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General Grievous (The Vintage Collection)

February 19, 2011 | By Errex More

The Vintage Collection makes a point of delivering the best (arguably) version of Star Wars characters there is in cool looking retro style packaging. This doesn’t necessarily mean that every figure will be made from new, super-articulated molds, but at least they will be the best available version, which brings us to today’s review.

Most of the pieces in this particular General Grievous figure saw release for the first time as part of the 4^th wave in the blue and white phase of the 2009 Legacy Collection, which was the first time we ever got a properly scaled version of the cyborg General. The TVC version we are reviewing today is pretty much the same mold, with a few changes done to accommodate wrist articulation. The sculpted detail is incredibly intricate and has a nicely layered feel to it, as some of the armored plating is actually composed of separate pieces glued in place.

TVC’s General Grievous has very extensive articulation, since the arms split in half and each has a full set of joints in addition to extra articulation axis that allows an impressive amount of range. The full articulation count goes like this:

• Ball jointed neck. (1)

• Peg & double hinge shoulders. (2)

• Biceps swivels.(4)

• Hinged elbows.(4)

• Forearm swivels.(4)

• Wrist swivels.(4)

• Floating torso.(1)

• Hip swivels.(2)

• Double hinge knees.(2)

• Peg & hinge ankles.(2)

This gives a very impressive 26 articulated joints on a 1/18 scale figure, albeit admittedly the character is meant to be larger than the average humanoid. There are a few issues stemming from the way articulation was implemented, like the arms being a bit too wide when assembled together or the unexpectedly oblique angles the legs form when the hip joints are pushed slightly beyond the neutral stance, but the overall design is quite sound.

However, if there is one issue that could potentiually ruin this General Grievous figure that would be the material selected to cast the limbs from. By the time I got my figure, I already had read online about the limbs being more flexible than usual, but not living in an all-year-round warm climate, I figured it could not be that much of an issue.

On the arms, it totally makes sense to have the softer material, as those are likely to see the most use and plastic with a fair amount of flexibility fits the bill perfectly. On the legs it is quite the opposite situation, as ideally you’d want your figure to hold a stance even through reasonable tweaks done to the figure’s gravity center.

Unfortunately, when you couple the complex character design with the softer plastic used for the thighs, what you get is a figure that has trouble standing for more than a few minutes before toppling on it’s own weight. Additionally, the General here lacks peg holes on the bottom of the feet, so using a regular display base is out of the question.

The thigh pieces are not a solid block of plastic, but rather composed of at least three intertwined shapes forming an almost organic looking design. One of those protrusions is actually loose at the lower end, thus leaving the other two to support the bulk of the figure’s weight, which in turn causes the instability. I’m thinking that maybe gluing the loose pylon in place could help correct this problem, but I’m in no hury to try it yet.

On a brighter note, the paint job on the General is awesome. The inner structure was molded from dark metallic gray plastic with no highlights nor shading, but the bone colored armor plates were all given metallic scrapes and weathering effects that look really effective. The organ sack was painted in a pale metallic green hue and the eyes were picked out in bright warm yellow, with the skin around them painted in a dark, ruddy hue.

The weapons included with TVC General Grievous are a couple of ignited lightsabers (one green, one blue), a couple of deactivated lightsaber hilts and one black droid blaster pistol.

The really cool accessory, though, is the red and gray fabric cape. The red lining has four pockets sawn on each side for the General to store the included deactivated hilts and has room to spare if you want to add any extra hilts you may have laying around. The outer side of the cape has Grievous’ personal symbol printed in black.

Even though the stability issues do bother me, I think this is the finest General Grievous figure I have in my collection, so on the whole I think it deserves more than a passing grade.