I figured I would get in on the act for this one as I have actually opened one up and am going to share my initial thoughts about the entire aspect of this offering ,from the mailer box to the actual figure, and I hope folks will add their points to this review as well. I also hope folks won't mind if I use some of your pics, especially ones that show key points as imo you folks are much better reviewers than I.
I first want to give my impressions on the mailer box. I noticed that most of my boxes made it through ok, but did open one up that was dented and found out that the card was bent and creased in two places even though the box was not that crushed. Ofcourse if you were like Spooky and ended up with an overzealous mail person yours could show up like this:
Mine wasn't quite that bad, but still it is pretty much worthless to keep this on card and it will be the one I use for the figure review just a bit later. I was hopeful that Hasbro would have used the double mailer box again, after the issues with the last Mail Away Rocket Firing Fett, but they seem to think they can solve the card issues with a kind of cardboard insert:
Clonehead shows us the cardboard insert, but while good, it sure didn't do the job to protect the one card I had with minimal box damage. Spooky ofcourse might not have been able to do well even with the double mailer box, but would have had a better shot as there is no way I could see this figure fitting in a mailer slot being double boxed. So close Hasbro, but no cigar and you had the right fix I wish you had just stuck to it.
Now for my initial impressions on the card before I move onto the figure itself (stay tuned for that at a later date). You know me, the card and how it is presented is extremely important to a carded fellow and I do wan't to share my thoughts before we move onto the figure itself. Frankly, I will be quite disappointed if they ever move away from this vintage cardback style for any OT type figures.
Once again using Clonehead's pic you can see that it is just a great shot of the first prototype armor and it definitely fits in with the vintage theme. I wouldn't change a thing. Being a huge fan of the colors black, gray, red, and white I think the colors just pop off the card and the figure. To be honest it reminds me a lot of the colors Phatty, Hangarbay94 and I worked with doing the new site design we just switched too. I could also easily see folks re-using this card to make some custom Mandalorian cards for new customs. How many of the new Mandos we have seen for this month's Make a Custom Mando Contest would work for this!
The back of the card is also standard to what we have seen so far in the vintage line and shows a first shot of what Boba Fett looked like for the very first screen test. I wondered what image they would use, if they made it one of the previous figure shots from all the other carded Fetts we have, and was pleasantly surprised to see it was this. I think I would have liked to have seen another test screen still instead of a picture with a director or stage person in it, but once again agree it could have been worse.
We will see who beats me to the actual figure review I will try to get to sometime this week. At first glance this figure seems like it would be the ultimate base figure for any Custom Mandalorian and I would think we are going to see some great new Mando Combinations because of this. I can't wait to test the articulation and get back to you with my thoughts on if this could be the final Mando Sculpt we need. I have a feeling a few of you have already made that determination.
