Rey (Jakku) - TFA - 12-Inch Figures

Rey is a resilient survivor, a scavenger toughened by a lifetime of dealing with the cutthroats of the harsh desert world of Jakku.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s SuperRey! It’s truly unreal the controversy that has existed with Rey, the new heroine/superhero from The Force Awakens. You either loved here, disliked her or thought she was the greatest thing to ever happen to Star Wars. In the merchandising arena, she is even more controversial. Some believe that Hasbro hates women (that’s sarcasm folks) and that bigotry and discrimination exists when it comes to female action figures (not sarcasm, but a sad belief). While the #wheresrey movement has some merit, the lack of knowledge and understanding in the planning of The Force Awakens toy line is what’s fueling the unnecessary fire. Oh—and Hasbro’s inability to get toys to the market. There are reasons why Hasbro releases things in a particular order. And secrets often need to be preserved. This means that things may not be readily available when other things are. But instead of accepting that, it’s easier to call foul and make it an issue. Amidst a long-running controversy that Rey wasn’t equally represented in The Force Awakens line, her delayed 12-Inch Figure (which based on the packaging ships alongside the First Order TIE Fighter Pilot) seems to make up wave 2. But who knows.

As you know, Star Wars figures don’t look all that differently from across the various scales anymore because it is believed that they’re all derived from the same digital files. That once again appears to be the case for the Rey (Jakku) 12-Inch Figure. Surprisingly, the figure looks pretty good, although we’re sure that some revisions to the paint operations would greatly improve the overall appearance of this figure. Like the other 12-Inch figures, Rey (Jakku) comes with enhanced articulation in the wrists which helps with posing her with the included strapped staff (supposedly made out of lightsaber hilts). She seems a bit too tall, but scale is something Hasbro has been struggling with, yet blaming their mistakes on collectors for wanting more “substance” with their action figures. Somehow they’ve translated that to be more plastic and larger-than-accurate action figures. If you have 2015’s TFA Rey (Starkiller Base) (Snow) Build A Weapon figure than you should pretty much know what to expect from the 12-Inch Figure version. For all intents and purposes, they’re identical and have very little differences from one another. With a potentially great likeness and average paint operations, it’s hard to know without artistic skill how this figure would look if done correctly.

The Rey (Jakku) 12-Inch Figure comes with seven points of articulation. These points include a ball-socket head, two swivel shoulders, two swivel wrists and two swivel hips. There isn’t obviously much you can do with this figure because of the poor articulation, but these “shampoo bottles” as they’re referred to by collectors aren’t intended to do much but stand around anyhow. We haven’t witnessed many kids purchasing this range of figures, but surprisingly we do see this scale of figures arrive and then disappear. So someone is buying. We have to wonder, however, if they’re closet collectors who have been buying Star Wars stuff long term. It doesn’t matter who is buying though because if they sell, that’s all Hasbro needs to see. For $9.99-$12.99 (depending on where you live we’ve been told), there is value in the Rey (Jakku) 12-Inch Figure. We concede that it wasn’t a good move to have her arrive late in the line. It is a tragedy she wasn’t available until the beginning of the new year after the film’s release. But there are so many internal issues with Hasbro right now that they’re mishandling a line for so many business reasons that it has nothing to do with a current moral or social issue. Here is hoping that things improve.