Obi-Wan Kenobi - LC - Saga Legends (SL19)

Aided by his droid companion R4-P17, Obi-Wan flies an Eta-2 Jedi starfighter on a mission to rescue Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. His acute Jedi instincts help him battle overwhelming odds as he battles his way past Separatist forces and buzz droids that threaten to destroy his ship.

The red phase of the Legacy Collection opened up with a wave of a dozen Saga Legends figures in June 2009. A second wave quickly followed in July and then Saga Legends pretty much came to a halt. Surprisingly, the figures sold quite well and we think Hasbro noticed this right off the bat and then started releasing nothing to stores but these Saga Legends figures. (A collective "Ugh!" was heard throughout the collecting community.) That was until a surprise figure known as Obi-Wan Kenobi (SL19) started hitting store shelves in September as the only new figure in wave 3 of the popular subline. Unannounced, unexpected and unbelievably surprising, it was the first time the highly popular 2005 Revenge Of The Sith version of Obi-Wan Kenobi was made available in the Saga Legends collection. While this version of Obi-Wan is nothing new, the way it was packaged is. Basically a straight repack of the 2005 ROTS Obi-Wan Kenobi (III 55) figure, Obi-Wan now comes without his plastic sculpted robes. Yet he does still come with his headset and signature lightsaber. However, he is technically more a repack of the 2006 TSC Obi-Wan Kenobi (SAGA 028) figure.

You are already very familiar with this figure. Super-articulated, it was a figure that surprised us back in 2005. It an unfortunate way, we have come to expect this as minimum articulation for our figures, so we look at Obi-Wan with a "yeah, so?" attitude. But this figure is incredible in its likeness, articulation, paint decorations and accessorization. In fact, the figure has been the template for many subsequent revised Obi-Wan Kenobi figures. Actually, the list is so long we won't dare enumerate them all here. But Obi-Wan Kenobi is a figure that has the entitlement to be released and rereleased time and again. Hasbro can't really do much to perfect this figure, save for hip joints (but they did make this upgrade on the 2008 TAC Obi-Wan Kenobi (08 01) figure) so it goes without saying that this is a figure that should already be in your collection multiple times. The figure is nearly perfect. It has a little bit too wide of a stance, but this helps with the leg articulation. (When figures don't have ball-joints, sometimes their legs come too close together when bent at the hips, so the wider the stance, the better it will eliminate this problem.

Obi-Wan has some slight paint changes from its previous releases, but they aren't enough to warrant calling this figure a repaint. It has been quite some time since we have seen this figure available as a basic figure (the closest and most recent was 2006's TSC Obi-Wan Kenobi (SAGA 028) figure as we've mentioned earlier). We think the figure looks great in the new Saga Legends packaging and it is a little neat to see him packaged without his robe. It makes the figure look "different enough" although this is something that will benefit carded collectors more than those who open their action figures. We would have to say that this Obi-Wan Kenobi Saga Legends figure was the surprise figure of 2009. And unless we missed a news post somewhere, Hasbro has yet to officially announce this figure. (The last Hasbro list published stops at SL18.) Rightfully so, Obi-Wan is a key kid and collector friendly figure. Trying to find a fan who doesn't like Obi-Wan Kenobi is a near impossible task. His character was strong in the films (and most EU stories) and his action figure interpretations are equally as strong.