Modal Nodes (Nalan Cheel & Tedn Dahai) - Scum & Villainy - 1:6 Scale Figures

House band of the Mos Eisley Cantina, the Modal Nodes includes a motley crew of Bith aliens, thus their nickname as the Bith Band. The band's front man is Figrin D'an, ringing in on the kloo horn. Backing him up on wind instruments are Doikk Na'ts on the Dorenian Beshniquel - or the Fizzz, for those in the know. Rounding out the band are Tech Mo'r on the Ommni Box, Nalan Cheel on the horn bell-bedecked bandfill, and Tedn D'hai on the Fanfar.

Before their days playing at the cantina, the Modal Nodes, like so many bands, had their ups and downs as Figrin D'an struggled to master his demons. The band accepted a contract to be the house musicians for Jabba the Hutt, but once they realized Jabba's reputation for executing "employees" who displeased him, they began to regret taking the job. Breaching their contract, Figrin D'an took a lucrative offer to play at a wedding, knowing that the job would give them enough money to escape from Jabba's Palace. On the night of the wedding, Figrin's penchant for gambling had him placing their payment on a game, much to the chagrin of his band mates. Luckily for them, Jabba had heard of their breach of contract and came after the band just as a troop of Stormtroopers raided the casino, creating a distracting fight that allowed the band to escape. Soon after the Modal Nodes reached safety, Figrin D'an lost control of his gambling again, this time wagering the band's instruments. He lost. At the band's insistence, Figrin played another hand in hopes of winning back their equipment and was finally successful. After the incident, Figrin cleaned up his act, and the band played throughout the galaxy before landing their regular gig in the Mos Eisley Cantina.

Remember when getting any collectible format of the members from Figrin D’an & The Modal Nodes was a collector’s dream? The novelty has certainly worn off throughout the years. Many believe the intense desire to have these characters from the jazzy Jizz Band in any collectible format is directly due to the fact and derived from the intense desire that we never received them as kids in the late seventies and early eighties. But what made it worse was that we were teased with the as they appeared as two-dimensional pictures on the cardboard backdrop of the Creature Cantina playset. 1997 brought us the very first “figure” form of these characters. Hasbro/Kenner was very good to collectors with this Fan Club exclusive. They provided us with all of the necessary instruments to complete the band if we bought five figures to do that. Hasbro then quickly followed up this release with a Walmart exclusive run of six members, one more member than the basic figure scale provided. Collectors soon began to panic. Are there five members or are there six members? Both answers ended up being incorrect, however. There are actually eight members of the Modal Nodes (seven actively playing in the band and one sitting out): Figrin D’an, Doikk Na’ts, Ickabel G’ont, Lirin Car’n (not actively playing in the band and wearing a different outfit in Episode IV), Nalan Cheel, Sun’il Ei’de, Tech Mo’r and Tedn Dahai. Lirin Car’n and Sun’il Ei’de have yet to ever be made in any collectible format as of the release of Sideshow Collectibles’ two double-packs. Clearly there is always room for more members, no? Well, we hope all of the band gets completed one day.

Nalan Cheel & Tedn Dahai represent the bandfill and fanfar players of the band respectively. Other than their instruments, it’s nearly impossible to tell these characters apart from each other. While that could easily be interpreted as ethnocentric to some, we challenge anyone to take the instruments away and name they each without error. The Bith species is known for possessing a highly evolved brain (as evidenced by its size), which allowed the members of the Modal Nodes to relate to music in ways that most others could not. Sideshow Collectibles seems intent on completing the band, but we do wonder if they would ever consider making Lirin Car’n since he didn’t even play in the band in the film, and Sun’il Ei’de is so deeply hidden in the background that he is almost impossible to see. With the release of Tech M’or & Doikk Na’ts (released in time for 2012’s San Diego Comic Con), Sideshow has alluded that they’ve completed the band. Time will tell. Aside from that, Sideshow Collectibles has put great effort forth in making the new instruments. While the figures may seem identical to Figrin D’an (Modal Nodes) released six months earlier, Nalan Cheel & Tedn Dahai utilize the Prometheus Pro Body type which eliminates the hinge-jointed torso in favor of a ball-jointed torso (as well as few other changes). Besides that, we also notice very slight changes in the paint operations between them and the earlier released Firgin D’an (Modal Nodes) 1:6 Scale Figure. Nalan Cheel & Tedn Dahai come with 31 points of articulation each and can be configured into a vast array of poses that makes them appear to actually play these instruments all the more believable.

Announced in October of 2011 as a retailer partner Store Exclusive, Nalan Cheel & Tedn Dahai started showing up at brick and mortar around June 2012. With a small edition size of 1200 pieces, it is significantly less than the production run of Figrin D’an (Modal Nodes) and the unknown Limited Edition run of Tech M’or & Doikk Na’ts (Modal Nodes . The topic of Store Exclusives has become controversial over the years. Many don’t have any comic book and specialty stores around them. And many have found out that the so-called “retail partners” won’t even carry all of the Sideshow Collectibles’ products. Hopefully an edition size of 1200 pieces will make this dup more collectible in the long run and won’t clutter the shelves of these brick and mortar locations. We find it a bit of a shame that Sideshow Collectibles didn’t create all of the Modal Nodes with the same edition run. It would be nice to know that one would be able to complete a band once all of the pieces have sold through. That doesn’t appear to be possible now. This is a very good idea since not everyone can buy these at the same time. It would be a shame for one or two of the members to go for a premium somewhere down the road because they’re harder to attain due to having a different edition size. While we’re fans of the Modal Nodes, we have see a lack of interest from Star Wars collectors regarding these characters. For us, they symbolize Chalmun’s Cantina and they have a total outer space alien vibe to them. We dig their tunes and we love how the Expanded Universe ties them to Jabba the Hutt. For us, Nalan Cheel & Tedn Dahai (Modal Nodes) is a no-brainer purchase. And that’s saying a lot because our craniums can’t compare to theirs. We jest, but you should completely be aware of just how well-made these 1:6 Scale Figures are. Sideshow Collectibles keeps making better and better products as time moves ahead.