Director Krennic - TBS [P3] - Six Inch Figures (27)

As director of Advanced Weapons Research for the Imperial military, Orson Krennic is obsessed with the completion of the long-delayed Death Star project. A cruel but brilliant man, Krennic has staked his reputation on the delivery of the functional battle station to the Emperor.

It’s hard to judge accurately how you feel about the characters when you haven’t even seen the film in which they appear. This is nothing new of course. Every product launch for a new Star Wars film has presented us with hoards of action figures of characters we knew little to nothing about sometimes months in advance of a film’s release. Now that Disney has taken over, it appears that trend isn’t changing. But it’s also different in some regards. Maybe it’s just us, but it appears that Disney is putting greater “stake” in less characters in the hopes to drive a point to Star Wars fans that “these are the characters you should be watching/collecting”. The same characters are repeated in every scale and format, again not really new in Star Wars collecting, but the scale back in the amount of characters just makes this feel more prominent and exaggerated. What’s the point to this observation? Well, for us, it makes collecting dull. The reduction in the amount of characters presented for any Star Wars Entertainment line just feels uninspired. For years, a toy line was the catalyst for the excitement of the film. Now it feels like Disney is directing us who to focus on and who we should like based on who they’re focusing on to make the toys. We’re not coming at this from a conspiracy theory perspective. It’s pretty much just an observation and that’s all. But it has certainly affected many collectors and how they purchase toys for their collections. It just hasn’t been the same since lines have become so small anymore.

That’s not to say that Star Wars licensees aren’t making quality products. Hasbro has come far since the dreadful post-TVC days, although they still have a ways to go. The most recent figures in The Black Series [Phase III] line are showing collectors that Hasbro has been a little more diligent with how final figures are looking. There are still exceptions to this. Some human characters have phenomenal sculpts and terrible deco, and others just look great. The latter is true for Director Krennic. Released in the Rogue One 3.75” line, he has also been placed into the collector-focused TBS6 lineup. For all intents and purposes we’re pretty happy with how he looks. Once again, the deco on his face could be more finely tuned, but it isn’t looking terrible by a long shot. The sculpt is nearly flawless of course and the accessories are light, but appropriate. The portrait in particular is impressively sculpt. For us, it really looks great and imitates the features of the actor well. We’d love to see more attention given to make the skin look a tad older than it does on the figure, but again, it’s not something that makes us think this is a bad looking action figure. That just isn’t true at all. The costume is expertly crafted and the removable cape and blaster interact with the action figure beautifully. We would have preferred a soft-goods cape, but we know there are probably just as many opposing views on that, so we won’t extrapolate on our preference with that.

If we did have a complaint, and this is very minor, we’d have to say that the cookie cutter articulation system is becoming a bit boring. With very few exceptions, The Black Series [Phase III] 6” figures have an almost perfect 1:1 ratio when you compare the articulation between two figures. Again, is this a bad thing? Of course it isn’t. But it seems that maybe Hasbro could start thinking outside of the box to make these action figures more unique from one another. Of course, this cookie cutter articulation gives these figures a wide array of movement, so it’s pretty silly to complain about something good like this, right? There are rumors that the character of Director Krennic is one of the best parts of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. We’re looking forward to seeing him in action and hope that the rumors pan out. Part of a case that contains 50% straight (and unnecessary) repacks, we’re predicting that Director Krennic may be at risk for higher aftermarket values down the road if he isn’t carried forward into more case assortments in the future. Hasbro needs to really keep new case assortments all-new. If characters are needed, then those original case assortments should just have the capability to be reordered. It’s time to stop collecting in a never-ending perfect circle. It’s time to think outside the box and keep retail fresh and invigorated. Director Krennic is an important part to keeping retail fresh and we hope that you’ll find a reason to add him into your collection.