Star Wars The Black Series Saw Gerrera review
Saw Gerrera has been one of the more fascinating additions from the Clone Wars with a role that’s expanded from one series to another, video games and a live-action film. Getting Forest Whitaker to play an older version of the character in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was a real coup and he did not disappoint.
Besides the initial cost the same could be said for Saw Gerrera’s first entry in the Black Series line. Thanks to his key roles during the Clone Wars leading up to Rogue One, Hasbro could legit do a few more that I’d happily pick up. If they’re of the same quality of this figure they won’t need to get buried under the wreckage of Jedha.
Packaging: It’s very cool to see the Black Series uses a different accent color for each film/series. Rogue One gets a duck egg blue shade. The nice wide window shows off Saw and all of his numerous accessories.
The wider window does make his accessories seem underwhelming since there’s so much open space.
Along the left side is a continuation of the awesome mural with the Rogue One characters. His bio is written in a style that nicely summarizes his unyielding focus in defeating the Empire.
Likeness: Once again, the head sculpt is killer. The enhancements for the SWBS figures has vastly improved with the addition of the face printing. Hasbro captured Whitaker’s likeness from the film right down to the Frederick Douglass hairstyle. He’s got a great focused expression and the sculpt also includes the Saw-specific scars along his face.
Saw’s outfit is extremely well done with all of the various armor plating. His chest piece is especially impressive with the various grooves, gears, panels, knobs/buttons and functional uses like the tubing for his oxygen mask and the oxygen tank stored in his left holster. Then there’s the complex sculpting of his arms with all of the individual details for the bands.
His belt is larger and more detailed than most with numerous tabs and space for the non-removable oxygen tank and his blaster on the right side. Saw’s pants pack just as much detail with various panels and pockets along with partially metallic knee pads.
The years haven’t been kind to Saw as his right foot has been replaced by a cybernetic piece that’s noticeably thinner than the left foot, which is chilling in a sandal.
Finally, Saw’s cape is the flag of his home world, Onderon. That’s a nice touch and a cool piece of his backstory to include with this design.
About the only problem with Saw’s sculpt is it shows what Hasbro is capable of doing even for lesser tier characters. That makes it disappointing when key characters get lackluster and underwhelming figures.
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Paint: There are just a few areas where the figure’s paint deviates from the source material. And it’s mainly just small areas like the missing green glow panels on the armor front.
The work on the silver bands throughout came out very strong without any slop or overspray areas. As he was holed up in the arid Jedha, Hasbro could have added more of a dirty wash to simulate some of the sand caking up on his area.
Weirdly, Hasbro forgot(?) to throw in some grey hair for Saw to show that he was now up in age and a longtime fighter against the Empire.
Scale: Saw only really interacted with Jyn Erso and Bodhi. His figure is also properly scaled so he looks wider than other characters. Of course, it’ll be cool to pose him next to Andor or Luthen for a better scale comparison.
Articulation: By the time of Rogue One, Saw was barely doing much of anything beyond stretching out to get another hit from the oxygen tank.
Despite the seemingly restrictive armor, Saw is able to hit a number of dynamic poses even with the bulky left shoulder pad.
Saw Gerrera has:
- neck
- ball-jointed shoulders
- elbow (with swivel)
- wrist
- wrist hinge
- torso
- hips
- thighs
- knees (double jointed)
- ankles
Accessories: Saw isn’t packed with an abundance of accessories. A cool addition would have been a second head sculpt with the shorter nearly bald haircut.
Saw does come with his staff/cane. It’s got some nice, grooved details with some horizontal lines and twisted vertical lines that wrap around their individual sections.
This is very well done for something Hasbro really could have cheaped out on and few collectors would have been that bothered over.
He also has a blaster to fit in his holster. As usual for the line it’s got a fantastic amount of detailing.
Worth it? Saw Gerrera was originally a ridiculous deluxe price point north of $30, which was just silly even with his complex sculpt. It’s not like figures that have less sculpting are cheaper. I was able to wait until Target did a clearance on him and was able to grab Saw for $16, which was a great price for him. You can get him now for an even better $9.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
This is a tremendous figure and an excellent value if you can get him under $10 or $20. Just the missing grey hair and lack of “younger” head sculpt hold him back.
Where to get it? Saw Gerrera was available at various retailers, but your best bet now is Amazon.
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