Ketwol - POTJ - Basic

An asteroid prospector and part-time scout, the enigmatic Ketwol is often found in seedy spaceports trying to sell precious ores and metals. Ketwol is from a distant sytem in the Outer Rim Territories. An enemy of the Empire, Ketwol has secretly provided the Rebel Alliance with materials and information.

No matter how you analyze it, the Star Wars Special Editions were controversial in more ways than one. But perhaps the biggest controversies seem to have settled in A New Hope. Whether it’s because Episode IV is the original Star Wars film and has the most traditional fans supporting it, or because the revisions were just too much, there was extreme public outcry for the film’s so-called enhancements. Greedo now shoots at Han Solo and two Cantina aliens that fans have grown to adore and love were each replaced with the same new puppet, first presented frontwards, and then second presented backwards. More on that in a moment. Ketwol, which may or may not become a highly desired action figure is a new addition to the Power Of The Jedi line. It’s well made, and Hasbro faithfully replicated its unique dual identity quite well, but we wonder if there will be as much support fro the figure that Hasbro believes there is. Objectively, Ketwol is a pretty nice action figure. He has a great sculpt, cool features like removable pants and a removable coat and a reveal of a characteristic that we didn’t see in the film. Ketwol is a cool action figure for sure, but he is already up against a wall and we’re not sure if fans will fully embrace him. He is guilty by association.

Ketwol is a male Pacithhip and he was created (for ridiculous reasons in our opinion) and added to the 1997 Special Edition re-release of A New Hope to replace Lak Sivrak. They created this new puppet because George Lucas used Halloween masks to create some of the cantina aliens because of budgetary reasons and he felt that the Special Editions offered the perfect opportunity to finally update things the way he had originally envisioned. Ketwol's mechanical stilts as represented on the action figure were never seen on-screen but it was a cool feature for the figure. The puppet of this character was quite complex and was its own paradigm shift. The back of the mask could also be used as a new character and that’s what George Lucas did. The Ketwol puppet was reversed and used for the character of Melas as well. According to the Expanded Universe, Melas was a Sarkan exile who traveled from planet to planet. They covered Ketwol’s trunk and tusks with a red turban and used the back of Ketwol's head as Melas’ face. As a result, the Melas creature was made. Melas, regrettably by most, replaced Arleil Schous in the Mos Eisley Cantina scene. The removable of the two classic cantina aliens, no matter how “bad” they looked to Lucas, is something many hardcore fans can’t get over at all.

All that being said, Ketwol is still a well made action figure. Although possessing limited articulation, Ketwol comes with a swivel head (which nicely swivels 180 degrees so you can “create” Melas too), two swivel shoulders, a swivel waist and two swivel hips. As stated earlier, Ketwol is actually a very short alien who sits upon mechanical stilts and Hasbro actually took the time to develop removable pants (which sounds really, really bizarre by the way for a kids’ toy) as well as a removable coat. When you remove his pants, you see just how short in stature he really is. The stilts aren’t removable (which would have been a nice feature) but the design is still good. We really wish Hasbro would have also sculpted accessories so collectors would have been able to complete “Melas” as well. An inclusion of a red turban and head covering with a smoking device would have been a sublime inclusion here. But even without the necessary interchangeability to complete the “alternate character”, Ketwol still holds up pretty well regardless. For those who love trivia, you may be interested to know that his name above the UPC code is spelled Ketwal. Ketwol may not round out your classic cantina display, but for those who love anything cantina related, this addition may still be easy to overlook.