Opee And Qui-Gon Jinn - EI - Creatures

In an attempt to recruit the amphibious Gungans in their fight against the greedy Trade Federation, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jar Jar Binks swim to the vast underwater city of Otoh Gunga. On their return, the trio is attacked by a gigantic, ravenous Opee sea creature whose voracious jaws threaten to spell the end for the Jedi, and crush all hopes for the planet of Naboo!

Sometimes different toy concept help to develop a large toy line further, and then other times it confuses. Perhaps the Opee And Qui-Gon Jinn set is a mixture of the two. Some fans of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace felt the “there’s always a bigger fish” segment was a bit too repetitive, but many others found it entertaining and action-packed. In these scenes, we’re introduced to the Opee sea killer who looks as much as an anglerfish as it does some type of crustacean. The Opee serves and the major threat to Qui-Gon Jinn’s, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s and Jar Jar Binks’ underwater excursion while in the Gungan submarine, but after an initial attack on the vessel, the Opee sea killer falls victim to the Sando aqua monster, and our heroes can escape unharmed. To complete this scene, we’d need more than a few large creatures and vehicles developed by Hasbro. Instead, they randomly decided to produce the Opee sea killer and released it in the Opee And Qui-Gon Jinn creature set. The two-pack is about as equally interesting as it is perplexing. We don’t understand the pairing of Qui-Gon Jinn here, and we understand less the spear that is his accessory. At best, this off-screen pairing will provide hours of play value for new Star Wars fans. But for adult collectors, the limited display value of this set’s contents and lack of other interacting players might leave a little to be desired here.

The Opee is a stunning work of sculpted art. Hasbro should be proud of what they accomplished recreating the Opee sea killer in 3.75” scale. The beast in the film appears to be a bit large when compared to an average human character, but Hasbro did an excellent job capturing the details of this underwater creature incredibly well. The texture of the skin, the unique eyes, the antennae, and the articulated pectoral fins beautifully capture all of the important parts of the Opee. The articulated jaw (which moves with the press of a button on the dorsal side of the creature) is a wonderful enhancement here, but we wish it wasn’t an action feature and instead of a point of articulation. Inside of the Opee’s mouth are rows of teeth, and it looks very much like the maw of the Sarlacc. Each tooth is expertly painted, and the pink interior of its mouth reminds us all that we don’t want to become its next victim. The Opee comes with a separately sculpted set of legs that look like those of a crab. It attaches easily by pressing it into the Opee’s lower body. Sadly, the legs don’t provide balance for the Opee, and it looks silly on display without hanging in the air or underwater as it’s intended. But the beast is a work of art both for its sculpt and paint job. It’s quite impressive how beautifully Hasbro can paint these creatures and bring them to life. If anything, this set is worthy of your dollars from the paint job alone.

The perplexing Qui-Gon Jinn is a very mediocre action figure. Although, it does offer us a screen-accurate version of the character when he swam underwater heading to the Gungan’s underwater city while using a rebreather. His hair is also wet and slicked back. Perhaps in some concept or abandoned scene, Qui-Gon battles the Opee, but we don’t think that’s the case at all. Hasbro did their best pairing a character from the film with a creature and they have to spread that out between three main characters. It appears as if it was Qui-Gon Jinn’s turn this time. Qui-Gon Jinn comes with minimal articulation. But this time Hasbro added hinge-jointed ankles so you can recreate the way a human swims in the water. It was a novel idea on Hasbro’s part to include this form of articulation here on Qui-Gon, but we’re not sure how necessary it was. As mentioned earlier, Qui-Gon Jinn comes with a spear, supposedly to fight off the Opee. But the whole idea of him battling this huge creature underwater with a spear no bigger than himself falls a little flat. He also comes with an articulated lightsaber hilt on his belt, but it isn’t removable (by our efforts at least). Overall, the Opee And Qui-Gon Jinn two-pack is bittersweet. We’re happy to see Hasbro take risks and produce creatures like this for the Episode I line, but we need the ones to make this a more enjoyable play and diorama-building experience. We hope more are on the way.