Ahsoka

I wasn’t wowed at all by the Clone Wars movie when it premiered in August of 2008. I was too enamored of the great 2003 micro-series by Genndy Tartakovsky to really get into this newcomer with its odd-looking aesthetic and less impressive animation. I mean you start with Mace Windu going up against an army of droids and an earthquake machine all by himself, The Arc Troopers assaulting a tower on Muunilinst, and that intense chase scene with General Grievous hounding Shaak Ti and go to Anakin Skywalker and some dorky kid babysitting a baby Hutt?

For the love of Geebus, Why?

When the Clone Wars series started, I still felt pretty much the same. After three seasons however, the series has grown on me. There’s a lot to appreciate about it, not the least of which is that it doesn’t totally suck like the Episode 1-3 arc did. Everything missing from those three movies is here: prolonged, dynamically shot fights, interesting aliens, huge battle scenes, believable acting. It still took awhile to warm up to Anakin’s annoying Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, but I think she’s finally convinced me with Season 3.

My change of heart is due in large part to her change of costume. For the first two seasons of the series, she wore this awful looking tube top, silly white tights and what looked like cowboy boots. In Season 3 she finally got an upgrade:

The new get-up re-made her into Shaak Ti's hotter little sister, as opposed to creepy jail bait. She looks less like she's ready for a day making sandcastles at the beach and more like she's ready to dismember and cauterize, which makes her so much more awesome. What's more, she now knows how to use TWO lightsabers now.

Da-amn.

This figure was included in the 2011 assortment that was a mix of Wave 7 and 8 figures. She's listed as CW44 (or the 44th figure of the year). In reality, this was the 20th and 21st wave of the regular Clone Wars figures. There were also numerous vehicles and multi-figure packs and exclusives that were released. This particular figure is probably closer to the 244th figure than the 44th.

Packaging is the same as it's been since they introduced the "Galactic Battles" game. The newest figures (Waves 9 through 11) have already done away with these stupid, useless cards. I say good riddance. The game feels forced, and instead of maximizing collect-ability of the cards and utilizing the entire thing for artwork, they decided to keep the graphic small and print the instructions and every single piece. Not to mention I now have about 50 of those stupid blue dice now. Here's hoping the put the money saved on those things back into development or into extra accessories.

The sculpting on Ahsoka is superb.

While she retains a nice, feminine build, it's not as pre-posed as some of the other female figures have been. I kind of wish that Barriss Offee had the same body. The proportions look pretty close to correct: she's shorter than most figures and her head is a little bigger. As a Togruta, she has the same montrals (the horny things) that Shaak Ti has, but as she has yet to fully mature, hers are shorter.

Paint on the figure is just as nice as the rest of the Star Wars: Clone Wars figures I've acquired. I believe most of the finer applications are tampographed on, so the lines between colors are crisp and white.

I do wish they'd have given her face a slightly more real expression. She looks vapid and could use a slight smirk or some other evidence of her natural chutzpah.

Accessories-wise, she is much better off than the first Ahsoka figure. That one got a lightsaber and a tiny Stinky (Jabba’s son) in a backpack. As accessories go, that was about as crappy as you could get. I saw a knock off wrestling figure once with a TOILET and would rate that a better accessory than a tiny, useless slug of a Hutt.

This time, she comes with the aforementioned pair of lightsabers. I’m not sure what color they were in the series, but the ones she comes with are yellow. They’re just as good as the rest of the lightsabers I’ve gotten with the other Jedi in my collection and fit her hands rather nicely.

What’s more, Ahsoka comes with another pair of lightsabers, but deactivated. That is all sorts of awesome for me. I assume that there have been figures in the past that also featured these extra includes (man of the re-tooled figures I have sport holes in their belts or pegs at the bottom of their weapons) though this is the first I’ve actually gotten a hold of. Seeing it now, I can’t understand why Hasbro didn’t include these with every single Jedi figure. They are a perfect accessory for them and present you with so much more posing and display value.

Although, now that I think of it, If they’d probably would have just gotten lost. These things are tiny.

Her articulation is fairly good. This is a female figure, so you’ll have to realize that the real estate available for joints is far less than a male figure of the same scale. In order to keep the right proportions and keep her slim and lithe looking, Hasbro gave her far less than the super-articulated Mace Windu figure has.

From bottom to top (because I’m bored with the regular way) she’s got swivel-hinge knees, a swivel waist, swivel-hinge shoulders, swivel-hinge elbows, swivel wrists, and a ball-jointed head.

Like I said: far less.

It is sufficient though. Because of her small limbs, those few joints get excellent range, and the lightness of the body makes for easily stable posing using the included figure stand (which isn’t always possible with bigger figures).

 

By far, this is one of my favorite Star Wars figures to day, maybe the best one I’ve got. She’s a hell of a lot more fun than boring Anakin (Whiny Brat) Skywalker or Obi-wan (Old Fart) Kenobi. I don’t even mind that I still had to pay Php 500.00 for what is essentially a lot less plastic than say Savage Opress. The quality that was put into this figure makes it a good buy for me.