Original review by Chris 10/2/14

Take a picture.  Etch it’s name on a memorial.  Encase it in amber so that it’s preserved for future generations.  This is a relic.  It’s action figure history.  It’s a reminder of times gone by and that some aspects of the glory days are firmly in our rear view mirror.  I pray that Hasbro proves me wrong, and making such strong statements gives them the opportunity to thoroughly plaster my face with egg.  If that isn’t massive motivation for Hasbro, I don’t know what is because the entire purpose of the internet is to publicly prove other people wrong after all.  Unfortunately I’m fairly certain that I’m safe in this case.  We will never see this massive Hermi Odle figure re-releases or updated.  Between blowing up the assortment cost average and the cost of having to ship air due to the irregular size of the bubble, I can foresee no place for this figure or one like it in the current landscape.

Hermi Odle represents the second figure on my Mt. Rushmore of “figures I’m glad they made”.  That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s my favorite figure (though it comes close) or that it’s a particularly good figure.  It just means that due to obscurity or impracticality, it’s a figure I never thought Hasbro would make in a million years.  I’ve wanted a Hermi Odle since the first time I saw Return of the Jedi.  He was one of the background aliens that I clearly saw and the booming laugh was disconcerting.  Our heroes were viewed as such insignificant threats to Jabba and his band of thugs that they literally laughed at them.  The fact that Hasbro made Ephant Mon was cause for optimism that a Hermi Odle figure would some day be made, but Hasbro’s constant proclamations that the Mon figure was a huge loss and to not expect such ambitious figures in the future quickly dashed those hopes.

There is one glaring issue with the figure and it’s readily obvious.  Every still you will find of the character shows it with gray skin.  The photograph on the back of the card has gray skin.  The figure prototype on the back of the card has gray skin, but the production figure has pink skin.  Where this color scheme comes from is beyond me.  The only explanation is a gross factory error with the color template.  It seems they got the wash and plastic color backwards.  Gray plastic with a pink wash would have captured the on-screen likeness brilliantly.  The pink plastic with a gray wash that was used is completely out of the blue.  It makes the figure vaguely reminiscent of a newborn rodent, which from a creative design would be mildly grotesque and work well for Jabba’s menagerie, but it’s simply not supported on screen.  This alone is taking two points away from a would-be 10 out of 10 figure that I shamelessly give my Mt. Rushmore figures.

In order to make up for the increased material cost of the figure, Hasbro seems to have nixed a few points of articulation.  The figure has no articulation at the elbows and knees, but they’re not missed.  Due to the bulk of the figure and the disproportionately short legs, I’m not sure those joints could have been effectively engaged.  While those points of articulation were dropped, this is one of only four figures in this history of the line (that I can recall) to have an articulated jaw giving you the option to pose your Odle figure slack jawed like in the movie.  What I think is amazing is that Hasbro put in the effort to detail the roof of the mouth even though it’s likely to never bee seen.  The head of the figure swivels, but due to the hunched back nature of the character, the plane of the swivel is perpendicular to the floor.  This means this is one of the few figures that can achieve the tilted head “RCA dog” pose.  The soft goods are perhaps a bit too much like tattered rags.  The character seems t be wearing something more like a trench coat instead of some random scraps of material.  I don’t hold that against the figure because this type of sacrifice needs to be made at this scale in order to maintain function.

As I mentioned above, this figure would normally earn a 10 from me just for the fact that it exists (and it would be an admitted subjective 10).  Turning Odle into a pink pachyderm forces me to lower the score to an 8 out of 10 (still subjective).  The supply of this figure is dwindling at a rapid pace and the value is increasing.  Don’t sleep on Hermi Odle if you don’t already have one.  Secure it now while it’s still reasonable.  At the time of this review, there are only 18 hits on Ebay, and of those, four are for the collector coin alone.

Updated review by Bret 9/24/19

I’m not bothered in the least by the color scheme of the figure’s skin, but that might be because of my color vision issues.  I’ll have to defer to Chris on this.  It is otherwise a masterpiece.  Sure, it lacks modern articulation, but the biology of this character seems to preclude those types of joints.  The sheer size, sculpt, and execution of a magnificent soft goods shmata make up for the skin color.  And if that wasn’t enough, Hermi’s got an articulated mouth!  Obviously.he’s a Jabba denizen, and that makes it the bee’s knees for most collectors.  This is the one and only figure of Hermi Odle we will ever get.  Cherish him.  Admire him. Hug him and squeeze him and name him George.  8 seems low to me, but I’m not going to overrule Chris on this one.  It’s an awesome 8 plus plus.