Mace Windu - SW [SOTDS] - Saga Legends (SL29)

A powerful Jedi Master, Mace Windu has mastered skills that only the most trained minds can hope to attempt. He is betrayed by fellow Jedi Anakin Skywalker, after fighting Chancellor Palpatine to a standstill in a battle that costs the lives of three Jedi.

Sometimes a figure just isn't worth its weight in anticipation and the final result can really let you down. This can be said of the 30 (77-07) interpretation of Mace Windu. We all waited a really long time for Hasbro to give us a quality Mace Windu action figure. He sort of came to us with this release, but he falls short in a few areas which in turn makes him not worthy of definitive status. Why he was reissued for the Star Wars [Shadow Of The Dark Side] Saga Legends line is beyond us. Sure, it's a decent action figure, but it ultimately doesn't look like Mace Windu and the lower leg articulation is rendered useless thank to the skirt portion of his robes. Hasbro spent a lot of unnecessary dollars in their tooling budget to bring us a figure that essentially is immobile below the waist due to the inhibitions of the design (the stiff skirt). Interestingly, he totally satisfies the definition of super-articulation, but when it comes to practicality and functionality, he’s anything but this. A tremendous update to 2005's ROTS Mace Windu (III 10) figure, all is not completely lost with this figure. His plastic molded lower skirt basically makes any and all leg movement impossible which is a shame. A soft-goods skirt would have helped tremedously. His arms do provide a nice degree of movement, but he just comes across more statuesque than anything else.

Although he has a few inconsistencies in the coloration of parts of his outfit, Mace Windu has a very nice paint job. For this Saga Legends release, we noticed a few different paint applications this time around. He has a large bulky robe (which works well for him we might add) that covers him up pretty well, but doesn’t overshadow his strength as a Jedi Master. Hasbro designed this version of Mace Windu after the “Senate confrontation” he had with Darth Sidious. He comes with the Sith lightning he blocked that interacts with his lightsaber, but since Mace can't be posed in a multitude of ways, he basically just stands there with pretty Sith lightning wrapped around his lightsaber. This is a figure that needed the flexibility to be posed in action stances so to say we’re disappointed with his capabilities doing this would certainly be an understatement. His likeness is disappointing. And we wonder why he has this noticeable goofy grin on his face. The beginning of Order 66 seemed anything but humorous, so why isn't their anger on his face, or at least some attitude? He does however have great height and is taller than many other Jedi in the toy line. Hasbro definitely excelled when it came to Mace's accuracy in his scale. BUt we have to wonder if that means all that much when the figure seems to have more aesthetic issues with it than not.

We strongly feel that Hasbro is going to need to take another giant stab at an Episode III version of Mace Windu sometime in the future. On top of a solid sculpt with a great likeness to Samuel L. Jackson, an update is going to need a tighter paint job, a more menacing look on the portrait and a sculpt that doesn't inhibit the articulation system worked into the action figure. Also, soft-goods that help assist this flexibility are required to make Mace Windu all that he can be. Despite all of this criticism, we should point out that Mace Windu is undoubtedly quite a few steps headed in the right direction as far as what collectors want to see in an action figure. But it’s definitely going to take another revision before we feel it’s up to snuff. Perhaps a less scene-specific version of him should be considered for the future. We do know that the next action figure will have to be more versatile in movement and have the capability to be placed in a variety of positions. Yes, he does have premium articulation, but what good is that if you can’t utilize all of it? Again, and we hope this doesn't sound too hypocritical, as much as we’ve pointed out this figure’s faults, we are still happy to see it available in the Saga Legends line. Mace Windu is a decent figure to keep in stock at retail, and since he is a major character in The Clone Wars television show, it makes sense that we have a realistically styled version of him avaialble for new fans.