The Good: Incredible sculpting, Amazing poseability, Good detailing, Good accessory
The Bad: Absolutely terrible balance, Abysmal balance
The Basics: The Star Wars Legacy Collection Sun Faclooks great, but falls over exceptionally easily.
Strangely, given that Attack Of The Clones is consistently rated as the least popular Star Wars films, Hasbro continues to make action figures based upon characters based on Attack Of The Clones. One of their latest was the Sun Fac figure, which was one of the more original figures in the Amazon.com exclusive Legacy Collection figure. That Hasbro had Sun Fac and the only truly original figure in the line – Count Dooku’s droid from Attack Of The Clones - from the least popular film in the franchise, it seems an odd way to market their exclusive toy line.
For those unfamiliar with the Sun Fac, he was the Geonosian executor seen near the climax of Attack Of The Clones (reviewed here!). He was the green insectoid that, who sentenced Padme, Anakin, and Obi-Wan Kenobi to death.
The 4" Sun Fac figure is a cool-looking figure of a generally unpopular, CG-generated character that does not work well in the real world. It is virtually impossible to get the figure to stand up.
Basics
The Sun Fac figure stands 3 3/4" tall and it is a biped insect/humanoid. The olive green-skinned insect is sculpted perfectly to look like Sun Fac. It has feet with three giant toes (two in front, one in back). The figure has three fingers that are deeply jointed and look like they are actually flexing. This Sun Fac has two descending wings that can rotate to “flap” and it is wearing minimal clothing/armor on the chest and groin area.
Sun Fac is well-sculpted and most of its coloring is great. The skin is not monotonal green; it has brownish mottling and looks like a practical, real insect alien. This is detrimental to the toy in that the joints, especially at the knees and ankles, expose less vivid color patches when they are moved.
Accessories
The Sun Fac is an angry alien and it comes with only one accessory other than the Build-A-Droid piece. Sun Fac comes with a giant Genosian cannon (is it sonic?), like the ones seen shooting at Anakin in the Droid Factory. While this 3 ¼” bulky cannon is accurately colored in copper and black. Unfortunately, the firing diode – which is pictured on the back of the figure’s card as green – is also black. This makes it look like the gun is unable to fire at all. This cold look is an unfortunate choice for the action figure.
Like the rest of Amazon’s 2013 Legacy Collection figures, the Sun Fac features a droid part. The Sun Fac features the left arm of TC-70. The copper arm is augmented by silver and dark purple accents. The hand looks articulated and jointed exactly like what one expects of a Star Wars protocol droid. The arm has a simple swivel joint at the wrist and the elbow has an appropriate hinge joint. The arm has a peg at the shoulder which allows it to plug into the torso section of the Build-A-Droid figure.
Playability
The four inch toy line was designed for play and the Sun Fac is poor to good on that front. The Sun Fac has absolutely abysmal balance, but incredible poseability, illustrating the latest in molding technology. The Sun Fac is articulated at fourteen points, only five of which are simple swivel joints! The Sun Fac figure is articulated at the ankles, knees, groin socket, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists and head. The head is on a ball-and-socket joint. The knees, ankles, shoulders and elbows are all hinge joints on the ball-and-socket, giving them exceptional poseability and playability. The wrists, waist, and groin socket have simple swivel joints which do all they truly need to do.
Unfortunately, the figure has terrible balance. While the figure may be posed well, the toy does not remain standing without using the holes at the backs of the feet. Even trying to counterbalance with the wings does not seem to work. The rotation at the groin socket is not inhibited by the figure’s loincloth because the figure has a soft plastic/rubbery piece there that is very flexible. Unfortunately, because the figure has such thin legs and arms and appears to be cast in soft plastic, it is a very soft figure that feels troublingly malleable.
Collectibility
The Sun Fac is part of the Legacy Collection with the build-a-droid figure that was released in 2013 exclusively through Amazon.com. The Sun Fac was released with equal frequency as the rest of the line. Given how few Geonosian figures there were, that Hasbro made a specific Sun Fac figure makes it inherently more valuable to collectors. This might be an unlikely figure that could appreciate in the future, despite its fundamental problems.
Overview
The Sun Fac is ultimately a mediocre Star Wars alien figure that uses the latest toymaking technology with unfortunately mixed results.
For other Attack Of The Clones figures, please check out my reviews of:
The Black Collection 01 Padme Amidala
Vintage Collection VC30 Zam Wesell
Legacy Collection BD43 Agen Kolar
6/10
For other Star Wars toy reviews, please check out my Toy Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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