Recommended music: Imogen Heap – Hide And Seek
We’re taking a break from The Empire Strikes Back this #StarWarsSaturday, and taking a look at Mon Mothma!
Even though the character had multiple lines of dialogue in Return of he Jedi in 1983, she did not receive an action figure until 1998 (yes, I realize there was a large hiatus following the vintage line to explain most of this gap).
Anyways, the Power of the Force 2 figure was accurately based on actress Caroline Blakiston from her scene briefing the Rebels on Home One. When the character returned for Revenge of the Sith in 2005, she received a figure right away in the ROTS figure line, this time meant to look like the new Mothma actor Genevieve O’Reilly.
The figure came with a baton and chunky-looking headdress, neither of which I care to keep track of for this loose collector. Unfortunately, the figure does not have as strong a likeness to O’Reilly, but it wasn’t as big of a deal as photo-real technology was not used on Hasbro figures at this time (especially in 3.75″ figures), and the character’s scenes from the novelization ended up on the cutting room floor.
Fortunately, the character’s scenes were included on the Episode III DVD which came out in November of 2005, and her story was fleshed out even more (with O’Reilly in the role) during The Clone Wars, Tales of the Jedi, Rebels, Rogue One, Ahsoka, and Andor, which concluded earlier this week.
Also, I recently discovered O’Reilly can be seen for a few frames of a group shot in ROTS, when Anakin and Palpatine return to Coruscant and are greeted by a group of politicians on the landing platform. Seriously, it was very difficult to find her in this scene. Also, this is still the only 3.75″ figure of O’Reilly to date. I sure hope an Andor version is in the works.
Revenge of the Sith turns 20 years old this week! I “figure” I’ll do one more Episode III post and get back to sharing a new Episode V figure here for the rest of the year. Happy 20 years of ROTS!
#RevengeOfTheSith20
#ROTS20
Just a reminder, if you’re in the Denver area, there is one more day to attend the Retromania Collectibles Show May 18th in Aurora! So stop by table 79 (or one of the other hundred tables) for some fun stuff!
https://www.heritageeventcompany.com/denver-retromania.html
Dale's Toys 