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Saga Screen Scene: Geonosian War Chamber Set 1 (Featuring Poggle the Lesser, Count Dooku & San Hill) Review

In Attack of the Clones, the Geonosian War Chamber had a really cool tactical holo-table thing. It was huge and displayed a real-time account of the battlefield. The toy version is a bit smaller, but manages to look pretty cool. Read on for the review and 21 photos!

Geonosian War Chamber

Featuring Poggle the Lesser, Count Dooku & San Hill

"In a conference room on Geonosis, leaders of the Confederacy of Independent Systems watch Republic and Separatist forces engage in what will become the first battle of the Clone Wars. A table displays holographic images of the various skirmishes. When Count Dooku prepares to escape, he takes with him secret plans for a deadly new weapon." --Excerpt from the package back

Sculpt: Poggle the Lesser--5/5, Count Dooku--2.5/5, San Hill--2.5/5
If there is a reason to buy this set, then it's to get your hands on Poggle the Lesser. There is no doubt about it; Poggle is the star of this set! He's got tons of detail both in his skin (or should I say exo-skeleton?) and his armor looks fantastic. The details in his armor are intricate and well defined. He sports a great headsculpt that captures all the wrinkles and lines in his haggard face. His right hand is sculpted to hold his cane, but the cane can fall out easily so you might want to keep it rubberbanded. His left hand is in a closed fist and is useful for creating this pose. 

Count Dooku is not that bad, but I took points off because he utilizes the torso and "skirt" of the original Dooku figure. The headsculpt might be the same one as well. So now this Dooku figure has two cape chains--one sculpted on his body and one sculpted separately on his removable cape. His arms and legs appear to be all new, and thankfully they're not too wacky. His right hand is sculpted to hold the Death Star plans and unfortunately, this has bloated his hand to unnatural proportions. It doesn't look that bad though, as long as he's holding the Death Star plans. His left arm is straight and his left hand is sculpted as if he is holding his cape back. Dooku's legs are decent, but my figure's feet aren't flat--the toes on the left foot are slightly pointing upward, making it hard to find a stable standing pose. In the end, this figure is a one pose wonder; his cape is molded for a specific pose and he doesn't look good in other poses anyway.

San Hill simply doesn't look like the San Hill in the movie. The body is fine, but the headsculpt is off. I can see how it'd be hard since this guy is so skinny, but his headsculpt just lacks the details that makes San Hill look like San Hill. For one thing, his eyes are too big. The rest of his head is just too generalized; certain angles in his facial structure just aren't sharp enough. Take a look at the real San Hill and you'll see there's a huge difference. This is disappointing since Hasbro usually does a good job on alien headsculpts.

Articulation: Poggle the Lesser--3.5/5, Count Dooku--3/5, San Hill--3.5/5
Poggle has nine points of articulation: neck, shoulders, wings, left wrist-cut, waist, and hips. The wings swing up and down and they are not on hinges. The wrist articulation is nicely hidden and allows some variation in Poggle's attitude--have him rest his hand on the table or have him shake his fist in the air in defeat. Everything else is pretty basic. The waist articulation is nicely hidden under the armor. Some bicep-cuts would have been awesome.

Count Dooku has eight points: neck, shoulders, right elbow-cut, left wrist-cut, waist, and hips. Pretty basic stuff here too. The elbow-cut is pretty useless; what else can we do with this arm besides making strange gestures? The left wrist-cut is pretty useless as well but perhaps it can be useful for Sith lightning poses although the cape prohibits it.

San Hill has six points: neck, ball-jointed shoulders, waist, and hips. Again, pretty basic. The ball-jointed shoulders are somewhat useful but they don't make that much of a difference. If San Hill did not have ball-jointed shoulders, I would not mind.

Features--NA/5
There are no features associated with this set.

Accessories--4/5
You get the Geonosian war chamber table, Poggle the Lesser's cane, and the Death Star Plans. The table is both awesome and a let-down at the same time. It looks very cool with the holographic Republic Gunships, Spider droid, AT-TE's and little troops on it's surface. The downside for me is that it's only a fraction of the size that it is in the movie. Now I know an accurately sized table would be pretty huge, but if it were twice as big as it is now I'd be happy. As it is, it's pretty small, and once the second set comes out, the six figures will crowd this table easily. It would have also been cool if the table were attached to a baseplate which in turn could attach to bases that come with the basic figures like Wat Tambor.

Poggle's cane is well done and fits into his hand albeit a bit loosely. The Death Star plans look cool and yes, they're out of scale. I don't really mind though, but I do wish there were more detail on the base.

Paint--3/5
Nothing to write home about. San Hill and Dooku don't need much and they look fine. Poggle however, has more detail and I think he would have benefited from an extra paint application. As it is, he looks a bit too green and brown. It would have been nice if they had used some of that prismatic paint they used on some of the other Geonosians.

Packaging--4/5
The packaging is both good and bad. MIB collectors will love these things because of it's large bubble which allows an almost full view of the entire set. They will also hate it because the bubble can get crushed easily. Openers will hate the fact that there are tons of twisty-ties and rubberbands to contend with. Having a pair of small wire-cutters will definitely make things easier. The packaging looks great overall and is pretty compact; it's about the size of the Micro Machine Action Fleet boxes. The graphics on the inside of the box help complete the scene. You can use the background as a backdrop for this set.

Overall--4/5
Overall this set is not as impressive as the Jedi Council set, but is worth it to get Poggle the Lesser and the holo-table. Dooku with the Death Star plans is pretty cool as well, but San Hill is pretty disappointing. It would have been nice if we were getting more Geonosian War Chamber sets so we could make a larger table, but as it is, it is still a cool set and will make a nice display on your shelf both in or out of the box.

 

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