Star Wars The Black Series Baze Malbus review
Star Wars isn’t known for having too many BFF duos. There’s Han & Chewie and R2-D2 & C-3P0 of course, but Rogue One: A Star Wars Story introduced another terrific pair in the gruff Baze Malbus and the serene Chirrut Imwe.
Clearly, Baze and Chirrut’s role in Rogue One didn’t allow for them to have an extended run like the aforementioned duos, but they definitely made enough of an impression that for me.
Of course, with Andor there does exist some hope that we could get a Chirrut and Baze series before they encounter Jyn and Cassian. I’d watch it. Hasbro cranked out an underwhelming set of the Rogue One characters that featured bad likenesses. They went back to the drawing board with better face printing and paint apps while still retaining some of the early issues with the sculpts particularly with the articulation.
I’ve gone through figures of half the Rogue One crew so far so let’s see if Baze is an exciting addition or another figure I’ll add to my in need of a third attempt list.
Packaging: I love that the Black Series uses a different accent color for each film/series. Rogue One has a duck egg blue shade. Baze is No. 5 in the Rogue One lineup. As always, the mural image on the side is amazing and features Baze locked and loaded for battle.
Base’s bio goes with the same spoiler-free approach of a number of movie figures simply providing a basic background without the larger context of his fate in Rogue One. That’s fine in this case although I wouldn’t mind a bit more connecting him to the other characters.
Likeness: I was still on the fence on getting back into the Black Series when Hasbro originally released the Rogue One figures, which featured some pretty soft likenesses. Baze’s first figure was one of the bigger offenders.
When Hasbro reissued the Rogue One figures, they enhanced the head sculpts with face printing resulting in far more improved likenesses on multiple levels. Baze definitely benefits from this upgrade as the head sculpt looks much more accurate to Baze actor Wen Jiang.
The base body didn’t need changes as it had a solid foundation with Baze’s massive blaster charge generation, the collar piece armor component and the various pouches of his jumpsuits. The jumpsuit has a nice heft to it to suggest the Baze was thicker and a little buffer to carry his blaster generator.
There’s some weird slots in the right arm that seem like they were intended for something else.
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Paint: Baze’s outfit gets a major paint upgrade as well. The original lacked any kind of paint detail. With this update, Baze’s outfit gets a significant paint wash that brings out so much more of the sculpt detail.
If you could only get one Rogue One repaint, Baze is absolutely worth it because of the visual improvements.
As always, there weren’t any significant issues with Baze’s paint job.
Scale: Baze was just a bit taller than his boy Chirrut and Jyn Erso and about eye to eye with Cassian Andor.
Articulation: Baze doesn’t need to be super athletic. He’s toting a massive heavy repeating blaster and isn’t doing backflips or anything. Still, Hasbro didn’t consider collectors might want to pose him aiming in a convincing manner like he did in Rogue One.
His ankles are weirdly constructed making him an awkward stand made even more difficult when he has his weighty backpack and heavy repeating blaster on.
That combination essentially makes him a topple-risk and it’s just a matter of when not if he’ll fall. I managed to have some success leaning the equally tipsy K-2SO against Baze, but it wasn’t a perfect solution.
Baze Malbus has:
- neck
- ball-jointed shoulders
- elbow (with swivel)
- wrist
- wrist hinge
- torso
- hips
- thighs
- knees (double jointed)
- ankles
Accessories: Baze gets two essential accessories.
First is the repeater blaster generator. It’s scaled properly and plugs securely into his back. The “chain” needed one or two more links to allow for more flexibility as Baze has little range to move the blaster up and down without it popping out from the chain belt.
The repeating blaster is massive and has some great detailing.
He’s also got a device that plugs into the rear of his belt. Is it a taser or a communications device?
Worth it? I waited this series out in hopes of getting them for clearance/deep discount like way too many figures I bought for full price in 2021 only to see them for half off by the end of the year.
That bet paid off as I was able to get Baze for $12. I think the line is still a very good value at $20 so anytime you can pay less than that it’s a big win.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Baze suffers from some seriously limiting articulation, but he does have a much-improved head sculpt and paint work. And there’s no denying how the team looks nearly completed.
Where to get it? All of the Rogue One figures are going to be hard to find at retail save for GameStop. Baze is still available at Amazon.
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