Captain Phasma - TFA - Build A Weapon (Forest)

Clad in distinctive metallic armor, Captain Phasma commands the First Order's legions of troopers.

When you’re an eager Star Wars fan, it’s almost impossible not to eavesdrop even on spoilers that you honestly don’t want to know about but find out inadvertently. If you don’t want to know even the simplest details about Captain Phasma, then it might be best to read to the review at a later date. This extra tall cup of water turns out to be the first female trooper leader in the history of Star Wars films. Played by an extra tall actress, Captain Phasma brings the girth, strength and determination of any male character to the forefront of Episode VII, and will perhaps become a character that will outlast so many other characters that have left indelible marks on the Star Wars saga. But because her action figure was released prior to the film and as of this review date the film is moths out, we will be speaking directly to the spirit of the action figure because that’s the only fair way to come to a balanced conclusion of this action figure. We’ll tell you right up front that Captain Phasma is the hot action figure of the first wave of “Build A Weapon” and is one of the first ones people are scooping up in multiples. There’s good reason for this. She is the first chrome Stormtrooper we have ever seen, she is female and she leads the First Order into battle against the Resistance.

As you know from our opinions about Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens line, you know that Hasbro has refocused how they have approached simply articulated action figures. Hasbro has found a happy medium to bring an inordinate detail to a mere five points of articulation and it works better than we could have ever expected. We are not excusing them turning a blind eye on a full line of super-articulated action figures. But if this is where the line has gone, this is certainly the way to do it. It seems, as sad as this sounds, that vac-metallization has gone the way of the dinosaurs with Hasbro. We hope that they’ll prove us wrong sometime in the future, but it is clearly something that they’ve been avoiding since the The Clone Wars line came into existence in 2008. That being said, Captain Phasma looks pretty darn good without a correct chrome finish. Sure, the marbled color of the grayish-silver plastic will be second best to many collectors, but we think that the final action figure looks very much line the character we have seen in reference stills and trailers. On top of everything, Hasbro added sharp black detail to shape the contour of the helmet and the bodysuit underneath the armor. Simply put, Captain Phasma is beautiful in so many ways.

Captain Phasma comes with a removable cape with a red stripe running along the seam. She also comes with a new First Order blaster. Both hands can accommodate the blaster which is a nice option to have. And then the ball-socket head can easily pop off so that the cape can be moved to give Captain Phasma a completely different look. Although female, Captain Phasma is indistinguishable as far as her gender is concerned. She towers over the rest of the First Order Stormtroopers and the rest of the soldiers that serve under her. Her limbs are solid and she possesses a brawn that would intimidate anyone who would come in contact with her. If we had to nitpick, we feel that her cape was given too much mass. It makes her top heavy and her feet do lay flatly against a surface which really makes standing her up a bit more difficult than the average figure in The Force Awakens line. Captain Phasma comes with a Build A Weapon part, but this is a new convention and we’re just getting used to it ourselves. We will tell you that she is part of a “Forest” assortment of parts and three pieces are needed to cobble together a Hasbro conceptual bigger weapon. However, Build A Droid was much more interesting and entertaining. Anyway, Captain Phasma is a figure to certainly enjoy!