Shaak Ti

If you've read our last Shaak Ti review, you know that girl skirted death at least three times between Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith. Everybody's luck runs out sometime. Shaak Ti is a Jedi Master and member of the Jedi Council. She survives Order 66 and eventually arrives on Felucia, where she prepares the Force-sensitive Felucians for an unavoidable encounter with Darth Vader. As you may be able to tell from the mention of Order 66 and Felucia, this figure is based on The Force Unleashed. She retreated there after escaping Coruscant (yes, despite the fact that both Aayla Secura and Barriss Offee got Order 66'd on that planet) and quickly went native. It's where she took Maris Brood to hide/train her, and it's where eventually Galen Marek (not Darth Vader) found her. So maybe it wasn't such a great hiding place, you think? Since Shaak Ti is no longer bound by the rules of the Jedi, she's ditched the big robes for something a bit more... well, it would be rude to say slutty or skanky, so how about we just call it feminine and adult? And awesome! She's wearing a backless top with a deep V-front and straps around her midsection that seem to do nothing but accentuate her breasts. She has a loincloth, which only covers her in the front - her homemade bikini bottom is poking out in the back. Rather than shoes, she's just wrapped a bit of cloth around her feet, leaving her toes and heels to poke out (a phrase which, if our top search term referers are correct, will bring us a ton of traffic). She also has cloth wrapped around both legs and her left forearm. The sculpt of her lekku (head-tentacle-tail things) is quite impressive, and a far sight better than any Twi'lek or Togruta figure before. They don't droop limply behind her, but rather drape naturally over her shoulders. Even the longer center lek (yep, that's the singular form) hangs dynamically. The straps she's tied around her lekku and montrals (the horns) are long enough that they almost reach the ground behind her. Despite being remarkably complex, the paint apps are well done. Her skin is a beautiful red, rather more muted than the makeup worn by the real actress - in fact, it's closer to the color used in Clone Wars. The stripes on her head are crisp, as are the tan slashes (bodypaint? natural coloring?) on her arms and legs. There are several shades of brown for the clothes, plus silver for her jewelry, and yet there isn't really a paint error worth mentioning anywhere on her. Shaak Ti's articulation is quite sufficient for any battle you want to cast her in. The head is a balljoint, of course, and it's limited in only the most minor way by the lekku. Her shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles are swivel/hinge joints, yet none of them look too bulky. The wrists, waist and hips are swivel joints, but turning the waist (actually a torso joint) really ruins the look of her top. That's the only flaw. Her lightsaber is a pale blue, which is accurate to the fiction. The figure also includes a build-a-droid piece, BG-J38's left arm, but that's not really an accessory. This version of Shaaki Ti truly is a great figure. An impressive sculpt, articulation that suits her, and top-notch paint. The only downside is that she, and the rest of the figures in her series, were supremely hard to find. She came out in the final series of the 2008/2009 "Legacy Collection," which was very nearly an online exclusive until Toys Я Us picked it up. Unfortunately, the series was ordered only in very small numbers, so if you didn't buy them the first time you saw them, you were screwed. I missed out on half the series (including the Spacetrooper, for instance), because someone had gotten to the store before me. Shaak Ti is one of those figures a lot of people deserve to own, and not many will. -- 09/25/10

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