Rappertunie (Jabba’s Palace) - SW [S - P3] - Basic (’04 #08)

Rappertunie was the stage name for an amphibious Shawda Ubb musician in the Max Rebo Band, which was part of the entertainment in Jabba the Hutt's palace. As one of the band's back-up musicians, Rappertunie played the growdi, a combination of flute and water organ. While most of the band went to the Great Pit of Carkoon for the execution, Rappertunie elected to stay behind, thus saving his life.

The Star Wars Special Edition updates to the Original Trilogy caused quite a stir of controversy. Perhaps one of the biggest complaints was the removal of Lapti Nek and the all-new inclusion of Jedi Rocks. George Lucas had always envisioned a big musical number in one of his Star Wars films, and he felt Lapti Nek never brought that vision to fruition. (Boy was he wrong.) So when it came time to rework the classic films, he dug his claws into the Jabba’s Palace scenes and totally reinvented the scenes that left indelible marks in out memories. The general consensus is that Jedi Rocks pales in comparison to the revered Lapti Nek. We feel similarly. In order to do the new take on the Jabba’s Palace musical number, George Lucas had to create new band members to make the scene feel larger than life. One new member, a Shawda Ubb with stage name Rappertunie, was released in the final phase of the Star Wars “Saga” line and it ended up turning out to be an impressive action figure.

His real name, Rapotwanalantonee Tivtotolon, was much too long and hard to pronounce for the action figure, so Hasbro rightfully went with his stage name instead. We feel that whether you like Return Of The Jedi Special Edition or not, that you would be remiss to not acknowledge that Rappertunie (Jabba’s Palace) is a pretty incredible action figure. The sculpt is topnotch and the deco and accessories only accent what is already an excellent release. He is moderately articulated, but the points of articulation are discretely added. Most importantly, he sits atop his growdi flawlessly and can hold the “flute portion” perfectly to recreate the scene from the film. So, we have to give this figure high marks based on its merits, and not whether we like the revisited scene he appears or more simply the character himself. This figure represents Hasbro’s expertise to make something beyond collectors’ expectations. We know we have been pleasantly surprised by this action figure release, and we don’t know who wouldn’t be impressed by it.

Rappertunie (Jabba’s Palace) comes with seven points of articulation. He has a complex head joint. It’s a mix of swivel and hinge-jointed, but that usually translates to a ball-jointed accessory, so we’ll just make it easy and call it that. His head does moves forwards and backwards on a hinge-jointed pivot point, and it can turn left and right on the swivel pivot point. As you can imagine, it gives him a nice range of movement for the most part, but it is inhibited partly because of the shape of his head and where it attaches to his body. The figure also has two swivel shoulders, two swivel elbows and two swivel hips. The arms give enough movement so you can pose the instrument in his hands well, and the movement in his hips is a nice addition, although it’s almost unnecessary since he is designed to sit on the growdi seated portion. It’s not as if moving his legs will affect the way he sits on top of the instrument. We’ve said it earlier and we’ll say it again now. This is an excellently designed action figure. If you’re waiting for super-articulation before you’ll consider this version, you may wait a while.