The Good: Wonderful coloring detail, Good accessories, Incredible balance, Wonderful poseability
The Bad: Accessory coloring, Odd articulation issue.
The Basics: The Vintage Collection makes an action figure of Colonel Cracken, a character from a deleted Return Of The Jedi scene that no one was really looking for, astonishingly well!
Blu-Ray and DVD are, I imagine, making a lot of people who once seemed like braggarts and liars seem exceptionally cool. After all, when you walk around claiming to have been in one of the most anticipated films of an era, only to discover that your lone scene ended up on the cutting room floor, there are likely to be a lot of friends and acquaintances who simply think you are full of crap. The guy who played Colonel Cracken – even the power of the Internet could not help me find the actor’s name! – must have bore decades of bad relations when his scenes were cut from Return Of The Jedi. Now, though, the character has been resurrected on the Blu-Ray release of the Star Wars Saga and in action figure form as part of the 2012 Vintage Collection figure set.
For those unfamiliar with the Colonel Cracken, that is not terribly surprising as he was part of one of the deleted scenes from Return Of The Jedi (reviewed here!) that was only restored in the deleted scenes for the Blu-Ray release of the Star Wars Saga. Colonel Cracken is a member of the Millennium Falcon crew.
The 4" Colonel Cracken is a completely new action figure and it is a pretty decent human figure for his Vintage Collection debut!
Basics
The Colonel Cracken figure stands 3 13/16" tall to the top of his head. He is a human who is wearing a slight variation on the smuggler’s flughtsuit that Han Solo wears – with a completely different color scheme. The Colonel Cracken figure is made entirely of hard plastic, save the holster which is softer plastic.
This toy is a decent sculpt, though that perception certainly is lessened the longer and closer one looks at the figure. The facial sculpt, for example, looks very little like the picture on the package. With the face’s much more severe angles, Colonel Cracken looks far more like Wedge Antilles than Colonel Cracken. The figure’s collar is also nothing like the outfit in the picture. However, the vest has a very cool textured look that makes it look like it is a fully realized vest. The figure’s hands are globed and the sculpt has some decent detailing, like the many pouchlike pockets. The pants are molded to look billowing and that is a pretty neat aspect.
Like the sculpt, the coloring on the figure is initially better than it is when one looks closer. Colonel Cracken is wearing an outfit that is mostly earthtones with a somewhat darker vest. At the shoulder joint, though, the figure’s coloring is off; it has the tan color of the undersleeve. That said, the detailing on the belt buckle is good, though the badge on the vest is not more than one color. The figure’s eyes have simplified color, but they look pretty good. The skintones of the figure are monotonal.
Accessories
The Colonel Cracken is a basic Rebel technician, so all he comes with as far as accessories is his blaster pistol and a cannon. The cannon is 2 1/8” long and is boxy, with handles that are too big for the figure to hold. There is one handle that Cracken can hold. Unfortunately, this gun is a monotonal gray that lacks any of the coloring consistency of the rest of the figure.
As for the blaster pistol, the little 7/8” gun appears unique to this figure. This gun has a blockish stock and a round silver barrel. The two colors on it give it a more realistic sense of depth than the old Star Wars toy weapons. The gun fits in either of the Colonel Cracken’s hands or in the holster on Cracken’s right thigh.
Playability
The four inch toy line was designed for play and the Colonel Cracken is good in that regard. First, the figure has great balance. Flatfooted, the Colonel Cracken is pretty solid, and because of the lower half articulation of the figure, he has decent posing options. The holes in the bottom of his feet allow him to stand tall on any number of playsets in outlandish poses or sit in the cockpit of an A-Wing fighter!
The Colonel Cracken holds up exceptionally well in the articulation department. It has hinged ball and socket joints at the ankles, knees, elbows and shoulders, as well as a ball and socket joint which allows a great range of motion for the head. The wrists, groin socket and torso all have simple swivel joints that provide the figure with more than enough posing options to make the figure worthwhile! Colonel Cracken, however, has an oddity in the knees. Because of the pockets, this figure’s lower legs have to be rotated slightly before the knees can be bent.
Collectibility
The Colonel Cracken figure is part of the Vintage Collection line that was released in 2012 and it remains one of the harder ones to find at the moment. Colonel Cracken is Vintage Collection figure VC90 and it augments any Rebel figure collection. Given how some of the obscure characters are burning up in value, this seems like a very safe bet as an investment figure at this time.
Overview
The Colonel Cracken (Millennium Falcon Crew) action figure is a fair figure, but only extraordinary in its one-per-case status. Those who look for only the best figures – even the obscure ones – will find this one can be passed by.
For other Vintage Collection figures of characters from Return Of The Jedi, please check out my reviews of:
VC22 Admiral Ackbar
VC65 TIE Fighter Pilot
VC88 Princess Leia (Sandstorm Outfit)
VC91 Rebel Pilot (Mon Calamari)
6/10
For other Star Wars toy reviews, please check out my index page by clicking here!
© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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