The Head:

The head’s cockpit opens up similarly to the old Kenner toy. You just lift up the hatch to reveal the inside. The early boasting point of this toy’s size was that the head could hold six figures. Can it really? Well, yeah, but only if they’re packed in like sardines. Plus, there are some early reports that the new Vintage Collection General Veers is too tall for the head!

There are two seats for the drivers (but remember, you only get one!) and then six pegs total in front of and behind the tactical screen. The idea here is that you can get two figures in front and two behind. I’d say the maximum capacity of the head without getting ridiculous is more like five, as I can comfortably fit two guard types behind the screen and one in front, or vice versa and have it look ok. Don’t get me wrong, this is a huge improvement over the original Kenner AT-AT’s two-seater roadster head.

The tactical console has a button that will activate a number of phrases, some of which will cause the screen to light up blue. There’s a sticker of the Hoth shield generator that can be applied, but if you choose to leave your AT-AT less scene specific, the light up effect of the screen still looks pretty cool without the sticker. I’m actually considering removing mine. The rear hatch that supposedly leads into the neck is really well done and actually looks like it should open.

There is a concealed handle in the top front of the AT-AT’s hull that works the head movement. When it is concealed, the head locks in a position so that its looking straight. Pull out the handle and the head goes somewhat limp so that it can be moved up, down and side to side by the handle. It would have been cool if the chin lasers could be operated with this device, but those are operated with slider switches under the head itself. The handle also has two fold out cannons so that you can leave it out and it will still look as if it serves a real purpose on the vehicle. That’s a nice touch. There are also three buttons near the handle, which activate different battle sound effects.

All in all, the head upgrade is about on par with what Hasbro did with the recent Millenium Falcon cockpit. Its definitely roomier, fits more figures and adds a load of play value to the toy.

The Body:

The main body of the Walker opens up on both sides in a gullwing fashion. The bottom portion folds down to form a platform with pegs to hold extra figures. These can also be used as boarding ramps, if you have a surface about the right height, as well as staging platforms for the winches positioned on each side for ferrying troops up and down to and from the surface. The winches are mounted on arms that swing out. A single button drops them and a disc can be turned to raise them back up. Each lift can hold two troopers at a time.

The inside cabin features a trench with a ladder on the wall, a lower platform area, and a raised platform area with a console and a window that looks into the rear garage. The console has a button that activates various phrases, some of which cause the red alert light in the cabin to flash. There are plenty of pegs, two side rails, and two removable console posts, that I chose to leave out because they tend to get in the way. The trench leads to the trap door in the belly of the Walker, which also has a winch, and can be used to recreate Luke’s demolition of the AT-AT in the film, or as another venue for getting troopers down to the surface.

Again, the main cabin is a huge improvement over the old toy. Both toys hold a lot of figures, but this one definitely holds more than the electronic POTF2 or Endor AT-ATs and provides a more interesting play environment. The fact that both sides open also makes it easier to get to everything inside.

The Garage:

The back of the walker opens up to reveal the speeder bike garage. A button deploys the platform that the speeder locks into, accompanied by a sound effect. You can also store more figures in here if you choose to leave the speeder out. There are also windows that can be opened on either side to give your Stormtroopers some much needed target practice.

The speeder bike itself is ok, but it suffers from the very flimsy rubbery plastic that make up the handle bars and the stabilizer boom. I definitely prefer the older one I have that’s closer to the old vintage Kenner toy. Either way, the new figures don’t sit all that well on it, but you can work something out if you’re determined enough. Its a nice enough bonus to round out the package, but nothing special.

I will admit, I was a little worried about buyer’s remorse when I pre-ordered this beast, mainly because I just don’t collect Star Wars toys like I used to. It took me a lot of waffling before buying the huge Millenium Falcon last year, but I never regretted that, and the same is true with this monster of an AT-AT. It seems only slightly less substantial then the Falcon, but that’s probably because a great deal of this toy’s size comes from its legs. And to be fair, its debuting on the toy shelves for about $50 less than the Falcon did. Either way, I’d say it was well worth the price and I highly recommend it, unless you’re willing to wait for the vintage style packaging on the TRU exclusive later on down the road. Detractors may well point out that its still not close to scale, but the only time I find this really apparent is when its seen next to the Snowspeeder. As far as the figures go, its plenty big enough!

While my Star Wars collection is a far cry from what it used to be, this AT-AT makes a nice addition to my showpieces like the big Falcon and the Imperial Shuttle. I’m also very glad I hung on to most of my Imperial figures because now they have somewhere to live.

The only thing I’m afraid of now is that owning this is going to pull me back into collecting a lot more Star Wars figures and toys this year than I had previously planned.

Naturally, that AT-AT got beaten up pretty bad over the years. I would later replace it with a POTF2 one and again with the TRU exclusive, Endor Walker, both of which I sold off a few years ago when money and storage space were getting tight. I rarely ever have seller’s remorse when I unload stuff, but in that case I sure did. I’m not sure if it was because it was a favorite toy as a kid, or because it was from my favorite scene of any of the Star Wars movies, but I knew I’d have to get one again at some point. Thankfully, Hasbro answered the call with the release of this ridiculous behemoth. Right now my only regret is that I don’t have the old, puny one for some comparison shots.As many of you may know, I am not an active Star Wars collector anymore, but when I liquidated my collection, I kept certain things, and every now and then Hasbro unleashes something new that I just can’t resist.

The box was waiting on my doorstep when I got home from work, and man was it huge. When I ordered the BMF Millenium Falcon, it was shipped to me in the manufacturer’s case box, but the AT-AT came with that box in a bigger box with added packing. A little quick work with a trusty razor blade and soon I was confronted with the toy’s true box in all its glory.

Its a real shame I can’t keep the packaging, because it really is nice. I love the colors, as well as the cut-out windows that show off the included figure and speeder bike. The artwork on the front is fantastic (although I could have done without the image of the Clone Trooper on my Original Trilogy toy), and the back panel shows a photo of the toy and calls out its many features. Its just the sort of thing that will get kids drooling in the toy aisles. Hasbro really knows how to design superb packaging when they want to, and this box is clearly proof of that.

Unfortunately, as with the Millenium Falcon, the toy requires some assembly steps that really can’t be undone, and as big as the box is, once you have this thing together, its too big to go back inside for storage. I suppose I could flatten it out and slide it behind something, but in the end I’ll probably just wind up chucking it.

That’s not to say the AT-AT is tough to assemble. Basically all you have to do is connect the front piece of the hull and head and then snap on the legs and feet. There’s also a bag of parts, some of which are optional. There aren’t all that many stickers, and even most of those are optional laser blasts. You can easily have this thing out of the box and ready to go in just ten minutes or so. Also included in the package is a repack of the recently carded AT-AT driver figure, a speeder bike, toy catalog, instruction sheet, and sticker sheet.

The AT-AT requires three AA batteries, and I highly recommend putting them in last, lest you want to be triggering off all sorts of sounds while you’re cobbling the beast together. You’ll also need a philips screwdriver to open the battery panel, and there’s a well concealed on/off switch under the hull, which was conealed well enough that I thought my AT-AT was broken after I put the batteries and was getting no sound.

The legs on this AT-AT are very similar to the original Kenner toy, in that they possess powerful ratchet joints in both the upper legs and knees as well as the ankles. They can be loud and annoying when you are posing the legs and you have to use a good deal of force to work them, but its a good trade-off to making sure that your AT-AT won’t be collapsing due to loose joints after a few weeks of play. I’m happy to say that this is one sturdy toy. But then for a hundred bucks it certainly should be!

The sculpt is really amazing and far more proportional to the actual studio models. Keep in mind this is still a toy, built primarily with play value in mind, so its not perfect, but its still far closer to the old Kenner toy. Externally, the head features the most improvements, especially in the protruding viewport (which is clear, red tinted plastic), and the actual rubber used for the neck. The cheek lasers are actually firing missiles, but the missiles look enough like guns so as not to ruin the effect. The chin lasers are similar to the older Kenner toy, in that they light up and can be made to alternately fire by working a control on the bottom of the head.

The hull has some weathering spots, but on the whole its fairly clean. Thankfully Hasbro didn’t attempt to add snow or mud effects, so you can use this AT-AT to invade any climate-specific planet in the Star Wars universe. The extra stickers that I mentioned earlier are there if you want to add more laser scorching and battle damage.

I will say that the struts connecting the inside of the legs to the feet seem a bit out of place, and they tend to disconnect when fiddling with the feet, but you can leave them off if you so choose. The inner “claws” on the feet can also interfere with each other if you have the Walker’s legs straight up and down. It seems better to pose it with each leg slightly forward or back. The feet are also hollow, so you can simulate crushing your figures (I recommend Ewoks or Jar Jar Binks) with glee!

Next time, we’ll look inside and I’ll get into the various features, electronics and we’ll see just how many figures this thing can actually hold!