BB-8 - Droid Factory

All different types of droids populate the Star Wars galaxy. Each droid is different and has their own unique personality and colors. BB-8 accompanied Poe Dameron on many missions for the Resistance, keeping his X-Wing in working order. When Poe's mission to Jakku ended with his capture by the First Order, BB-8 fled into the desert with a vital clue to the location of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. Join BB-8 on his adventures throughout the galaxy.

BB-8 just isn’t doing it for us. How’s that for an instant synopsis of Disney Parks’ new BB-8 Droid Factory figure? It’s honestly hard to fathom that Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was released December 18, 2015 and even with four months lead in time before that and until now we never received a single-carded BB-8 action figure with all of the bells and whistles represented in the film. And it’s sad to say we still don’t. After a gloriously stunning interpretation of C1-10P “CHOPPER” in this perfect 3.75” scale, we were pretty confident that Disney was going to wow us with their own clever interpretation of BB-8. But for us the figure falls flat. That in and of itself is irony because BB-8 has been approached like a Weeble, and as you know they don’t fall down. They’ve added a weighted piece which keeps BB-8 grounded no matter how much you thrown him around. We give credit to Disney for working that feature into the sculpt, but that’s all this figure offers. There are no interchangeable arms, no dang “thumbs up” lighter and definitely no useful articulation here aside from a swivel head. BB-8 disappoints. And that REALLY disappoints us.

BB-8 breaks down into four separate pieces. They include head attachment (with barely movable antennae), two body halves and the weighted gravity ball (which fits into the two halves like a carefully constructed puzzle by the way). Sadly, BB-8 is unable to stand unassisted without the silver gravity ball inside of it. Besides, the two halves don’t even snap together without it either. You’re totally dependent on the gravity ball to make this a functional action figure. The ball itself is very cool and has a lot of detail etched into it. Disney even gave it some colorful paint application for lights and stuff. Whether this ball is based on some images from a technical “making of” book or some The Force Awakens behind the scenes materials is something we don’t know. We don’t buy the Episode VII supplemental materials. But if they came up with this idea on their own then we give them additional credit. The “insides” of BB-8 are believable and work well from that perspective. It’s just a shame that the gravity ball prevents the figure from doing anything else meaningful in your collection. We are pretty sure you’re going to be disappointed.

Another disappointment with BB-8 are the overall paint operations. We should preface our complaint with a complement. What Disney did give this figure is a neat and clean paint job. But even with that being said there just isn’t enough deco here. BB-8 is way too clean and white. Not even the orange, silver and black details can prevent this action figure from looking way too dull. As sad as it is to say, the Disney BB-8 figure really isn’t overtly better than the Hasbro BB-8 figure (ping pong ball or golf ball). That’s a pretty terrible thing. In fact, some of the Hasbro BB-8 figures might ne netter thanks to excellent paint operations. We truly expected a heck of a lot more from Disney Parks with regards to this figure. It isn’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but Disney clearly didn’t go above and beyond like they did with C1-10P “CHOPPER”. They should have. Imagine what a better paint job and interchangeable arm attachments would have done for this action figure? Still, we must credit Disney with giving BB-8 its own single-carded packaging, something that Hasbro should have done two years ago. This isn’t a figure to avoid, but it certainly isn’t a figure to panic trying to obtain either.