It Was a Star Wars Holiday

Apparently Mr. Husband knows me well, or just wants me to stop talking about rebooting my star wars collection… Either way, I love the presents he got me for Hanukkah!

First, I got an action figure of Queen Amidala (as she was dressed in Episode I to address the galactic senate on Coruscant). The title of this figure on the box is #10 Queen Amidala (Coruscant). I had one of these figures when they first came out but she was lost somewhere along the way. After getting back some star wars action figures from my sister, I now have the old figure’s “identification card”/stand. No matter, now she can just have two stands! Her previous owner never took her out of her box, and some true collectors might think it’s crazy that I took her out but in my opinion she is harder to display in her packaging and not missing anything. Besides, I don’t collect things because they are worth anything, and these figures are not. But being enclosed in plastic for more than 10 years caused her outer rubber to get a little sticky, maybe that will right itself eventually.

Anyways, the figure is really detailed and a great representation of Natalie Portman as Amidala in the same outfit. I love her!

Then I got something I didn’t expect at all, but is really cool: an Ultimate Hair Queen Amidala 12″ doll! This doll represents Amidala’s battle costume, also from Episode I, but in that scene the real Queen Amidala is disguised as a handmaiden (as seen in the first star wars action figure that I showed off on the blog) and the character wearing this outfit is actually Sabe, Amidala’s decoy handmaiden. Sabe (Kiera Knightly) is even pictured on the back of the box. That’s ok, she is still really cool. The “ultimate hair” part of the dolls title refers to her extra long hair and all the extra hair accessories she comes with. There are illustrations and photos of examples of different ways you can do her hair that are similar to the ways Queen Amidala wore it in the movies.

Ultimate Hair Queen Amidala (Sabe)

From some angles her facial features feel disproportionately small to the size/shape of her head.

I’m pretty terrible at doing hair (my own included) so this was interesting to try out. Yes, I have taken this doll out of her box, unlike my other 12″ Star Wars dolls, because this is meant to be a play doll not a collectible doll like the others. And the box isn’t as decorative as the collectible doll boxes.

Undressed doll and accessories

When I first got Sabe out of the box, her hair was up in a weird loopy ponytail with an inverted bun inside of it, I suppose to create volume in the bun (not sure why because you can’t see that part of her hair in the box). The crescent hair section on top of her head is actually a hair accessory, a plastic crescent tightly wrapped in matching hair fiber. I took her hair down but it was really kinky from the bun so I rinsed it out in the sink with hot water and brushed it.

Hair straight out of the box

Sabe comes with a lot of decorative hair accessories and a fabric covered wire hair wrap to assist in creating the elaborate hair styles. The only real instructions show how to use the hair wrap, but I found that was pretty difficult to do in reality. I could never get the hair to stay tight in the wrap or secure the wrap if I did get a style I liked. But pony tails, braids and buns are nice looking too without the hair wrap because there are so many hair decorations to add in. Here are some styles I was able to create:

Once I got used to it, playing with Sabe’s hair was really fun; I probably spent a good 2 hours creating new dos!

Sabe’s outfit is decent, the fabrics aren’t hemmed but they are a synthetic type that won’t ravel so they’re actually a good choice for a play doll and the design has just enough details to look a lot like the movie dress. Her boots do come off, but not easily. Sabe’s entire head is cast in a hard white rubber instead of tan like the rest of her body and she has rubbery legs with click joint knees. Her body is similar to a Barbie, but a little shorter and more like the old style of Barbie.

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All in all it was a great holiday season for toys! I love my new Amidala/Sabes (and I hope the star wars theme continues!)

~Molly

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