Giran
Giran was released in 2009 as part of the fourth wave of red-carded Legacy Collection figures from Hasbro. This wave is inspired in the characters seen in the Episode VI: Return of the Jedi movie.
Giran shares screen time with Malakili, as both characters’ job is to tend to Jabba’s menagerie, and once Luke Skywalker dispatches the Rancor, Giran is seen trying to assuage Malakili’s grief at the demise of the creature.
Enough backstory. The important thing is that this figure looks simply amazing. The one thing you notice right away is how lifelike it looks, thanks to the extremely detailed face sculpt and the excellent paint job.
Giran’s face has a surprising amount of sculpted detail in the form of scales, bumps and bony protrusions, all enhanced by a very thorough drybrushing. The eyes are big black orbs with a bright white pupil or catch-light evenly applied to each, making them an instant eye-magnet.
The rest of the figure is slightly less impressive, but still good. Giran is dressed in loose fitting clothes and wears several pieces of leather apparel on him, prominently a hardened leather cuirass, bracers and shoulder pads. There are a lot of sculpted details on the clothing, going from the usual folds and wrinkles to the various leather straps favored by the majority of Jabba’s staff.
For a rather subdued color palette, Giran has quite a number of paint applications going on. The leather armor pieces are painted medium brown, with a much darker paint wash applied to the torso piece. In contrast, the pants are solid black plastic, although details like the shoes and the leather bands on the legs are painted the same color as the rest of the leather apparel.
The articulation spread for Giran goes as follows:
• Ball jointed neck. Excellent motion range all around.
• Peg & hinge shoulders. Range is good here, although the shoulder pads limit the range to the sides somewhat.
• Peg & hinge elbows. Not quite a 90° bend, but good 180° sideways rotation.
• Swivel wrists. Actually, these are cut higher, just under the elbows, but provide 360° free rotation just the same.
• Swivel waist. Free 360° swivel.
• Swivel hips. Forward motion is severely limited by the rubber plastic apron he wears, effectively limiting the number of poses that can be had.
• Peg & hinge knees. Not very good. On the left knee articulation is very limited but workable, while the right knee is pretty much useless. They do swivel sideways, though.
• Peg & hinge ankles. Pretty good range here and free 360° swiveling.
So, the aspect that stands out like a sore thumb is the uneven leg articulation. So yes, the rubber apron gets in the way of the hip joints, but that’s not really surprising considering the character design, so it’s not the source of my annoyance.
If joint mobility is sacrificed to conceal articulation, I may not like it but I can accept it as long as there is some consistency to the design, but on Giran the knee joints don’t even have the same functionality. The left knee bends like 15° or 20°, not a lot by itself, but paired with another joint with similar range, something can be worked out. Problem is, the right knee bends only 5° at most, thus relegating Giran to simple standing and strolling poses.
Giran comes equipped with a removable rubbery cowl and a vibro-axe made from a different, fairly rigid plastic. The cowl doesn’t seem to be painted and stays on Giran’s head fairly well for the most part. The newly sculpted vibro –axe has a painted blade noticeably 
brighter than the muted gunmetal hue of the material it is made of.
The only other piece packaged with this figure is the obligatory Build-A-Droid piece, in this case the left leg for the R5-C7 astromech. which in and of itself is reason enough to get Giran, in my opinion.
Rating Giran is something of a balancing act. On one hand, the execution of the leg articulation is openly disappointing for me, but on the other hand, this figure looks simply amazing and the rest of the joints do work fairly well.
In the end Giran earns a positive score and even a recommendation from me due to the really excellent detailing, even with the limited articulation.
Errex Score: 90/100
Category: Star Wars, Toy Reviews
About the Author (Author Profile)
I've been collecting action figures since the original Kenner Star Wars days. Nowadays, I still collect pretty much anything that catches my eye.Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
