Grand Admiral Thrawn - RO - Basic

As the fledgling rebellion challenges the Galactic Empire in the wilds of the Outer Rim Territories, it faces a new danger: the most cunning of the Emperor's fleet officers. A tactical and military genius, Grand Admiral Thrawn coldly dissects rebel operations and methodically devises brilliant counterstrategies that make him unstoppable.

What Star Wars Legends? After a disturbing axing of all things good from the original Expanded Universe, it’s apparent that Disney is beginning to realize how far out of touch they are with virulent Star Wars fans who don’t want to see their Star Wars history disrespected. It took a while, and the progress is slow, but characters from the original Expanded Universe are beginning to leak into the current canon. And this is a wonderful thing because Star Wars is a whole body of work that not only comprises the films and television shows, but also a large body of work from the comics and novels. These have sadly been thrown out with the bath water ever since Disney took over Lucasfilm, Ltd. But it looks like reparations are in place to begin making things right. In a nutshell, Grand Admiral Thrawn, part of some of the earliest Expanded Universe comics from the early to mid 1990s, is about the best part of Star Wars: Rebels right now. This fearless and generally angry leader of the Imperial Fleet has a major role in Disney XD’s current hit television show. Now he has been realized into an action figure for the very first time in animated form. Don’t be fooled. There have been plenty of wonderful Grand Admiral Thrawn collectibles and figures released throughout the years (just search his name in our RDRs – you’ll be impressed to see how often he was given toy treatment).

In a disappointing move, Hasbro goofed on his ranking badge both on the card back art as well as the actual figure itself. But a running change shipped alongside the error version. You’re going to want the tri-color ranking badge (the one with yellow on it – our sample is the error version). You’ll also notice that Hasbro added the gold embossed shoulders to this figure just like the television show. Not all of the original Expanded Universe sources contained this particular costume in them, but some of the definitely did. We tend to prefer the all-white costume, but the added gold hardly bothers us at all. You should know that Grand Admiral Thrawn looks absolutely fantastic. The sculpt is divine and the paint operations exceed our expectations. Hasbro has definitely had very little issues in the Rogue One line making the Star Wars: Rebels characters look fantastic. Grand Admiral Thrawn is no exception. He has a rather generic pose, but it works like a charm. His physique is slim and athletic and his attitude is confident. Hasbro graciously gave him a functioning holster which welcomes his small blaster pistol beautifully. He also holds the blaster in his hands perfectly as well. The head sculpt is a work of art. And although he comes with Smurf blue skin, Hasbro ensured that the final paint operations breathe as much life as possible into this animated character. His hairline is clean and neat and his red eyes have evenly applied pupils which give him a borderline evil glare. He looks amazing.

As with all Rogue One figure, Hasbro has added a pack-in accessory along with the figures. Some are screen accurate and some are just Hasbro concepts. Grand Admiral Thrawn comes with something that is a Hasbro concept. It’s a large blaster cannon and it comes with a pretty unique projectile with a silver tip. It looks alright we suppose, but some have already noticed that by the way he holds it that it looks a whole lot more like an upright vacuum cleaner than a weapon of any sort. These large accessories are meant for kids and to give the action figure play value. As long as Hasbro doesn’t work these ridiculous concepts into the figures themselves, then we’re find with them being extra accessories. Other than that, there really isn’t much more to write about when it comes to Grand Admiral Thrawn. It’s nearly a miracle this old EU character is front and center in the new canon. For those who said the old EU was bad, apparently Disney disagrees with you. And longtime collectors like us are thrilled there has been a change of heart. If we have any complaints about Grand Admiral Thrawn, it’s that he’s part of a line of toys that is much too light to make any impact at retail or the collecting world. Instead of a healthy line of figures, Hasbro is only able to cherry pick certain characters for release. Until they get back to 60-75+ action figures per line, this is probably how it will be for a long time.