Sabine Wren - RO - Basic

A Mandalorian Warrior, Sabine Wren is an explosives expert and graffiti artist – qualities that make her an excellent fit as one of the first Rebels against the Empire.

When the Rebels toy line was launched in 2014, it quickly became the subject of controversy for the lack of attention given to its female cast members. Sure, both Hera Syndulla and Sabine Wren eventually came into the line, but they were part of two-packs where they weren’t front and center of a basic figure line. Hasbro endured one complaint after another, and it seemed that the flack would have them approach their female characters differently. They did. It has taken a while for her to arrive in the toy line, but for the first time, Sabine Wren is a basic action figure. Based on her Season 2 appearance in the Star Wars: Rebels television show, she enters the toy line looking a whole lot different than she did in the first season of the show. Hasbro has also given her a face. A human portrait requires a removable helmet. At first glance, it appears that Hasbro nailed the interactivity between figure and removable helmet. Certainly, the helmet looks fantastic as an accessory. But the fit of the helmet on her head is disappointing to us. It goes over her big blue hair, but it does “stretch” over it which causes it to look pulled and bumpy in spots. You may not feel this is a big deal, but for us, we have to speak freely that we are indeed a bit disappointed by how it fits. We understand that it isn’t a perfect science to make an action figure and its helmet fit like a glove, but we think they could have tried a bit harder here.

The good news is that Sabine Wren looks remarkable. It’s almost hard to believe that this is a figure with only five points of articulation. In all honesty, we’re not too impressed with her sculpt. She is standing in a cocked manner which makes her legs uneven in height. So you have to futz with the figure to get her to stand up and fight the gravity that wants to force her to the ground. There isn’t any need to panic. It is possible to pose her and make her look pretty cool, but we wish we didn’t have to fight with an action figure to accomplish this. Her sculpt is pretty excellent. She doesn’t have an expressive face really, which is fine, but she could look a little more “in the moment” if you know what we mean. She just appears a tad to spacey in our opinion. We’re being picking here. Her physique is feminine and athletic. This girl’s in shape, and Hasbro recreated that silhouette of her body perfectly. But for us, the most impressive thing about Sabine Wren is her paint job. Wow. Hasbro went ALL OUT and gave her all the colors, deco and insignias needed to recreate her Star Wars: Rebels Season 2 appearance. And man oh man does she look incredible. From the monster on her left shoulder to the checker pattern on her right shoulder (and so much more), there isn’t going to be one collector on Earth that is going to have the bravery to complain about the paint operations here.

Sabine Wren also comes with a healthy dose of accessories. When all is said, and done collectors can count four separate pieces. In addition to her removable helmet and two Mandalorian blasters, Sabine Wren comes with a zip line accessory for extra play value. What’s cool about this accessory that instead of a backpack it is a gauntlet. So kids could use it as some form of weaponry when not being used as a zip line. We have always appreciated extra accessories that didn’t interfere with the screen accurate aesthetics of the character. So a separate accessory could be a better addition here. All in all, Sabine Wren is a highlight of the Rogue One product launch. Part of the basic figure line, Hasbro is finding how difficult it is to keep so many different Star Wars media in a single action figure line. They run out of space quickly when it comes to planning action figure waves. In all honesty, we don’t think that two Star Wars: Rebels figures should be taking two places of Rogue One characters in a brand new action figure case. Your opinions may vary, but the bottom line is that we’re not going to make much progress if we continually play catch up. This is why a cohesive line of 50-60 action figures is the only way to handle Star Wars. We don’t think there is any other way that we are going to see the characters we want in the toy line unless we see more volume of characters in the lines. Whatever your opinion, Sabine Wren is a great action figure. It’s nice to see her as a single carded release finally. Fans of Rebels should be happy.