'Star Wars' Collectibles & Toys Review: Hasbro Star Wars: The Black Series Rey & D-O

-
Hasbro Star Wars: The Black Series #91 contains Rey and the droid D-O from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Photo Credit: Hasbro, Inc. © 2019 Hasbro and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)


On October 4, 2019. 11 weeks before the premiere of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Hasbro released a "wave" of eight Star Wars: The Black Series action figures for the company's "Triple Force Friday" assortment of new Star Wars collectibles and toys. This wave consisted of:

  • Supreme Leader Kylo Ren
  • Cal Kestis
  • Rey & D-O
  • Sith Trooper
  • The Mandalorian
  • Offworld Jawa
  • Second Sister Inquisitor
  • First Order Stormtrooper
Although several of the Star Wars action figures in the October 4 wave are based on characters from video games (Cal Kestis is featured in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order) and Lucasfilm TV shows (The Mandalorian and Star Wars: Rebels), four figures represent the then-unreleased final film of the Skywalker Saga, Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.

Because Supreme Leader Kylo Ren and the scavenger-turned-Jedi trainee Rey are the Sequel Trilogy's two key characters, it makes sense that Hasbro released Rey & D-O as the 91st Star Wars: The Black Series selection.  

The Figures


Rey continues to study the Jedi ways, but she grows concerned about what the future -- and the Force -- may hold in store for her. ﹘ Package blurb, Star Wars: The Black Series Rey & D-O

In addition to the Sequel Trilogy's lead character, Rey, Hasbro decided to make this Star Wars: The Black Series release a rare case of a two-for-one deal by including Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's new "cute" droid, D-O. 

Cobbled from odds and ends in the workshop of a droidsmith, little D-O is an impressionable little roller that becomes fixated upon BB-8

Understandably, due to concerns over spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Hasbro's copywriters kept these character descriptions deliberately vague. As it turns out, D-O's origins are described differently in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - The Visual Dictionary; in that canonical reference work, D-O was built by a droidsmith, all right, but that individual was murdered by the Sith assassin Ochi. 

Both figures are all-new sculpts; Hasbro has manufactured other figures based on Rey (Daisy Ridley), but no elements from earlier figures were used in Star Wars: The Black Series # 91. Naturally, because D-O is a character in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, there were no previous figures based on what Poe refers to onscreen as "Coneface."

Promotional Hasbro photo shows Rey holding her quarterstaff in a fighting stance. Photo Credit: Hasbro, Inc. © 2019 Hasbro and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) 

Star Wars: The Black Series Rey & D-O's distinctive red-and-black package contains:


  • Rey action figure
  • D-O Droid
  • Blaster
  • Skywalker lightsaber with removable blade
  • Rey's quarterstaff (disassembles into four parts
  • Backpack
41 years ago, Star Wars collectors would never have dreamed that Star Wars action figures would be so detailed! Photo Credit:  Hasbro, Inc. © 2019 Hasbro and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) 

Collectors can imagine the biggest battles and missions in the Star Wars saga with figures from Star Wars The Black Series! With exquisite features and decoration, this series embodies the quality and realism that Star Wars devotees love. Star Wars The Black Series includes figures, vehicles, and roleplay items from the 40-plus-year legacy of the Star Wars Galaxy, including comics, movies, and animated series. - from the Rey & D-O product page, Hasbro Pulse

My Take

Ever since I received Kenner Toys' Landspeeder and the original 3.75-inch C-3PO and R2-D2 Star Wars action figures for my 15th birthday in 1978, I've been an avid aficionado of toys and collectibles based on the space-fantasy saga set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away."  Unlike Stephen J. Sansweet, I don't have the world's largest Star Wars collection. I don't even have many of my 1978-1985 Kenner Toys figures, vehicles, playsets, or accessories; accidents, thefts, natural disasters, pests, and an unexpected move whittled my collection down over the years. 

Still, what I do have is nothing to sneer at, and although I have to limit my purchases to a reasonable number of figures and other collectibles due to space and budgetary considerations, I still treat myself to a few items per year, mostly from Hasbro's Star Wars: The Black Series collection. 

Just as I acquired my now-gone Landspeeder and X-Wing Fighter as presents, I received Rey & D-O as gifts, along with a few other Star Wars: The Black Series action figures. Like most of the action figures I have from this particular Hasbro production line, Rey & D-O are six-inch scale figures rather than the usual 3.75-inch scale figures that make up the majority of my action figure collection. 

In this Hasbro promotional photo, D-O stands close to a blaster-wielding Rey. Photo Credit:  Hasbro, Inc. © 2019 Hasbro and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) 


Except for the articulation points that allow collectors (and kids) to pose the action figure in more realistic action stances that give the Rey figure a "toy-like" look, Hasbro's 21st Century design and manufacturing techniques allow the company to lavish both figures with movie-accurate detailing. 
 


Fans and collectors can imagine scenes from the Star Wars Galaxy with these premium Rey and D-O toys, inspired by the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker movie. ﹘ from the Rey & D-O product page, Hasbro Pulse

If you've been collecting Star Wars action figures as long as I have, you've probably noticed that as toy manufacturing methods changed over the years, the action figures, especially those based on human (or humanoid) characters from the various movies, TV shows, comics, and video games have acquired more life-like verisimilitude. 

Rey, for instance, has a sculpt-and-paint job that gives the figure a close resemblance to the character played in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker by Daisy Ridley. 

And although droids and aliens are usually easier to render as action figures due to their physical appearance and detailing in the films, the D-O figure is remarkably "life-like" as well, although his unicycle gear's wheel is designed to provide a stable standing pose. 

In short, Hasbro once again shows why its Star Wars action figures, especially the ones in its Star Wars: The Black Series collection, are sought after by avid fans and collectors alike. 

I hope you've enjoyed this review of Hasbro's Star Wars: The Black Series' 91st offering as much as I've enjoyed writing it. As a Star Wars fan and collector, I give this two-figure set a strong "Must Get This" rating. And until next time, Dear Reader, may the Force be with you.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's 'It'?

-
Image
How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's It ? It  has been adapted twice for filmed audio-visual media. The first filmed version of  It was a TV limited series; the second was a duology of theatrically-released movies.  The first adaptation of Stephen King’s 1986 doorstop of a novel was a 1990 adaptation made as a two-part ABC miniseries for television. Among the cast members: Tim Reid, Harry Anderson, Annette O’Toole, John Ritter, and Richard Thomas. The miniseries also featured Tim Curry as the evil Pennywise the Clown. Adapted for television by director Tommy Lee Wallace and Lawrence D. Cohen (who also adapted King’s  Carrie  for director Brian De Palma in 1976),  It  was okay but a watered-down take on the scary novel about a group of friends who must face off against a monstrous entity known as “It” twice. Once as kids in 1960, then again as adults in 1990. (Like  11,22.63,  the TV version of It avoids the year 1958, which is where parts of  11/22/63 
Read more

Talking About 'Band of Brothers' (HBO Miniseries): Why were there no black soldiers in the Band of Brothers TV miniseries?

-
Image
Band of Brothers,  sadly, reflects one of the sad realities of American society in the 1940s - racial segregation in the armed forces. Although there  were  a few all-Negro (as blacks were referred to in those days) units in the U.S. Army and the Army Air Forces that served with distinction in the European Theater of Operations, most black servicemen were assigned to non-combat units in Supply of Services and other support forces. Most of these soldiers were truck drivers, anti-aircraft gunners, barrage balloon handlers, engineers, stevedores, clerks, cooks, corpsmen, and so on. Only late in the war (fall of 1944 and winter/spring 1945) did large numbers of black infantrymen see combat against German forces, and even then they served in all-black units commanded by white officers. © 2001 Home Box Office, Dreamworks SKG, and Play-Tone Pictures The 101st Airborne Division was an all-American unit made up of individuals from many different groups - Easy Company’s first C.O.,
Read more

Bolero: The One Movie I Have Seen That I Wish Could Be Erased From My Memory

-
Image
If you could have 1 movie that you’ve seen in the past erased from your memory, what movie would that be and why? That’s easy.  Bolero. © 1984 Cannon Film Group Now, I have seen more than my fair share of movies that, for one reason or another, I don’t enjoy at all or once liked but have changed my mind about as I have grown older.  Me Before You  is an example of the former;  Avatar  and  Midway  are exemplars of the latter. But writer-director John Derek’s softcore porn movie disguised as an “adventure in ecstasy” is still the dumbest, most boring film I ever paid a movie ticket to go see in an actual multiplex. It’s so bad, in fact, that my friends (yes, I went with a coed group of buds from college) and I decided, collectively, that as spectacular as Bo Derek looks naked, she was way too old to play a nubile if naive girl in her 20s. The story was just a barely-there plot woven together around a series of nude scenes (including the obligatory girl-girl scene) that
Read more