For me, a big part of Star Wars is all the weird little guys that appear in minor or background roles. I especially enjoy the figures of these weird little dudes because they tend to be a bit more toyetic than the main characters in their drab brown jackets and robes. The Acolyte had a metric ton of weird little dudes, but we just aren’t guaranteed a decent percentage of them will be made into figures these days, so I’m very glad that Bazil made the cut. Let’s take a look at Black Series Bazil!
The box has never been an important part to me as a collector, but the homogenization of the box across the three six-inch scaled lines from Hasbro make them even less interesting. Especially dull is the same art used on the side of the box as the back.
Man, the Black Series sure can be skinty with the accessories. Bazil comes with one thing, a re-release of Osha’s droid buddy, the name of whom escapes me for the moment. It looks the same as that original release, so it’s not too exciting even though it does have a little articulated head and has a lot of paint hits. This might have been a good opportunity to repaint the “eye” red as it changes in one episode. I’m not sure what else they should have included with him except maybe an alternate head with his freaked out expression. Maybe one of those creepy bat-bugs they fight in the forrest?
The sculpting on this guy is pretty perfect. His outfit has great texture and clothing folds with a real weight to them. The little guy’s face is exactly as cute as his on-screen counterpart.
The articulation is not great. Part of that can be excused by his short stature and bulky clothing. The arms and legs get just about 90 degree bend and the ball and socket waist have good tilt, but minimal up/down. The hips, on the other hand, are pretty bad. They are ball and socket and hinge forward and back a decent amount until the skirt gets in the way, but there is no cutout at the top of the hip so the outward movement is almost non-existent. The slight swivel Black Series thighs get at the hips in the latest figures is completely gone here. The hinged visor is a nice touch and is one of those on-screen functionality things that sometimes get missed, so I’m glad this guy has it.
Bazil has:
- Ball and socket neck, waist, and hips
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees and ankles
- Hinged visor
Paint is pretty standard for Black Series with the existing plastic colors doing a lot of the heavy lifting. What is painted is clean and the ink-jet for the face adds nice detail to his eyes and mouth. Like most of these figures, he’s a little too clean and could use a bit of a wash or perhaps some light dirt dusting as his little white poncho is pretty dirty on the show.
Overall, this is a nice figure, if light on accessories. Especially if you consider all the cool stuff the little kids in Skeleton Crew get, he seems like a lower value.. That articulation issue I discussed earlier is annoying, but he moves as well as he does in the show, so that might just be a me thing. I just want everybody to be able to do karate kicks, is that so wrong? Also it really feels like they are just cutting and cutting and cutting in the articulation department so much that we are eventually going to get to 5POA figures in this line.
Source: Fwoosh
