Original review by Chris, 9/13/2014

A friend of mine pointed out to me that this figure is terrible.  I wish he hadn’t because I had this figure tucked to the far left of my Jabba palace display and I happily went about my business thinking we had a close enough to definitive Princess Leia in Boushh disguise figure.  Once informed that perhaps this figure isn’t as good as I thought, I double checked, and it’s clearly not definitive.  It’s not “terrible” either.  That was a bit of playful hyperbole.  Where this figure lies is in a dicey middle ground.  It’s far enough from perfect that it could be upgraded, but it’s not so bad that it’s screaming for an update.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out because, at the time of this review, a new Princess Leia in Boushh disguise figure is so heavily rumored that I’m comfortable calling it confirmed.

Where is this figure weak in the context of modern figures?  First and foremost is the articulation.  If you’ve read any of my reviews, you know I get frustrated at figures with articulated knees and no ankles.  You cannot engage the knee articulation on this figure in any meaningful way and still have it stand on the tiny geisha feet.  The knees can’t even be used to allow the figure to sit because it can’t sit.  The plastic skirt prevents that.  One last thing about the knees is that the ball joint is fairly conspicuous and not recessed into the leg as we see on figures in current release.  Aside from being aesthetically unpleasing, this also allows the leg to hyperextend too easily.  Then there is the ever dreaded swivel elbows.  Not only do they pop off too easily, the have finite range of articulation.  The left arm virtually spins in place adding no meaningful posing capability.  The wrists swivel, but the hands are purpose sculpted to curl around the virbo-staff and present the thermal detonator.  This means the hands look goofy when you try to pose them without the context of their intended accessories. 

On the subject of accessories, the included virbo-staff is quite rubbery.  As you can see in the pictures it tends to curve to the point of becoming a distraction.  The head is another issue.  First, it utilizes the older swivel joint articulation even though ball and socket heads were starting to become the norm in 2006.  Second,  it looks nothing like Carrie Fisher.  It’s not even vaguely reminiscent. Unless Joan Cusack was Ms. Fisher’s understudy, the sculpt is a total miss.  Fortunately many of us will display the figure with the helmet, so the iffy likeness can be obscured from view.

That interactivity with the accessories, such as the removable helmet, is one place where this figure does work.  In addition to being able to recreate the first big reveal of Return of the Jedi by virtue of the removable head gear, the thermal detonator can be plugged into the left hand to extort Jabba or it can be stowed on the belt.  I always appreciate when tiny accessories can be safely stored on the figure so I don’t have to worry about them falling victim to the magical carpet of eternal void which hath swallowed many a small accessory only to have them never return.  Finally when posed in its pre-ordained position, the figure does look decent aside from the garish knee slashes.  You just can’t stray too far from that pose.

If we never got an update to this figure, I don’t think it would be the end of the world.  Because of the interactivity of the accessories, I think this is a tick better than the figures that are simply handsome decorations, so it lands at a 6 out of 10.

Updated review by Bret, 2/25/2020

And so we begin our retrospective of the The Saga Collection.  This is all Chris’s fault.  He made us do this.  He insisted that the “modern” line begins in 2006.  And by that, I think he meant that we started seeing higher articulation counts, more ball joints replacing swivels, and improved sculpts that really set the tone for things to come.  At least I think that’s what he was trying to convey.  I really wasn’t listening.

The Saga Collection (TSC) began in 2006 (not to be confused with 2002-2004’s Saga line, or as I like to call it, “Blue Saga”) at the end of the run of the Revenge of the Sith figure line.  Everyone thought that was the end of the Saga, so it seemed an appropriate name.  The Saga Collection seemed to merge the curved bubble look from ROTS with the silver and black of the vintage line.  There was a full color background image inside the bubble which nicely framed the figure itself.  The back of the card had a film image of the character, a shot of the figure, and a few other figures that would be available at around the same time. 

Packaged inside the bubble of every figure in the line was a named figure stand.  Fans seemed to love this.  I was generally ambivalent, since I (theoretically) display my figures in diorama form, and I don’t recall any of the characters standing on gray platforms with their names on it in any of the films.  But my nonsense aside, it was a cool pack in.  It was so popular, that Hasbro later offered packs of generic figure stands which included labels with the names of figures that came in earlier lines so you could give them a similar display option to the TSC figures. 

Another pack-in were the oft-maligned mini-holograms.  They were basically useless, except for the OCD collector that wanted all 12 characters in both blue and red, or if they cared about the package variants that had some figures ship with different holograms.  I feel these little guys missed the boat.  Hasbro could have put a little more thought into them and made them film accurate.  For example, instead of a lightsaber wielding Vader, they could have offered a stoic version that could communicate with General Veers in the cockpit of his AT-AT (pronounced @-@).  But maybe such opportunities were limited.  The Clone Wars, which came later, had many characters appearing in small holographic form, but I guess there were only so many in the 6 films.  Anyway, you could kinda play chess with them, I guess.

Finally, TSC introduced the silver foil chase series, known as The Ultimate Galactic Hunt, or UGH, for frustrated collectors.  10 figures in the main line were given additional releases with Silver Foil for the “Star Wars” logo across the card, as well as on the cardboard bubble insert.  The figure stand was also a chrome silver, to help your loose figures stand out, as they were otherwise identical to the non-UGH release.  Finally, instead of red or blue, the hologram was silver.  That gave collectors 12 different holograms in 3 different colors, many of which were available with multiple different figures.  The Saga Collection seemed to have a lot going on.  Unless you were neurotic, it was pretty fun.  Or else you could ignore it altogether.

As for the figure, it’s not terrible.  It destroyed the POTF2/SOTE version.  It is a much better sculpt.  While it has a ball jointed head, shoulders, and knees, it has swivel elbows, wrists, waist, and hips.  Sadly, it has no ankles.  While the arm articulation is wanting, Hasbro managed to sculpt the right arm in such a way that Boushh can convincingly hold the staff and Chewbacca’s chain in her hand.  Her left hand has a peg, which holds the REMOVABLE thermal detonator accessory, which otherwise plugs into the belt.  It’s great.  The previous version had the detonator sculpted right into the hand.  Thankfully Hasbro never made this mistake again.  Wait, what?  They made a Black Series/TVC figure which was an improvement in every way over this figure, but they sculpted the detonator into the hand again?  Unbelievable.  Sigh.  Well, that means this figure, which is otherwise thoroughly surpassed by the newer figures, still holds value in your collection because of the detonator.  It’s the only Boushh figure that can lovingly greet Han after she melts him out of carbon hibernation without holding an explosive in her hand the whole time. 

So this is a Boushh figure to match every moment in the film, while the other versions are only good for the few seconds in which she is threatening to blow up the palace.  The figure is a 5, but I’ll give it a 6 as a nod to this important feature.  Don’t casually blow off this figure.  You may need it for your displays.