General Jan Dodonna (Battle Of Yavin) - SW [S - P3] - Basic (’04 #12)

General Jan Dodonna was the wizened tactician and strategist of the Rebel base at the Massassi site on Yavin 4. When the Death Star arrived in the Yavin system, Dodonna formulated the Rebels' crucial attack run strategy of the Battle of Yavin and briefed the Rebel pilots as to its logistics. His solid tactics led to a victory when the Rebels destroyed the Death Star.

If you have collected that Star Wars “Saga” line, you probably already know that they’ve often utilized one sculpt to bring a second character into the line. A good example of this would be Imperial Dignitary Janus Greejatus (Death Star Procession) (’03 #35) and Imperial Dignitary Kren Blista-Vanee (Death Star Procession) (’03 #41). These two character share the same base sculpt with a couple of new parts, yet they look completely different from one another thanks to clever engineering an incorporation of the new parts. But what if parts from two characters are indeed interchangeable, but perhaps this interchangeability wasn’t intended by Hasbro? We’re way ahead of ourselves already, but General Jan Dodonna (Battle Of Yavin) is a fine figure that we believe unbeknownst to Hasbro (or maybe they just want us to think it wasn’t intentional) has interchangeability with Captain Antilles (Tantive IV Invasion) (’04 #15), albeit the match isn’t “perfect”. Let’s stop being cryptic and clue you in on what we mean here. If you utilize the “boil and pop” method, you can remove the arms and jacket shell from Captain Antilles (Tantive IV Invasion) (’04 #15) and replace it with the arms and shell from General Jan Dodonna and recreate the appearance of this character as he appeared during the Battle of Yavin (with one small error). General Jan Dodonna’ ranking badge has red markings (for general) whereas Captain Antilles’ ranking badge has blue markings (for captain). But it still a quick and easy way to attain both looks of Dodonna from A New Hope.

Now that we told you how you can easily and quickly customize General Jan Dodonna (Battle Of Yavin), maybe we should clue you in about the actual figure next. General Jan Dodonna (Battle Of Yavin) is actually a very good action figure. As with most characters in the Star Wars “Saga” line, it lacks many important parts of articulation, but that may not matter in the long run to you. That being said however, this character did very little in the film except for leaning over tactical screens and handing over medal to Princess Leia Organa during the Massassi Temple ceremony on Yavin IV. He had two distinct outfits in A New Hope, the one represented by the packaged action figure, and the other is the still pictured on the cardboard insert of the action figure. But as we have expressed above, you can essentially attain both of the outfits with little to no issue if you have the patience to switch the parts. We truly wonder deep down inside if Hasbro did have plans to create a running change of General Jan Dodonna (Battle Of Yavin). It is evident just by the ease of switching the shells of Dodonna and Antilles that it must have been on Hasbro’s radar to make them this seamlessly interchangeable. (You can see this result in our photo gallery.) With an excellent likeness and admittedly a decent sculpt overall, General Jan Dodonna (Battle Of Yavin) is a long-awaited action figure and fans of the Original Trilogy as well as specifically A New Hope have a character that has been wanted for as long as the line has been reactivated. It’s an answer to prayer with more than satisfactory results.

General Jan Dodonna (Battle Of Yavin) comes with quite a few accessories. What some may refer to as a “boring” character (and we would fully empathize with that sentiment), Hasbro has actually made him a little bit interactive if you know the secret trick of switching out shells and by including stuff to make the figure appear a little more interesting with other action figures in a display or diorama as well. Specifically, he comes with three ceremonial medals – (Hey! Is one of those actually for Chewbacca?) – as well as a Rebel Alliance issued blaster that doesn’t fit that firmly in his hands. Oh, and he comes with the obligatory generic action figure display stand. His hands have been sculpted in a way so that you can “drape” the medals in a natural fashion, but their rigidity works against that intended illusion sadly. We don’t presume to know that status of other collectors’ minds, but we believe that most find that they’ll pleased with how well this action figure turned out. And for us it’s his “secret”that makes him all that much more desirable. The Star Wars “Saga” line was obviously designed to promote Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones, and the frontend of the basic figure line was Episode II heavy. But now that the line look has gone through an evolution a couple of times, so has the transition of Prequel Trilogy action figures to Original Trilogy action figures, much to the happiness of older collectors. General Jan Dodonna (Battle Of Yavin) is not a popular Star Wars character which proves that he was designed with collectors in mind. We love him and you probably will too.