General Madine - OTC - Basic (OTC #36)

Crix Madine is a Rebel Alliance officer who helps pave the way for victory at the Battle of Endor. One of his missions was to destroy the shield generator protecting the second Death Star. His soldiers capture the Imperial shuttle, Tydirium, so that a Rebel strike team can infiltrate Imperial territory and reach the generator.

We find it unreal that it took one year short of a decade for Hasbro to produce the first modern version of General Madine. Then again, there are still figures hasn’t updated from the vintage Kenner line and there’s no sign that they’re coming anytime soon. Thankfully, General Madine is a decently proportioned and in general (no pun intended) a fairly well done action figure. We do have to question however why Hasbro used mixed articulation types when designing this action figure. Updated ball-joints are nice in the elbows, but when the shoulders and head are both swivel, higher level articulation in secondary points are ultimately unproductive, or perhaps limited is a better term here. When a figure does not have complete free form motion in the shoulders or hips, there is very little meaningful movement that can be achieved with a figure designed in this manner.

We don’t want to take away from Hasbro entirely that they definitely did good with multiple aspects of General Madine. The portrait is better than average and the sculpt of his body is very good. He is lightly accessorized (he comes with his baton just like the vintage Kenner figure) and nicely painted. What makes The Original Trilogy Collection version of General Madine unique from 2004’s SW General Madine (Imperial Shuttle Capture) (‘04 #20) is the updated paint operations Hasbro gave the OTC figure just months after its original and earlier SW “Saga” release. The lines are clearer and the paint job looks completely better than it did, especially in the details of the face. Other than that everything else about the figure is exactly the same, up to and including the action figure display stand that comes in every last The Original Trilogy Collection figure.

An important character in Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi, General Madine is truly a breath of fresh air in the basic figure lineup. We know that he won’t appeal to everyone, especially younger collectors, but he has a very important place in the collecting community. It’s not often anymore that Hasbro likes to jump on releasing background characters or just characters that aren’t the most exciting onscreen. But they do know that there are zealot collectors out there that are desperate to find a modern replacement to every single vintage Kenner figure released between 1978 and 1985. And that’s where General Madine fills a worthy spot in the modern line. He looks much better in The Original Trilogy Collection than any other packaging, but that really goes without saying. Until Hasbro finds the time to give us a definitive version of him, this one will have to do.