General Grievous - TSC - Basic (SAGA 030)

Can you really fault Hasbro for using an older mold of General Grievous when they work hard at making it unique from previously releases? Some may answer yes to that question, but what if that version of Grievous still lacks in proper scale and has limited articulation? The Saga Collection’s General Grievous action figure is bittersweet for multiple reasons but when all is said and done, it may be one figure that should have been abandoned for basic action figure releases again. Starting off life of 2005’s ROTS General Grievous (Sneak Preview) (1 of 4) figure, Hasbro completely repainted the figure from head to claw to be more movie-accurate than ever before. But the figure’s inherent limitations are actually overbearing to the point that the improvements really don’t justify its release again. (We’ve actually lost count how many times Hasbro has used this figure over and over again.)

To be fair, the figure has wonderful proportions and you can pose him in that semi-crawling action that we witnessed aboard The Invisible Hand in Revenge Of The Sith. He comes with a healthy supply of accessories which aid in the interaction of collector and toy. You get an electropole, blue lightsaber, droid blaster and removable plastic cape so you get enough accessories to make this action figure relatively fun to play with the rest of the figures in your collection. Grievous appears extremely clean. While the paint job is significantly more accurate in color and presentation, Hasbro may have gone too clean as you cannot see any of the marbling in his organic structures at all. (But something like this may be better reserved for high end collectibles to document.) Grievous definitely looks good and you can pose him “at the ready” for battle so it’s hard to fault the figure when it brings this much positivity to your collection.

General Grievous was also part of the 2006 TSC Ultimate Galactic Hunt program. This either interested you very much or you became so frustrated not being able to find them at retail. We didn’t have much trouble finding them, but as a whole we found many collectors lost steam very quickly and felt defeated that they were never going to find a complete set of them. The silver stand, faux “pewter” figure and the fancy-pants packaging did not do a lot to stir up collector frenzy, but for those that did partake, the Ultimate Galactic Hunt brought 10 unique versions of the most popular characters in The Saga Collection in specialty packaging. General Grievous should be considered a new figure to you. The paint job is strikingly new (and clean) and you get a new lineup of accessories this time around, so there is enough here to consider another purchase of this action figure. Not one of the highlights of The Saga Collection, General Grievous still brings enough new stuff to the table to be a fun action figure. But you’ll have to define your own fun.