Star Wars: Force Awakens Takodana Encounter Action Figure Set Review

NOTE: These figures were provided to us by the manufacturers for review purposes. Our opinions are our own, and we speak only for ourselves, and not for the manufacturer.

The Star Wars: The Force Awakens Takodana Encounter action figure set have many nice surprises let down by a sub-par paint job.

Review – Packaging for the Star Wars: The Force Awakens Takodana Encounter Action Figure Set

The front of the box is largely dedicated to the clear window displaying the figures, as it should be! The top left-hand corner has the Star Wars logo, the top right has a choking hazard warning which is pretty big and doesn’t look great. The bottom left has the set name “Takodana Encounter” followed by another warning: Age 4+. The best part is the right side of the front panel, which displays BB-8, Rey, Finn, and Maz posing in the brilliant hand-drawn poster style of Drew Struzan. Rey is covered by the Disney and Hasbro logos, which again, is somewhat lame.

The right panel is a continuation of the front design, with Rey’s blue lightsaber bending over the cardboard, glowing in front of a blue-hued night scene of Maz’s cantina. The top of the panel has the Star Wars logo again, not too much going on over there. The left side panel has the poster-esque figures on the front organized in a different way, vertically stacked with Rey on the top, to BB-8 at the bottom.

The back features a white cut out on a maroon background. Unfortunately, when It arrived there was some minor damage on the package. The top left part of the white cut out features the Star Wars logo again, but it looks like someone ripped tape off of the cardboard which peeled off some parts of the paint. The tape holding the package together looks dirty, and it makes the back panel look somewhat cheap and grungy. Each character in the set (Finn, Maz Kanata, BB-8, and Rey) all have a short blurb about their background near the posed figure on the box, which is repeated in 3 different languages. I thought that was a nice touch, but unfortunately, that’s the best part of the back. After a thin black line on the white cut out, everything on the bottom third of the box is warnings, manufacturer information, and other legal stuff. It literally takes up the whole bottom third of the box! Not awesome.

The bottom panel is black and covered with tiny white legal stuff and warnings, and a barcode.
When you open the package, the figures come encased in plastic which is backed by a red removable cardboard piece with the shadow of a crumbling brick wall on it.

Review – Sculpt on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens Takodana Encounter Action Figure Set

I’m quite impressed with the sculpt of these small, low budget figures. The clothing of all characters is very detailed and shows every wrinkle and fold of Rey’s robes and Finn’s pants and jacket especially. Maz’s sculpt is my favorite: her pants and her shirt are textured, and you can tell they put some serious effort into the tiny details on her shoes and goggles. BB-8 doesn’t have a lot going on, but what detail they decided to put in was well executed, except his helmet. It looks somewhat like a smushed marshmallow, lumpy and awkward. The figures faces are all very serious and not very realistic, but that’s pretty par for the course with this size of figure. My biggest gripe with the sculpt is Rey’s freaky long neck. It’s curved slightly forward so it looks like she’s always kind of looking down.

All figures have peg holes on their feet (or in BB-8’s case, on the bottom of his… body?), and Finn alone has one in his back. We hypothesized it’s so that he can be posed standing up more securely, as his feet don’t give him much stability.

Review – Paint on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens Takodana Encounter Action Figure Set

The paint on the figures looks nice from far away, but there’s definitely some serious bleeding and Hasbro decided to stamp a silver metallic serial number or something on the back of Maz’s oxblood pants! Not subtle at all. On Rey, the issues include bubbled paint on her left hand that makes it look like she has holes in her hand, skin color bleeding onto her dark brown boots, and minor bleeding pretty much everywhere else skin meets material. Her face paint is decent, with pink lips and orange-y eyes. Finn was pretty alright, except his right hand. Both hands are a red-brown, even though his face isn’t, but the right hand is a dark burnt sienna with paint glopping onto his jacket cuff.

Maz’s paint is the most interesting, simply because she has a ton of colors going on. Almost opposite of Finn however, her face is a darker orange, and her neck and hands are a lighter shade, almost peach. Her eyes are nice, and you’re able to bend her goggles (they’re made of a soft plastic) to get a better look at them, but they move back to the original position when you let go. Maz’s teal shirt bleeds onto her neck pretty bad, as well as her vest. The peach color of her arms/hands is splattered onto her shirt cuff pretty bad. It’s very visible from the front. The paint on her many bracelets and rings is well done, with little to no bleeding, which was surprising. Her orange belt has some pouches on the sides of her pants, and the paint lines there are fairly clean, as well has the details on her boots. In fact, Maz’s boots are probably the best-painted part of any of the figures; very clean lines, and a lot of detail for such as small part. BB-8 has some defects in the paint as well. You can tell they stamped the orange paint over the white sculpt, and on two of the four orange circles on his body, the orange is completely shifted off to the side. Also, there’s some really minor orange splotches on the white part.

Review – Articulation on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens Takodana Encounter Action Figure Set

The articulation on these figures is very limited, but that’s to be expected. All figures (including BB-8) have 360 head rotation, and the three humanoid figures also have 360 arm rotation and very limited leg movement. In addition to rotation, BB-8’s head also has some unexpectedly cool tilt/pivot, so you can slide his head side to side, and even in a small circle. Unfortunately, when his head is anywhere but straight on, you can see the hole of his “neck joint.”

Maz has the best range of motion for her legs, which can bend backwards over 90 degrees, and forward 90. Finn has the second best leg articulation, as the soft plastic of his jacket allows for his legs to be bent backwards about 45 degree, and slightly less than that forward. Rey is the least flexible, especially on her right side. Her leg doesn’t move backwards at all, neither does her left really. Both move forward, well enough for her to sit down, but she won’t be kicking any doors down or becoming an Olympic gymnast, that’s for sure. However, Rey fits really well with the Speeder from the Jakku set.

Review – Accessories on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens Takodana Encounter Action Figure Set

Rey comes with a strange backpack that was sort of ambiguously packaged, as it doesn’t say anywhere who’s it is and wasn’t featured on the packaging at all. It’s all brown sculpt, with no paint at all. She also comes with a pretty slick staff, that’s much better than the one we got with Rey’s Speeder. It’s primarily black with two white bands that I believe are supposed to be wrapped material like the wraps on Rey’s arms. The flexible strap fits over her shoulder well without distorting the staff itself. She also comes with a blue lightsaber with a really nice hilt. The beam itself is kind of weird in my opinion, as the manufacturers tried to capture the whole pulsing beam of light thing in plastic, which ended up looking like a sculpt defect at the base of the “blade.” It’s also a little curved, which is hardly noticeable.

Finn came with a blaster, very simple, all silver plastic no paint. The sculpt itself is pretty detailed, and it fits in his hand comfortably.

Maz comes with a small blaster similar to Finn’s (no paint, nice sculpt) and a sheathed lightsaber. Or, more simply, a lightsaber hilt. I suppose it’s so that you can put it in her hand and chase Rey down and try to give it to her. Apocalyptic Darth Vader hallucinations not included. She also comes with the chest Rey found the lightsaber in, which is primarily sculpted from hard plastic with soft plastic straps and lid, enabling you to fasten the lid shut, even with the lightsaber hilt inside! I thought that was a really cool touch.

Final Thoughts on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens Takodana Encounter Action Figure Set

Overall, these simple figures had some nice surprises, but not enough to outweigh the awful paint job. The sculpt was excellent, but the paint was very carelessly stamped on, resulting in bleeding, splatters, and splotches. Saying the articulation is limited is being generous, but when you take into account the size and price of the set, it’s not too troubling. If you’re a big Star Wars fan, or particularly into Maz Kanata, I would recommend picking up the set. But if you plan on posing them to create an action scene, I’d probably look elsewhere for more articulation-friendly figures. This Takodana Encounter Star Wars Force Awakens set gets 3.5 out of 5 ration packs from me.