OK, folks… After dunking my head in ice water and snorting a line of coffee grinds with a crisp dollar bill, I’m ready to press on with this marathon of 5-POA Star Wars goodness. This time I’m going back to The Force Awakens and opening up another random four figures. I’m fresh out of pithy things to say in the introduction, so let’s just get to it…

I believe three of these figures were fairly late releases, but I’m not sure about Finn. I remember almost getting suckered into buying his Deluxe figure with the goofy armored head and shoulders, but then I realized he didn’t come with the regular helmet and backed off. At this point, it should go without saying that I really love these card designs. The character art is just fantastic, and if your a MOC collector, these heavy duty, multi-layered cardbacks don’t bend or crease easily. Note that each figure is color coded from when they were still releasing these as Desert Mission or Ice Mission or Jungle Mission. I was never a fan of that or the Build-A-Weapon parts, but as we’ll soon see, some of those parts weren’t all bad. Let’s start with Rey!

This figure was freaking impossible to find when it first came out and I’ll confess that I almost paid a lot of money for her. Thankfully I held off and eventually got her on clearance. And that was probably for the best, because she only wears this outfit at the very end of the film, and it doesn’t look like she’ll be wearing it very long in The Last Jedi, or at least that’s my takeaway from the trailer. The likeness here isn’t great, but it’s better than the mug on my Jakku Rey with her huge 1980’s anime character eyes. From the neck down, everything is pretty good. I like the separate vest, and the belt with functional holster. There’s some nice sculpted detail in the reinforced pads on her knees and the backs of her forearms. It’s a little weird how the color scheme matches her Jakku outfit exactly, but that’s the costume design and not the figure’s fault.

Rey comes with more than a few accessories. For starters, she has the little pistol that Han gave her and somehow I managed to not lose this one. She also comes with her staff, which in this case is a little weird. It doesn’t have the carry strap, but it does have a weird box in the middle of it. That’s so that it can be integrated into the Build-A-Weapon thing, which is a shame. Then again, I’ve already got two of these staffs from the other Rey figures. The last of the regular accessories is Luke’s lightsaber, and wow does that blade look extra long to me!

Rey’s BAW piece is a blaster rifle with a shoulder stock. It actually isn’t a bad looking weapon, but she can’t hold it very well. Maybe one of my other figures will have to inherit it. Moving on to Stormtrooper Finn…

There’s not a hell of a lot to say about this figure, except how much I’d love to hear the conversations this figure inspires in the toy aisle. “Mommy, what’s all that red on his helmet for?” “That’s a bloody hand print from his dying comrade who reached out to his friend to save him from the darkness of eternal death.” Hey, the little kids need to learn about that shit eventually. Yup, this is basically just a First Order Stormtrooper with a bloody helmet. It looks good, and he comes with his standard issue blaster, which can tab into the slot on his right leg.

Of course, the helmet comes off and we get a Finn head under it. Most of Hasbro’s 3 3/4-inch Finns have been good likenesses and this one is too. Hell, it’s probably the same head.

Finn’s BAW accessory is freaking awesome. It’s this steampunk looking blaster cannon with some nice copper paint accents. It’s ridiculously large, and the only way Finn can hold it and remain vertical is to put him on a stand. This thing looks like it would be right at home mounted on the railing of Jabba’s Sail Barge. The peg hole on the bottom suggests it has a stand of some sort. Usually, I don’t bother with putting together the Build-A-Weapons, but let’s put a pin in this one as I move onto the next figure, Unkar Plutt…

I was surprised it took so for Hasbro to get Unkar’s figure out, seeing as how he was rather prominent in the movie, and some of the initial waves of figures were aliens that didn’t even have any lines or barely appeared in the film. But here he is and he is glorious. Plutt looks a lot like the Vogons in the old BBC version of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (you know, the good one with the shitty effects. Not the terrible multi-million dollar Hollywood fiasco) and I find that to be utterly charming. I also absolutely adore the head sculpt on this guy with his bug eyes and his disapproving expression. He constantly looks like he’s judging me, and I need that in my life. He was a fun character and I wish we got to see him again when he caught up to Rey in Maz’s Catina, but they cut that scene out.

Ah, but that scene lives on in this action figure, because you can rip Unkar’s arm off, just like Chewie was supposed to have done. This also ties brilliantly into Plutt’s Build-A-Weapon piece.

Now if that isn’t the most ridiculous and yet coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I now picture an entire movie taking place after The Force Awakens where Unkar pursues Rey throughout the galaxy with his giant comical robot claw arm. This is the stuff 80’s Saturday Morning Cartoons were made of. Oh yeah… this piece also happens to be the much needed stand for Finn’s cool cannon.

Hot damn, look at this beauty!

Unkar also comes with a very small pistol, and like Rey’s, I’m amazed I haven’t managed to lose it yet. He can hold it in either hand, but there’s no where to store it on his person. Unkar is a great figure and I rate him 9 out of 10 portions. Moving on to the last figure… Tasu Leech!

While I understand a lot of fans didn’t take to it, I actually loved the scene where Han got caught between The Guavian Death Gang and Kanjiklub. Unfortunately, The Force Awakens line was inconsistent with the figures and so we got the Guavian Death Gang Enforcers, but no Bala-Tik (at least not until The Last Jedi line) and on the flip-side we got Tasu Leech, but no Kanjiklub soldiers. Tasu is a pretty cool little figure, but there isn’t a whole lot to him. He has some sculpted detail on his armor pieces, belt, and a leather-like smock that hangs down below his belt. The head sculpt is very basic, but not a bad likeness. My big issue with him is that he’s pretty difficult to keep standing, especially if he’s holding any accessories.

Tasu comes with a blaster rifle, which is certainly a unique design and made even more distinctive by the fact that it’s cast in tan plastic. Of course, he also comes with a BAW piece…

And it’s a cool looking rifle, which he cannot hold in any convincing manner. He can’t even hold it at all without a figure stand, because it weighs about as much as him. It does, however, split apart to become a rather large pistol, which he can hold. This is one of those BAW pieces that makes for a great weapon all on its own, but is probably better suited going to one of the more articulated lines in this scale, which is really the only reason I save all of these. One day they may wind up getting issued to my GI JOE or Cobra Forces.

And there we go… that’s four more figures down. All of these are pretty solid, with the one glaring issue being Hasbro’s inability to get Rey’s likeness right in any of the figures in this scale. Of all of these, however, I’m actually surprised at how much fun Unkar Plutt is and how great he looks displayed with some of the other aliens from Jakku. I remember having more or less written off this line by the time these figures were coming out, but I’m glad I decided to double back and pick these up.