2016 Rogue One Imperial Ground Crew

I have not seen "The Force Awakens".  As a kid, I saw each of the original trilogy movies in theaters three times.  In 1997, I was there opening night for each of the Special Editions and saw each of them three times, too.  In 1999, I took the first Friday that "The Phantom Menace" was playing off and saw it.  I then saw each of the three prequels three times each in theaters.  Yet, I have not seen the highest grossing movie in the franchise.  Mainly, it came out during the busiest time of year for me and I simply couldn't find free moments where going to see the movie exceeded my desire to do something else.  The regurgitated story didn't excite me, though the visuals from the onslaught of commercials were fairly interesting.  When it came out on DVD, I didn't want to spend $20 for a Blu Ray.  I see it on demand, but just haven't felt the need to drop the $5 or so it would cost.  Again, finding a 2+ hour window of time is tough.  I thought I might catch it on premium cable.  But, it showed up on Starz, which I don't get.  So, in short, I don't have a lot of interest in seeing it or else I would have.

One year later, there is a new Star Wars film on the horizon: a stand alone story titled "Rogue One".  The appealing aspect of this is that the timeline is set just before "A New Hope" (or "Star Wars" as it was known when I was a kid....) when the Rebels steal the plans for the first Death Star.  The appeal is that the timeline and Imperials should be more familiar and the story more in line with the established film cannon.  But, we all know that won't be the case.  The first look at both the film trailers and the toys that have been released show an overly shoddy galaxy with an eclectic mix of Imperials that are more akin the source Clone Trooper flavors than the standard Stormtroopers of the original films.  But, there were Space Troopers in Star Wars, Snow Troopers in Empire and Biker Scouts in Jedi, so the baseline has always existed.

Which brings me to the figure at hand, the Imperial Ground Crew.  When choosing a figure to buy, I didn't really have any expectations.  The days of a large, super articulated selection of figures are long gone.  In their stead are smaller waves of 6" super articulated figures, 3 3/4 super articulated figures and 3 3/4 5 points of articulation figures to which this Ground Crew figures belongs.  While the lack of articulation is still a sticking point for someone like me who remembers walls of high quality, mostly well articulated figures at retail outlets in 2006 though 2008, the sculpting and look of these less articulated figures far exceeds what we saw on most Star Wars figures just a decade ago.  Plus, to me, many of the characters have a similar look that's somewhat Star Wars, but also somewhat not.  Diversification is good.  But, the look of the new films appears to be shabby and that's already gotten old.  It feels that Lucas' intention of a less than pristine universe has now been transformed to the reductio ad absurdum of his original vision.

For the Imperials like the Ground Crew, they have retained the militant precision of both the Republic and the Empire.  You have the standard Stormtroopers and guys like this.  The Ground Crew looks like the visions of an evil overlord coming to your homeland and oppressing you.  So, he fits with the Empire motif.  The dark grey base and black overlays convey fear.  Of course, they also conflict with his specialty.  If this guy is routing the take off and landing of Imperial spacecraft, you'd think he's be wearing something that would be more visible: especially at night.  But, this is where aesthetics of a movie and toy line supersede the reality you would expect.

Imperial Ground Crew