Unkar Plutt - TFA - Build A Weapon (Desert)

The junk boss of Jakku, Unkar runs a profitable business stealing, scavenging, and selling scrap on the desert world. If defied, he calls upon his gang of desert thugs to take what he wants.

Is it just or us, or does it seem that action figures we’re now getting months after the release of The Force Awakens should have all been part of Force Friday back in September of 2015? Unkar Plutt was a major part of the plot to The Force Awakens, and an albatross around Rey’s neck. She basically survived indirectly from his “allowances” in the form of portions. Sometimes she scored better than others, but no matter how hard she worked, it was evident that Unkar Plutt took advantage of her contributions which included metal refuse and droid parts. While most of the Jakku sequences were an utter mess and completely confusing—they provided more questions than answers—the environment did offer us some of the most unique characters in the film, and a home world that should have introduced two supposedly main characters that made it out in the basic figure line, but ultimately were all but missing or barely in the background in the final cut of the film. Hopefully the Blu-ray release will help flesh out those missing puzzle pieces.

So, what about the action figure? It’s not bad for a budget action figure, although, we’re not too sure if that likeness is all that great. The physique, stature and overall appearance of the action figure certainly resembles the onscreen character, but when looking directly into the face sculpt, you’ll probably concede like us that something just isn’t right. Unkar Plutt is by no means a bad action figure, but you’ll probably be wishing he appeared a little bit more surly than the action figure looks. In an interesting move, Hasbro gave Unkar Plutt a swivel right forearm. Believe it or not, it really doesn’t offer the action figure all that more movement or posing options, but the gesture is certainly appreciated. At first, we thought both forearms were swivel, but this isn’t the case. While a separately sculpted part, the left forearm is glued into place. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to include another swivel point of articulation? That makes the most sense to us, but again, Hasbro’s decisions are not always that clear to the collector.

Unkar Plutt is beautifully painted. Hasbro has really come far in the simply articulated range of figures, and this one is really no exception. Sure, you’re going to find some samples out there that appear as if they’ve colored outside of the lines a bit, or the spray mask calibrations need some fine tuning, but overall Unkar Plutt delivers very nice paint operations. He comes with a small blaster pistol and it fits nicely into his hands. Also, it is important to mention that although his armor is separately sculpted, it’s been glued into place and therefore unable to be removed. As with all Build A Weapon figures, Unkar Plutt comes with a grappling hook type of piece that actually has decent articulation. It can be combined with other Build A Weapon parts that come in the same assortment to build a bigger weapon. Unkar Plutt's Build A Weapon has significance. His feature is an Easter egg which pays homage to the character in the novel. The right forearm is removable and you can plug the Build A Weapon part into its place instead. Pretty cool! And it's canon!