To me, a big part of Star Wars is all the weird little guys that show up in minor or background roles. I particularly like the image of these strange little guys because they are more playful than the main character in a drab jacket and robe. There are tons of weird little guys in Acolyte , but we can’t guarantee right now that a significant percentage of them will be made into characters, so I’m glad Basil made the cut. Let’s take a look at the Black Series Bazil!
This box has never been a big part of me as a collector, but the homogeneity of Hasbro’s three six-inch scale line boxes makes them even less interesting. Particularly boring is the use of the same art on the sides and back of the box.
Man, the Black Series accessories are really streamlined. One thing Bazil brought to the table was the re-release of Osha’s robot companion, but I can’t remember his name at the moment. It looks identical to the original version, so while it does have a small hinge and lots of paint hits, it’s not too exciting. This might be a good opportunity to repaint the “eye” red since it changed in one episode. I don’t know what else they should have brought with them, other than an alternate avatar with a panicked expression. Maybe one of those creepy bat bugs they fought in Forrest?
This guy’s sculpt is pretty perfect. His clothes have a nice texture and the folds in them have a lot of weight to them. This little guy’s face is just as cute as the one on the screen.
The connection is not very good. This was partly due to his short stature and bulky clothing. The arms and legs bend about 90 degrees, and the ball-and-socket waist has a good slope, but very little up/down. The butt, on the other hand, is pretty bad. They are ball-and-socket and hinge quite heavily forward and back until the skirt gets in the way, but there are no cutouts at the top of the hips so outward movement is almost non-existent. The slight thigh-to-hip rotation of the Black Series in the latest model is completely missing here. The hinged visor is a nice touch and one of those screen features that is sometimes missed, so I’m glad this guy has it.
Basil has:
- Ball and socket neck, waist and hips
- Rotate/articulate shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees and ankles
- hinged visor
Paint is standard on the Black Series, with the existing plastic colors doing a lot of the heavy lifting. The drawing is clean, with the inkjet on the face adding nice detail to his eyes and mouth. Like most of these figures, he’s a little too clean and needs a little cleaning, or a little dusting, as his little white cape is quite dirty in the show.
Overall, this is a nice figure without the accessories. Especially if you consider all the cool stuff the little kids got in Skeleton Crew, he seems to be of lower value. Maybe it’s just me. I just want everyone to be able to do karate, is that wrong? And it really feels like they just kept cutting, cutting, cutting on the articulation section to the point where we would end up with a 5POA number on that line.
