Sarco Plank - TFA - Build A Weapon (Desert)

A scavenger and trader who scours frontier worlds for riches, Sarco Plank must wear a specialized mask that keeps his native atmosphere circulating through his alien lungs.

It’s well known that all of the merchandise that was released on Force Friday represents storylines and characters from the first third of the movie. Hasbro and Disney intentionally released product in this way in order to preserve secrets of The Force Awakens. And in all honesty it seems to be working very well in their favor. While it seems that we’re receiving a wide breadth of characters from The Force Awakens, apparently this is just the tip of the iceberg. And we imagine it must have been very difficult for Hasbro to plan a line of basic figures within certain strict parameters as to not reveal any of Episode VII’s surprises. When we see a character like Sarco Plank released, it makes us even more excited for the new Star Wars film. We assume Sarco Plank is more of a background character than anything else, but his entry into The Force Awakens line harkens back to the original Kenner line where the “obscure” took precedence over the “main” cast of characters. Just think back to the 1979 vintage Kenner figures. Not one of those characters except for Luke Skywalker (X-wing Pilot) had more than a few seconds of screen time. Think of Sarco Plank as the modern Snaggletooth or Power Droid. That’s about where you should rank his importance.

Sarco Plank brings another dimension of alien design to the Star Wars basic figure line. And if there is one word that comes to mind when we ogle this figure, it would have to be awesome. That is a very overused word, but despite Sarco Plank’s simple articulation, the design and paint job are overwhelmingly beautiful and it makes us hope he has a very important role in the film. Sarco Plank shares in spirit the ornate costuming of the Neimoidians mixed with the desert sensibilities of some of what the commoners wore in Mos Eisley or Mos Espa on Tatooine. On top of everything, Sarco Plank is unable to breathe the atmosphere on which he resides, which is the reason why his face is covered up with breathing apparatuses. (Will we see his real face in the film? Only time will tell.) Yes, Sarco Plank is a simply constructed action figure, but carefully inspect the paint operations in the photo gallery of this review. If you need any proof or evidence of how far Hasbro has come in just a few short years with the deco on action figures, you needn’t look any further than Sarco Plank. It’s quite astounding what they’ve managed to accomplish with this beautiful action figure. He’s colorful, mysterious and has enough of a threatening stature to make anyone wary.

Both the front and the back of Sarco Plank are intricately detailed. You know about the breathing tools on his front, but he also has gas tanks installed on his back. While they’re part of the sculpt, it is a little bittersweet to think they would likely be separate and removable accessories had this been a super-articulated grade of figure. As far as accessories are concerned, Sarco Plank comes with an extraordinarily large bronze blaster rifle. In the stills we have seen of this character, it looks as if Hasbro has faithfully replicated look and feel of the real prop. But until we see more reference materials, we’ll hold out for a final opinion. Obviously a new Star Wars toy line without a film is a very difficult thing to make sense of, because without a storyline the characters have very little depth. But thankfully we won’t have to wait much longer until The Force Awakens hits theaters because when it does hit all of these questions are going to be answered. We can tell you that even though we don’t know much about Sarco Plank, we love him just the same. Sure, a ton more articulation would be sublime, but that’s no longer an option. It’s sad, but we shouldn’t be discounting figures that look great just because they don’t have all of the articulation we’d like to see.