Star Wars The Black Series Admiral Ackbar & Sandtrooper review

You know Admiral Ackbar best for his signature catchphrase about traps. That and he also represented the various faces that made the Rebel Alliance unique compared to the Empire. That and Disney fucked his sacrifice up where the same clowns who cherry picked things to shit the EU over would go "erm stop hating The Last Jedi you fandom menace ☝️🤓".  We also probably know about how Sandtroopers were in A New Hope, and unless you saw any expanded media or a fan project like COPS parody TROOPS, you best know them for failing to get the droids. Not much else to say about both of them, but they are paired up for this review, however small the relevance is.

Here we have Admiral Ackbar in hand, and if you're wondering why he looks like a basic toy, that is because Hasbro homaged the old Kenner toy. While toy homages are common for many Transformers and superhero action figures, this makes Ackbar look uncooked. Like raw meat uncooked. I know that's what the old toy looked like, yet while vintage homages like Holiday Special Boba Fett or Revenge of the Jedi Darth Vader work well given the way those colors translate on non-organic character designs, Ackbar ends up resembling a prototype with paint apps missing despite there being the sculpted areas that are begging for them. The tunic over the white jumpsuit is the worst offender, as it looks like it was just carved out of the molding block with nothing applied. I'm surprised he has the yellow stripe going down the sides. I know paying tribute to Kenner is the intent, yet this ends up looking like a Titan Hero in comparison.

His head sculpt suffers the most, with a simple yellow and black eye that, once again, does the part in homaging the old toy, yet looks very basic with the sculpted surface area left unpainted. Yes it's an oxymoron of a complaint but it would have worked better if they went with the route of making the sculpt better match the old toy instead of using the deco. His articulation is subpar due to the limitations on the neck and torso, but the shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles work fine. Even the gun is missing paint but then again so do many weapons in this scale. 

He also has a baton that came with the original Kenner toy, which is probably why the budget sacrificed those paint apps in favor of this accessory. Honestly, if it wasn't for the need to get some free shipping at Walmart.com to get Retro Seaspray (who does the vintage toy homage better as a robot), this would have been skipped in favor of the original version of the mold.

As for the Sandtrooper, he uses new armor tooling so the articulation could be easier to work with than the original version. It's something we previously saw with the more recent Clone Troopers, and for starters, I will appreciate this figure for not having the stupid parts on the front of the thighs that makes articulating the regular Stormtroopers annoying to work with. As expected from the name, he has the shoulder pauldron and weathering to represent his time walking around in Tatooine searching for the droids. However, the latter suffers from looking more like dust that was stuck on the toy from neglect instead of proper weathering. It's already bad enough that the weathering is barely present but the fact that it's nonexistent from the back is outright laughable! How the hell are you walking around a desert planet and remain clean from the back?! Oh and the midriff is missing paint apps so great job Hasbro.

His helmet is still molded and painted nicely, and at least it feels more complete than the rest of him. I still wish the sand effects were better done on him. Not to the extent where he looks like he dunked himself entirely in sand, but something more believable than what he has. Articulation is slightly different but he can at least turn his head without issue. With his backpack assembly attached, he can use a blaster rifle more specific for his droid hunt on Tatooine (though with how flexible the torso armor is, I may try to pop the arms and head off, remove it briefly, glue the armor on with more give for the peg with more space, and reattach the rest of the body parts.

Here are troopers Storm and Sand together so you can see the difference in armor tooling and the plastic finish. The Stormtrooper certainly.looks much shinier and ready to enter the battlefield, while the latter has brushed some sand in some areas and called it a day. With how haphazard and imperfect Stormtrooper armor assembly can be in the OT, mixing and matching them won't be too out of the ordinary. Still, while I like the new Clones even if they have a cheaper finish, I don't feel as compelled to army build given how lesser the usual Stormtrooper quality somehow feels overall. Sometimes it's articulation and other times it's the finish or lack thereof.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Admiral Ackbar)

⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Sandtrooper)