I do have more than a few Hot Toys figures waiting to get their time in the spotlight here, but with Mr. Goldenrod arriving at my door last week, I just had to bump him up to the head of the line. I’ve had the Sideshow 3PO as the default version on display in my collection for around three years now, and while I came close to sticking with him, in the end I buckled and pre-ordered this new Hot Toys release of the prissy protocol droid. At the end, I’ll do some comparisons, but for now I’ll just say that this Hot Toys figure is excellent, and an improvement over Sideshow’s on many fronts, but it falls short of being a clean sweep.

The box features a vintage-style window box with a sleeve over it. It’s a cool fake out, because the sleeve makes it look like the usual boring style that Hot Toys uses for its Star Wars figures, but the heavy duty box under it just looks fantastic and very similar to the 40th Anniversary Boba Fett they did from The Empire Strikes Back. What’s not so fantastic is that they plastered a huge warning sticker on top of the outer sleeve. I’m guessing this directive came from the legal department, but it seems so destructive for a company like Sideshow that sells high end collectibles to discriminating collectors. And before we free 3PO from his packaging, here’s a word of warning! This is a heavy figure with lots of diecast. The upper torso connects to the lower body with a simple ball-and-socket joint. The lower half of the figure has most of the diecast (legs and pelvis, while the upper half has diecast in the back and upper arms), so if you lift the figure out by the top half, there’s a good chance the bottom will drop out and that could be disastrous. This almost happened to me, and again later when I was holding it from the waist, the top half almost fell off. The situation was remedied by pushing the connection in tighter and it’s been fine ever since. I’m all for building a figure with joints that detach rather than break, but boy did this give me a couple of scares. Maybe they should have plastered that warning label on the sleeve!

3PO comes out of the box all ready to go, and once again so delightfully heavy! Considering how pleased I have been with Sideshow’s I was curious what my reaction to this fella would be, and boy was I immediately smitten. The proportions are excellent and based on some comparisons I’ve been doing the sculpt seems to be extremely accurate to the costume used in RotJ. I’m particularly impressed with the gold finish, which is very rich and sumptuous and has just the right amount of shine. And of course, you get the lower right leg done in silver. I think the biggest controversy over this figure was the weathering, which is achieved with a spray. I think it looks perfectly fine when viewed by the naked eye, but as you punch in close it can look a bit heavy handed. I tend to associate weathered 3PO mostly from A New Hope and looking rather clean in comparison in Jedi. But, considering he gets completely buried in the sands of Tatooine and later traipses through a filthy jungle moon, I guess it makes sense that he got dirty. Granted, I am not someone who sifts through every minute detail for accuracy, but everything about this one looks great to me.

One thing I’m not as much a fan of here is the way the wires in his midriff all run straight, rather than overlap. Granted, it’s not a flaw in the figure design, but rather how the suit looked in RotJ, as opposed to the earlier films. I like the messier look for the wires, but that having been said, Hot Toys did a nice job with each individual sculpted wire and cable here. Like the Sideshow version, each of 3PO’s arms have the working pistons on the inside and outside of the elbows, and they allow for smooth movement in the joint.

The head sculpt looks fantastic, although I think they slimmed down the neck a bit to help with articulation. The light up feature requires three button batteries, which are inserted by removing the front face plate. This is also how you access the On/Off switch. The face plate secures with a pair of pegs and it is fairly easy to get on and off. But, placing the switch inside the head is a HUGE stepdown from the elegant Sideshow engineering where all you needed to do was lightly tap the back of the head to turn the eye lights on and off. It may seem like a little thing, but 3PO is one of those figures that you want to display with the lit eyes whenever you’re admiring him on the shelf and it’s a pain to take the face off every time you want to do it. I’ve included a few pictures with the eyes off to show the difference.

As for articulation, 3PO sort of feels like one of those Power Pose figures Hot Toys used to do, in that he’s rather limited from the waist down. There’s virtually no articulation in the hips, I can only get each hip joint to bump forward or back the tiniest amount. His knees will kick back a bit, but with no hip articulation, what’s the point? All I was able to get out of his ankles was a slight angle to his feet so they aren’t both pointing straight ahead. The torso has the aforementioned ball joint, which allows for a bit of swivel and a bit of forward and back movement. Thankfully the arms give me everything I expect, as they rotate at the shoulders and bend a bit at the elbows. The lack of leg articulation isn’t a huge problem with getting him to stand without a base, especially since I plan on having him rest one hand on R2’s dome.

The hands are secured on hinged pegs and you get three sets of hands to choose from. And thankfully, no more pinky thumbs like the Sideshow figure had. Yes, having articulated fingers on that figure was cool, but I think I’m happier with these sculpted hands. You get the regular flat hands, pointy finger hands, and the odd inclusion of accessory holding hands for the non-existent accessories he has to hold.

3PO does come with three more extras: Salacious B. Crumb, a pillow for him to sit on, and an alternate faceplate with his right eye pecked out. I suppose you could call Crumb a figure, as he does have articulation at his hips, shoulders, and neck. It’s a nice sculpt with some excellent paintwork. I think people who were excited to have him as a pack-in will be happy with the way he turned out, but getting him wasn’t a huge big deal to me.

The face plate with the damaged eye attaches just like the regular one, and since the light source for the eyes is in the head, it lights up the one good eye on this face as well. And because Crumb has some articulation, you can get him to sit on 3PO’s shoulder like he just plucked the eye out. I can’t deny that this is a cool bonus, but like the damaged arm on the Sideshow 3PO, I can’t see myself ever really displaying the figure like this. At best, I may just display Crumb on his pillow holding the face plate.

And of course, we can’t wrap things up without looking at the base and boy do I have mixed feelings about this one. You get a raised platform with a cover that looks like the grating in Jabba’s Palace, or perhaps the deck plating for his Sail Barge. There’s a post with a crotch cradle, and you really have to squeeze the wires in tight to get it between the droid’s legs because there’s no give in the hips at all. The base definitely gives the figure display some gravitas and it’s cool that Hot Toys put some extra effort into it, but it feels weird having 3PO raised up above all the other Hot Toys on my shelf. Also, it makes it impossible to display him beside R2 with his hand on his head, and that’s always how I’m going to want to display my droids. So, yeah… this base is going back in the box.

And, as promised, here are a few shots of 3PO with his Sideshow predecessor. Hot Toys wins out on the overall proportions and accuracy of sculpt. Plus, the diecast gives the figure such a satisfying heft and everything about him feels more premium. But it’s not the total slam dunk I thought it would be. Sideshow’s droid is still a lot more fun to pose and play around with and I still think he looks damn good. We’ll just let R2 decide!

At $320, 3PO comes in with a steep price tag. I doubt Luke and Uncle Owen paid the Jawas that much for him. But, It’s also worth noting that this is the same figure as the recent Attack of the Clones release, just with the traditional gold finish. Hot Toys definitely did a beautiful job on this droid and let’s face it, all that diecast doesn’t come cheap. He’s a very impressive figure, but I think I was surprised at the fact that it didn’t totally blow away my Sideshow release. Granted, they are very different figures based on two variants of the character. If I could take two things away from the Sideshow figure and give it to this guy it would be the touch-activated eye lights and swivels in the hips. With all that having been said, Hot Toys 3PO will replace my Sideshow in my R2 and 3PO display, but I have no intentions to unload the Sideshow figure any time soon. As this review posts, he’s still available at Sideshow.