I know, I just checked out Jazwares Millennium Falcon a couple days ago, but I guess I’m in a Star Wars mood this week, so let’s return to A Galaxy Far, Far Away one more time before heading into the weekend. As someone who has been frequently complaining that we still don’t have Black Series Hammerhead, Snaggletooth, or a number of other Cantina Aliens yet, I was a little bitter to see Figrin D’an jump to the head of the line and make an appearance. But then I reasoned it out that Hasbro knew they could make collectors buy the same figure six or seven times and it all made perfect sense.

I was actually thinking about skipping this figure, because it’s not terribly exciting for a $20+ purchase, and I knew I wasn’t going to buy the whole band. But then Figgy started turning up at a few online retailers for $9.99 and I decided to go for it. Luckily, the retailer I bought it from had a three-figure limit, so they stepped in where my better sense would have failed me. So, yes the figure in the package is billed as the lead performer of the Modal Nodes, Figrin D’an, but he comes with three different instruments, and apparently all Bith look alike, so you can use him as several different members if you buy more than one.

Here’s Fiery Figgy out of the box, and while he look pretty good, he’s still a pretty bland figure with just a black tunic, black boots, and gray trousers to make up his costume. The only thing really distinctive here are his big Bith hands and his bulbous Bith head. But, hey, that’s not the figure’s fault as it’s still a pretty good representation of the character. A lot of the Cantina aliens were just about giving people monster heads and monster hands. It was pretty casual. Hell, even Greedo was wearing high heels most of the time. You get some sculpted rumples and wrinkles in the tunic and pants and some seams, but not a lot else noteworthy… heh, see what I did there?

The head sculpt is decent enough, albeit maybe a little soft. When we were kids, my brother and I used to call these guys Hiney Heads and that made us giggle because their heads looked like butts. It kinda still makes me giggle. Keep in mind, it was quite a bit later until any of us knew that these guys had names and that their race had a name. We sure as hell didn’t know their music was called Jizz, which is a shame because that would have made us giggle too. I do think the paint job for the portrait could have been better. Maybe a little bit of a wash or some shading? I mean, the costume was simple enough, they could have done something special with the head, but like the rest of the figure, it’s perfectly passable. It even has a little hole in its maw to stick the various instruments into.

The articulation is solid enough. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, with hinged pegs in the hands. The legs have ball joints in the hips, rotating hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. There’s a ball joint under the chest and the neck is ball jointed as well. All they did was stand there and sway in the movie, so this level of articulation has them more than well covered. Except for the elbows, which definitely could have used better than a 90-degree bend to work better with their instruments.

As mentioned earlier, you get three different instruments, the first of which is the kloo horn, which I believe is what Figrin D’ar played…

Next up is the fanfar…

And finally, the fizzz. Each of these instruments vary in detail with the fanfar and kloo horn having the most and the fizzz having the least, but they all seem to be good representations of the on screen versions. Each has its own challenge when it comes to getting the Bith to hold it so that the mouth piece is actually sticking into the tiny mouth hole, which should be evident in some of the pictures. Double hinged elbows would have sure helped in this department, as well as maybe getting a set of hands specifically made for each instrument. Considering the simplicity of the figure, I don’t think one of those two improvements would be asking too much.

I’m happy to have some Bith musicians, but the cynical side of me says that these are just more evidence of Hasbro trying to stretch figure molds to the max. Yes, it’s a new sculpt, but it’s basically a musical troop builder, which is just one step better than the endless carbonized and credit series repaints that Hasbro has been pouring into this line. Now, if you want to get the remaining instruments to complete your band, you have to buy the Deluxe Nalan Cheel figure, which is a Hasbro Pulse exclusive and comes with the three larger instruments but runs close to $40. You will then need to buy at least two more Figrins in order to display one band member with each instrument, BUT… I believe there were two kloo horn players, and a little research tells me that there was an eighth member that wasn’t playing, but I think he was dressed different so I won’t count him. So, by my reckoning that would be a total of six Figins and one Nalan to complete the band. I haven’t decided to take that plunge yet, especially since Figgy is back up to $20 at most retailers. Maybe, if he drops to ten again, I’d consider it, but until then my Cantina band will remain a trio.