With all the hoopla regarding Hasbro's new Jabba the Hutt, I thought it would be interesting to check out this Jabba from the 2004 Ultra Assortment. It's already made an appearance on the Dork Dimension in my tribute to my favorite modern Star Wars figures, but it deserves a closer look... especially since it has been the best Jabba for the past 6 years, and the new figure threatens that title.
Ultra Jabba is basically the Jabba Glob sculpt with a few modifications to the head/torso: a bit of drool has been added and a peg hole was put in for the tongue and pipe. The paint apps are also much improved. There's a nice blend of orangish-brown color washes on green plastic to give the figure depth and color variation.
I like to put all sorts of little amphibious critters in Jabba's bowl. Here you see some frogs from Jabba Glob, along with a salamander from the Episode I Cinema Scene in which Jar Jar slurps it up and irritates Sebulba.
Does the new Jabba surpass this one? Check out this Flickr image gallery for some nice shots of the new figure. The sculpt is awesome, but the paint apps are inexcusably simplistic, especially compared with 2004's Jabba. I guess I'll have to wait until I get a new Jabba for myself to find out for sure.
Jabba's Palace with figures from all eras: Vintage, POTF2, Saga, etc.
An alternate universe Jabba's Palace.
6 comments:
i think the new one has the exact feel that the old Kenner one did, and this one from several years ago seems way more realistic. Both have their strong points. Great post!
I've been wanting a Jabba for a while. I lost most my old ones. I was going to get this one, but I'll probably get the new one instead... Speaking of which, I hadn't seen that yet. So thanks for enlightening me, while taking a fond look back.
So far the vintage Jabba has still been the best one for me. Which is kind of a shame. I don't plan on buying the newest one either. But he does look like a great figure.
He definitely has more of a vintage feel though, and his sculpting is superb. However I don't like the way his paint apps look.. like he rolled face first into a puddle of paint.
The newest one is now at retail though. Picked him up and looked at him the other day. Oola is displayed in the window, and she is fugly. Don't get why they didn't window box the whole boxset like they did with the Clone Wars animated Hutt.
Truthfully, the more I see of the new Jabba, the less I like it. It's such a shame that a great sculpt was ruined by crappy paint apps and a horrible color scheme. Although I still haven't seen good pictures of it yet, so I'm going to wait to see pics from Rebelscum or Yakface before I commit to buying it.
I really like the new Jabba, myself. I'm surprised to hear anyone say that the Ultra Jabba has better paint. It may be that the Ultra Jabba has some more detail on the orange parts (some sort of wash perhaps) but when I see that figure, I can only see the hard lines between the orange and green patches. It just looks so unnatural. And of course the sculpt on the new one is far superior.
I can see what you mean about the hard lines. The main problem I have with the new Jabba is that the paint apps are so painfully flat. Unlike Ultra Jabba, there doesn't appear to be any color variation or paint washes to give the skin depth or realism. It reminds me a lot of the Jabbas we used to get in the late 90s... just a hunk of green plastic with its face smeared with paint. But I want to reserve final judgement until I actually have one of the new Jabbas in-hand. The sculpt is undeniably awesome, and the paint apps might work well with it. And maybe there is a subtle wash that I'm not seeing in the pics.
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