General McQuarrie - TAC - Basic (30 40)

Hailing from the prosperous planet of Ralltiir, General Pharl McQuarrie watches as his world is crushed in the iron-fisted grasp of the Empire. He joins the Rebel Alliance and helps establish the Rebels' new base on Hoth, working closely with his friend Jeroen Webb.

Love them or hate them, cameos in the Star Wars films and the action figures based on them will remain a popular inclusion in any basic figure line. For fans love the actions that play their favorite Star Wars characters and seeing them sans mask is a very cool yet surreal experience. You would probably need more than two hands to count all of the action figures based on these cameo instances in the films because they are becoming more and more popular with collectors than ever before now. But the frenzy really started taking off in the 2003 Star Wars line. When we all got “the guy who played C-3PO” and “the guy who played Jar Jar Binks” into our collections, we wanted more and more of these types of figures. And who could forget the Lucas family exclusive box set from Star Wars Shop a few years later? (Well, that was a bad example because we really didn’t want that set.) Despite lots of Prequel Trilogy cameos, it hasn’t been too often (if ever) that we got cameo figures from the Original Trilogy. That pretty much changed with the release of General McQuarrie from the 30 (77-07) line. Many mistook him for a Ralph McQuarrie Signature Series concept art figure when he first saw release because of the name, but this is an actual character in The Empire Strikes Back. While the figure itself won’t make you do cartwheels, it is definitely a cool enough to purchase, so we recommend not passing on him.

The figure borrows 90% of his parts from and is essentially 2006’s TSC Major Bren Derlin (SAGA 008) with the cap from 2007’s VTSC Han Solo (Hoth Outfit) figure and an all-new head. Yet General McQuarrie looks so good he can hold his own even though he is riding on another figure’s coattails. Clearly Hasbro saved major tooling costs on this figure, but hey, why not? If this was the figure to cut costs, we say more power to them. And because this is a figure that most will want simply for posterity, the figure is a perfect addition to the line as is. We don’t need General MCQuarrie with 14 points of articulation. Come on, folks, this figure is perfect as is. Interestingly, there is not much we know about General Pharl McQuarrie other than what is in Wookieepedia or elsewhere in the Expanded Universe because all he did in Episode V was walk across the screen. If you look at the reference photo below, you’ll notice that General McQuarrie is holding the equivalent of a laptop or notebook. We would have loved to see Hasbro create this accessory for this action figure. We think this a big mistake to miss this accessory. And since the 30 (77-07) line was know for its impressively sized action figures and/or accessories, we think that the inclusion of this accessory would have made it that much more attractive to others. And what could that accessory be? We’d like to think that is his sketch pad and drawings.

We are proud of Hasbro for paying so much tribute towards Ralph McQuarrie and his incredible artwork. We hope that action figures base don concept art doesn’t stop here. That section of the Expanded Universe is huge and the bank of characters that collectors want to see immortalized as three dimensional action figures is almost limitless. But it is nice to get an action figure based on the man who created it all. And if you’re not into the character of Pharl McQuarrie, just put the helmet on him and use him as a background Rebel officer. He is colored differently enough from Major Bren Derlin that they can be posed near each other without looking like identical twins. The Empire Strikes Back didn’t get represented all that well in the 30 (77-07) line. That is alright because the characters that did get chosen were such amazing choices. And don’t forget that five of the 2007 The Saga Collection "vintage styled" figures were all from The Empire Strikes Back. We think Hasbro knew this too and that is why they were a little more relaxed with the characters from Episode V in the basic line. General McQuarrie may be the weakest of the bunch, but to purchase would be to pay homage to an incredible artist but for which the Star Wars universe would never have looked the same. Thank you, Mr. McQuarrie, for bringing George Lucas’ vision to full fruition. And thank you Hasbro for bringing and action figure based on him to fruition also.