Muftak And Kabe - Mini Busts

Muftak, a hulking Talz alien, and Kabe, the tiny rodent-like Chadra-Fan, were frequent patrons to the Mos Eisley Cantina. The two developed a close friendship and watched out for each other. While Muftak offered muscle, Kabe would bring in credits through petty thivery and picking pockets.

Gentle Giant Ltd. certainly appears to emulate many of the things Hasbro has done in the 3.75” action figure line and apply it to their Mini Busts line. In 1998, Hasbro released the excellent Kabe And Muftak Internet Exclusive two-pack. The sculpting of the action figures was very progressive for the time, although the articulation was on par to what was standard at the time which translates as minimal for collectors. Now nearly a quarter of a century later, Gentle Giant Ltd. offers collectors of the Mini Busts line Mufatk And Kabe, a dynamic duo that represent a portion of the wretched hive of scum and villainy found at Chalmun’s cantina in Mos Eisley. What an excellent set of cantina aliens. And what a way to pay homage to one of the earliest exclusive offerings from Hasbro in The Power Of The Force line. Muftak And Kabe are superiorly sculpted and even more impressively painted. For the most part they’re screen accurate. (Muftak is holding a blaster rifle which wasn’t seen in the film as far as we’re concerned.) Both are holding colorful alcoholic beverages. And as far as size and looks are concerned, Muftak And Kabe are complete opposites despite their connection in the Expanded Universe.

Muftak is a Talz which is a very large fur covered species with four eyes. Gentle Giant Ltd. did a truly fantastic job on his sculpt. Polystone is a wonderful medium for recreating various textures, so the grain and thickness of Muftak’s complete fur is done remarkably well. His four eyes are in place, but we noticed that the lower eyes look a bit different in A New Hope than they do here on the Mini Bust. (It’s something only those with keen eyesight would notice and it’s not a big negative or setback because the piece is gorgeous.) The center of his face is dark gray and as you fan out from the center out to the rest of his body you’ll see the hair lighten, yet it keeps a very textured and highlighted appearance to it. He is holding a glass containing a liquid that looks exactly like Aunt Beru’s blue milk. However, we believe it to be a different concoction of an alcoholic nature. Finer details like his fingers and nails have also been expertly crafted and decorated to be as authentic as possible to the character seen in Episode IV. The Talz are very large creatures and Gentle Giant Ltd. has taken note of this as he is larger than a standard sized Mini Bust, and certainly much larger than Kabe.

Kabe is another work of art here. A female Chadra-Fan, this humanoid bat like creature was seen squeaking at Wuher and given a drink from the bar. It seems even more care was taken to replicate this character from Star Wars into Mini Bust format. She wears a very complex shirt and overtop of it lays a tan vest. The design on the shirt is impressively painted and the patterns are imitated with amazing attention to detail. Her extra long forearms and finger are grasping her drinking glass with great care. When you look at the fingers, you’ll notice how disproportionately long they are in comparison to the rest of her. But this was true for the costume in the film. So we offer kudos to Gentle Giant for mastering details like this with incredible precision. Muftak And Kabe obviously have significantly more back story in the Expanded Universe than in A New Hope. Some choose to accept the EU while others completely reject it. But whatever your take, there is no denying that these two cantina aliens look phenomenal in Mini Bust format. Still, it surprises us how Dr. Evazan, Ponda Baba, Takeel, Labria and Nabrun Leids weren’t made before these two characters. Hopefully there will be surprises in store for the future.