Darth Maul (Electronic Talking) - EI - 12 Inch Figures

No one embodies the dark side of the Force like the sinister Darth Maul. Under orders from his master Darth Sidious, he seeks to destroy two of the galaxy's most noble Jedi: Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Hunting his targets to the planet Naboo, the sinister Sith lord strikes at his opponents with a double-bladed lightsaber and all the power of the dark side.

To make the 12 Inch Figures more appealing to a younger generation of Star Wars fans, Hasbro produced a line of figures in 12” scale for the Episode I line that included electronics and action features. Interestingly, these figures required all-new sculpts. Hasbro couldn’t rely on the standard bucks they used in years past. And instead of using a generic buck with a new portrait and scene-specific soft-goods costume, Hasbro set aside a budget for the Electronic Talking line of Episode I figures to receive all-new tooling. Darth Maul (Electronic Talking) was one figure in the first wave of these new 12 Inch Figures, and it’s better than you might think it is. The Action Collection is a fantastic line for adult collectors, but Hasbro is limited with what they can do with the line because they utilize the same buck for almost every figure in the line. But with the Darth Maul (Electronic Talking) figure, they were able to revisit the character’s height among the other 12 Inch Figures. This is the most perfectly-scaled Darth Maul one-sixth scale figure in the entire Episode I line.

As briefly mentioned, Darth Maul (Electronic Talking) comes with sound effects, speaks phrases, and comes loaded with action features. The user presses the buttons on the back of the figure to make it talk. Like the CommTech basic figures, it's an actor reciting lines from the film or talking “Star Wars” things. These back buttons also activate the battle sounds. The double-bladed lightsaber breaks down into three parts: hilt and two blades. Once you assemble the lightsaber in both of the figure’s hands, you can move the lever on its back from side-to-side to activate the lightsaber combat action and battle sounds. Yes, Hasbro designed all of these features for kids to engage them. Collectors will likely have no interest in them. But we do have to comment that if they bothered to add electronics, we wish they would have added them to the lightsaber to have the blades light up. That feels like a missed opportunity here. However, it seems as if kids will thoroughly enjoy the play features Hasbro added here. The figure is fun, and that’s the point of this line.

Let’s talk more about the figure’s design. Well, we know the height is accurate to the on-screen character. Hasbro put all four figures in the “Electronic Talking” line in a perfect scale with each other. But the figure’s most-impressive feature is the head sculpt. Never has Darth Maul looked so angry and determined to take down the Jedi once and for all. The detail etched into Darth Maul’s face is astounding. We wish that the basic figures comparably looked this emotional, angry, and enraged as this head sculpt does. But beyond the excellent head sculpt, Darth Maul also has a spectacular paint job. The red and black don’t bleed into each other, and the lines are crisp and expertly applied. And the detail throughout the figure’s body is impressive as well. Also of note, Hasbro developed a beautiful soft-goods skirt for Darth Maul (Electronic Talking), and it brings depth and dimension to an already excellent figure. Once again, not everyone will be interested in the figures in this exclusive line of “Electronic Talking” figures, but you cannot discount the quality of them one bit.