This was supposed to go up yesterday, but I was a bad host and spent five hours at the Star Wars instead. Despite the fact that I’ve now seen it, I wrote this beforehand and opted not to correct my speculations. It was, after all, the last time I can talk about The Force Awakens figures while not being “in the know” and I’m still really skiddish about doling out spoilers, no matter how small. What? Oh yeah, I freaking loved the movie. It’s fitting that the last time I saw a film in the theater twice on the same day was The Empire Strikes Back. Anywho, I’m hoping to swing back later with what would have been today’s feature, but I’ll have to see how the day goes.

It’s Day Three of my extended Star Wars weekend and today I’m switching over to sampling of the 3 3/4″ figures. This is just a trio of figures that I grabbed off of the pegs at Target the other day. These also happen to be a sampling of three out of the four separate Mission Series (Desert, Space, and Snow) with only the Jungle Series absent.

Man, I still love this packaging so much. The artwork is grand and they’re so colorful. Too bad the backs are pretty ugly, covered in tri-lingual scrawl, and waste so much space on the build-a-whatever gimmick. Oh, yeah, get a good look at those weapon gimmick parts now because I won’t be bothering to talk about them.  Let’s start with the only guy here who has a name…

Sarco Plank! Who is this guy? Maybe random background alien #6 or maybe he hops into an X-Wing and saves the day. I’m betting on something in the middle. He’s almost certainly another one of the Jakku crowd who seem to spend all their time scavenging. As I understand it, the initial assortment of figures focused on the early film to avoid spoilers. Either way, I’m surprised at how much I dig this figure, even if he is just an alien in robes and life support gear. The sculpted robes look great and he has that cool thing where the inside of the robes are detailed to show the legs, rather than just left smooth like the old Kenner figures.

The life support gear features a backpack and chest piece with hoses running to his full mask. The mask has a definite insect vibe to it and features some mighty impressive paint for this scale. Yes, surprisingly, I’d say this is one of the better sculpts we’ve seen in the 3 3/4″ Force Awakens line so far.

Sarco comes with a great little rifle with a really unique design and a wrapped stock. Next up… The Resistance Trooper!

This is a figure that’s about as generic as his name sounds. He’s just a dude in a belted military-style tunic with some shoulder straps and a helmet. That’s not really a complaint. Star Wars figures have a long history of including infantry cannon fodder and this guy definitely fits the bill. I don’t think he’s as interesting a design as the Rebel Troopers from A New Hope, but probably not much worse than the Hoth Rebel Troopers and lots better than those Bespin Security guys. Still, taken on his own, I doubt I’d be able to tell that this was a guy from Star Wars.

The head sculpt features a fully enclosed helmet with a painted yellow visor. I’m not a big fan of the painted yellow visors on these figures, but it’s OK. I think it’s funny that only his tiny nose is peeking out from the helmet. As army fodder, this isn’t a terrible figure and I may very well pick up at least one more. The Resistance Trooper gets a rife, which again is a pretty detailed little sculpt. I can see myself picking up a couple more of this guy if he’s all I find on a toy run someday and I don’t want to come home empty handed. Next up… Snowtrooper!

I’ve already looked at the 6-inch Black version of this guy, here we have his smaller and severely less articulated cousin. Both the regular Stormtrooper and the Flametrooper in this scale were pretty damn good and I think this is my favorite of the three. The detail on the sculpt is excellent, and I really dig the way they did the kama. It’s just split down the back with each half part of each leg. The backpack is also removable.

There obviously isn’t a lot of paint here, but the black accents look good and they even bothered to paint some stripes on the insides of the legs. He comes with a Stormtrooper rifle with extended stock.

It goes without saying that all the figures are the standard five points of articulation, which is bothering me less and less. Yeah, I’ve been teetering on whether or not to keep collecting this line, but in the end, I’ve found that I can’t pass them up when I see them. They’re relatively cheap and it just doesn’t seem like Star Wars without some 3 3/4″ figures. I have a feeling that sentiment is only going to get worse once I’ve actually seen the movie.