Pablo-Jill (Geonosis Arena) - OTC - Basic (’05 #1)

The heroic Jedi Knight Pablo-Jill is stationed at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. He is one of the courageous Jedi who go to Geonosis to help rescue Obi-Wan Kenobi from the evil Separatist forces at the first battle of the Clone Wars. Like all Jedi, he uses a lightsaber for defense and combat, and is skilled in the ways of the Force.

Obviously the biggest event for Star Wars fans was the release of the final film in the Prequel Trilogy Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith. The film would answer many of the questions die-hard Star Wars fans had on how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and would bring an end to the Star Wars saga as we knew it. But if you were a Star Wars collector before May of 2005, it’s a good bet that you were a bit preoccupied with eight (8) all-new figures Hasbro planned to release in The [Post] Original Trilogy Collection. Although planned for the 2004 Star Wars “Saga” line, they got shelved for the rest of the year for other plans. But for the first time ever, characters from the Prequel Trilogy would be packaged in a silver and black line look that clearly paid homage to the vintage classic Kenner line that ran between 1978 and 1985. Many Star Wars collectors argue that it’s blasphemous for anything but OT stuff to appear on this vintage-inspired card back, but we have to say it’s a unique approach and appreciate Hasbro taking the risk to do this despite the backlash they’ve received for going this route. Think about it in the light that the “vintage” line never died and Hasbro is continuing it as if it never ended. We appreciate their efforts very much and we think the figures looks great on the packaging as well. Your opinion may differ. That’s fine. Seeing these characters’ names in the “vintage” name plates is very exciting.

Pablo-Jill may have ranked as one of the most anticipated figures of all the 2005 POTC all-new sculpts (after the cantina aliens probably). He had a very small but noticeable role in Episode II – he can be seen walking in the Jedi Temple archives "area" as well as fighting alongside the other 199 Jedi Knights during the Battle of Geonosis. But it was his unique look that captured out attention and made us want him developed into an action figure. He’s figure #1 in the 2005 The [Post] Original Trilogy Collection and he is one of the finest. In case you weren’t aware, his species is called Ongree and their homeworld is Skustell Cluster. (Say that three times fast!) Because of his very complicated body structure and his multiple-jointed legs, he is one of just a few Jedi that was completely rendered as a CGI. He is one of the Jedi we figured Hasbro wouldn’t have much interested in bringing to the basic figure line. We’re now glad we were wrong about that. His unique look borders on odd in our opinion. In fact, we would describe him as a Gungan caught in a blended. Pablo-Jill’s upside down head has portions that look like Jar Jar Binks like the neck area for instance. And something about this eyes are also very Gungan like as well. Pablo-Jill has a very large frame and this trait been incorporated well into the action figure, but the figure lacks b y not having super-articulation as Star Wars character like this should definitely have.

Pablo-Jill comes with ten points of articulation which really is a fair amount of articulation. But much of that is swivel articulation which means limbs and forearms are only able to rotate in one plane. A great deal of effort went into his sculpt overall. He is tall, he’s bulky and he is even posed in manner that makes it believable that he is fighting in the Battle of Geonosis. Both hands are sculpted in a closed position and are able to hold the lightsaber with ease. Fans of removable blades might be elated to know that Pablo-Jill’s lightsaber comes apart in two pieces. We love the flexibility of displaying Jedi with just the lightsaber hilt, but we don’t like the method in which they attach the blades. (Watch out for that little post because they break off without much force at all.) Pablo-Jill’s outer robes are removable, but his sleeves aren’t part of this accessory and remain dark brown when removed. This looks silly of course so it renders the need to sculpt this part as a separate piece as completely pointless. One other thing that bothers us is that not even his tan colored shirt and skirt matches. We’re not sure what went awry with the paint operations here. Despite these issues, we can’t help but really admire this action figure. It’s not perfect, but it does the job until we receive a super-articulated version. (Editor’s Note: Yeah, *if* we receive the super-articulated version that was supposed to come out in Spring 2013!)