to reuse molds really drags it down. Other than the surface level, it doesn't actually convey the idea of Krrsantan; they might as well have called him "Snoova" for all that he looks like Chewie in disguise. These comic-based releases already cost more than the main line figures; there's no excuse for not making them as good as they can possibly be.
-- 10/10/22
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