Tag Archives: return of the jedi

Jul 22 2024

Star Wars Black Series (Return of the Jedi): Rebel Commando by Hasbro

What’s this? A Star Wars figure review on FFZ? Will wonders never cease! I’ve been pretty vocal about how I’ve all but stopped collecting Star Wars figures. I have no interest in the current stream of content Disney is producing, and instead of giving us the figures we’re missing from the Original Trilogy, they seem all-in on the new stuff peppered by Prequel stuff here and there. It seems like a bad business move to me, but then again it may all be baked into the licensing agreement. I haven’t looked at any Hasbro Star Wars figures this year, and only two last year, and that’s literally all I’ve been buying. The Endor Rebel Commando looked really good, but Hasbro released him at a ludicrous $35 and I wasn’t willing to bite at that price. Luckily he went on sale as part of Amazon’s Prime Days and I finally picked up a couple.

This figure was part of Hasbro’s woefully disappointing 40th Anniversary offerings for Return of the Jedi, which featured just a few new figures and a whole bunch of repacks on vintage style cards. And much to my amazement, not a single one of Jabba’s Skiff Guards among them. I think the figures look great on the oversized vintage-style cards, but Amazon mangled both of mine pretty badly. Not a problem, since I always planned on opening them anyway. I’d say it’s about a 50-50 chance as to whether or not I get a carded figure from Amazon in good shape or not, and I always take that into account when buying from them. Anyway, the card has the familiar photo of the Rebel Commando crouched and ready for action beside the Imperial Bunker and the back of the card has the usual cross-sell promotion showing other figures in the assortment.

The Rebel’s commando strike team had some variations in their gear, with many wearing camo ponchos or jackets. Based on the outfit here, this figure seems to be referencing Nik Sant as he lacks the extra layer of camo. The figure sports a sculpted gray long sleeve shirt with a soft plastic vest worn over it and very short sleeves sculpted as part of the arms and matching up quite well. The legs are sculpted with cargo-style trousers featuring a camo finish and the high boots have sculpted laces. The belt is cast in soft plastic and worn by the figure. It includes a number of sculpted pouches and a tube, maybe for a scope? There’s also a bandoleer hanging off the right shoulder with some sculpted bits of gear on it, all of which is painted in a very nice silver metal finish. This figure looks amazing, especially for a troop builder, and I love how layered all the gear looks. The DNA here feels more akin to the GI JOE Classified line than Star Wars Black, and I mean that as the highest of compliments.

The backpack is worn by the figure with actual shoulder straps, and it’s something that’s pretty unusual for any of Hasbro’s 6-inch lines. The straps fit the figure well with the pack hanging low on the back. It’s cast in brown plastic and has lots of sculpted rumples and wrinkles, as well as stitching and fasteners for the flaps. There’s a crinkled hose running up the one side and some painted fixtures as well. It would have been cool to also get the hard pack that some of the Commandos wore, especially considering the price point on this figure. The figure’s articulation is overall pretty good with the downside being rotating hinges in the elbows and knees, instead of double hinges. Also, the ankle hinge doesn’t allow for the foot to bend up very far. I also wish they had painted that camo further up the knee joint.

Like the Hoth Trooper, the Commando comes with two interchangeable face plates, but the Endor faces are not compatible with the Hoth figure, as the design is slightly different. The faces pull out and plug in similar to what we tend to see on a Figma or Figuart. The sculpt of the helmet and chin strap does a beautiful job of concealing the feature and if I didn’t know, I probably couldn’t tell that the face was designed to come off at all. They are, however, extremely difficult to get off and I had to resort to getting a jeweler’s screwdriver into the gap and popping it out. But since I have one figure for each face, I doubt I’ll ever swap them again. Unlike the Hoth figure, there is no storage in the backpack for the extra face.

The sculpting on these heads is superb, and I think these portraits are among some of the best we’ve had tout of the Black Series. The facial features are crisp and well defined, the paint for Sant’s beard is sharp and even, and the printing on the younger portrait’s blue eyes is beautiful. There’s also some wonderful, and very subtle shading for the hair growth on his chin. The helmets look great and include silver brushing for weathering. This is better work than Hasbro has done on portraits for some of the main characters.

The trooper comes with two weapons: A DH-17 Blaster and what I believe was the A280C rifle. The DH-17 is an extremely detailed sculpt and cast all in black plastic. It fits perfectly in the right trigger hand, and while it can still be held easily in the left, there’s no trigger finger on that hand. Sadly, there’s no holster for the weapon, which may have been by design to remain screen accurate, but it’s still a shame, because I like my soldiers to be able to carry all their weapons and gear.

The A280C rifle is also a fantastic sculpt that’s just packed with detail, including a rather complex scope. The barrel is quite thin and probably susceptible to bending if not stored right. Nonetheless, both arrived in the tray as straight as an arrow. It’s a shame that Hasbro didn’t give this rifle a carry strap, as it would have at least allowed these guys to sling the rifles and carry their blasters. I mean, even the vintage Kenner figure’s rifle had a shoulder strap!

The Rebel Commando is an absolutely fantastic figure, but this is exactly the kind of figure we should be getting from Black Series at the regular $25 price point, and not as an inflated special releases. And the fact that he’s a troop builder makes the higher price tag all the more vexing. Between a lot of sub-par figures, the focus on the releases from the newer series, and my general malaise about Star Wars these days, I was compelled to send a message and take a pass. But, when Prime had him at $15, I was happy to get two for less than the price of one. At the time I’m writing this, he’s gone up to $20, but I think that’s still a pretty good price for the figure, and it’s even tempting me to pick up one more.

Mar 22 2024

Star Wars “Return of the Jedi” 40th Anniversary C-3PO Sixth-Scale Figure by Hot Toys

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.

Oct 9 2023

Star Wars Micro Galaxy Squadron Imperial Shuttle by Jazwares

I was kind of surprised when I looked back and saw that I hadn’t spotlighted any of Jazware’s Micro Galaxy Squadron vehicles here since the Millennium Falcon back in January. I was even more surprised to find that I’ve only actually reviewed four of these little buggers. I actually like this line quite a bit and I’ve been buying it when I find it, but I feel like a lot of them are getting past me because they’re exclusives or just tough to find. At this point in my life, hunting down toys isn’t an appealing aspect of collecting and I’ve got enough to spend money on without having to do that. Anyway, I hope to catch up on my backlog of these vehicles a bit in the months ahead, but I’m bumping today’s fairly new release to the head of the line, because it’s one of my favorite ships in the Star Wars Universe.

The shuttle comes in a window box with some snappy foil deco and while the box is collector friendly, the toy does indeed require some assembly. Both the top fin and the side wings have to be plugged in and it’s a one-time assembly deal meaning this is one of those toys that isn’t going back into the box once it’s put together. That’s a little disappointing to me as I like to display these in the boxes, but maybe this will be what makes me decide to just pitch all the MGS boxes and save me some space. The figures included are The Emperor and two of his Royal Guards, and I wonder if Jazwares will do a re-release of this ship with the Endor assault team as a store exclusive. I’d love to have Endor Han, Luke, Leia, 3PO and R2 in the cockpit and a bunch of Endor Commandos in the back. OK… Let’s take a quick look at the figure first!

I continue to be pretty impressed with how decent these have been for such tiny 1-inch figures, and that holds true here with The Emperor and his posse. I mean, they aren’t mindblowing, but they’re damn good for the size. They can bend at the hips to sit down and their arms swivel, making them arm chair friendly. The paint is basic, but certainly competent and the guards have their batons sculpted into their right hands. I would have liked to get a couple of pilots too, not only to occupy the seats, but also so I can find out once and for all what the Imperial Shuttle pilots looked like. As a kid, I used to alternate between having TIE Pilots and AT-AT Drivers fly my old Kenner shuttle.

The ship is designed for two display modes: Landed and Flight. When it’s landed the wings fold up and landing gear fold down. Actually, one of the landing gear is really the boarding ramp which drops down from under the cockpit to hold the nose up. Like the Micro Galaxy Falcon, there isn’t enough clearance there to get a figure in and out, so they made it double as a landing support, which is pretty clever. The two rear landing struts simply fold into the ship, while the ramp has a button that needs to be pressed to retract it.

I have to say the detail on this ship is absolutely fantastic, from the sculpted panel lines to the weathering, this is such a great looking toy and definitely one of the better representations of this ship that I’ve seen. The scale really works wonderfully, as it’s a decent sized toy and it allowed Jazwares to do a lot more with it than some of the smaller versions I’ve owned over the years. It’s also a lot easier to inspect the detail in hand than my big Hasbro version. I think the paint wash on this toy is near perfect. It’s just enough to give it a grungy well-used patina, but not too heavy handed.

There are two interior compartments to access, the cockpit hinges open similar to the old Kenner toy, while the back area compartment lifts off entirely. And holy crap, there is a lot of room for figures in this thing. The cockpit alone has room for six figures, and there’s a peg in there which might be intended for an Astromech Droid? I’m not sure. Each of the seats have arm rests that double as clips to hold the figures in place. There’s some excellent sculpted detail in here, although I wish they had left an open hatch leading to the back compartment.

And if you thought the cockpit was roomy, the rear compartment not only houses a throne for The Emperor, but eight additional seats. The throne is patterned after the one on Death Star II and there’s even a detailed engine compartment behind the chamber that is revealed when you remove the cover and another strip exposing the inner workings of the ship that’s painted as well sculpted

Getting the Shuttle ready for take off means folding up the landing struts and ramp and folding down the wings. The wings are geared and synched so that they will both fold down together at the same time just like the old Kenner toy. The only downside of this is that the gears are visible on the ship and really that’s the only thing I can complain about when it comes to the aesthetics. It also really doesn’t bother me, but my guess it will irk the hell out of some people.

The guns are all represented, including the aft cannon, which I remember becoming intimately familiar with when playing the old X-Wing PC game, as the Lambda Shuttles would love to take pot shots at you when you were trying to run them down. All of the gun barrels are a bit soft, so this is one to be careful with when storing it so they don’t get bent out of shape. The paint on the rear thrusters looks good, but I do kind of wish they had included electronics in this one to light these up and maybe provide some engine sounds.

And I couldn’t resist taking a shot of it parked next to my 3 3/4-inch scale Shuttle. It looks pretty damn good in comparison despite it’s much smaller size. Yeah, I still like the big boi better, but this little one is a lot easier to whoosh around the room.

This is an absolutely beautiful ship and it definitely has loads of shelf presence. The biggest strike against it for me is that there’s no flight stand in there, as it really could have used one. I’d always rather display this ship in flight than resting on a landing bay. I imagine some intrepid sellers on Etsy will make a few bucks selling stands for this ship and maybe I’ll hunt one down. At $29.99 I think this one is a pretty fair value. It feels at least as substantial as the Falcon and every bit as fun to play around with.

Nov 4 2020

Star Wars Black Series: Endor Luke and Leia by Hasbro

If you’ve been reading my Black Series reviews for a while, you may know that I’ve been back and forth on whether to keep collecting this line. Some of the figures are great, but a lot of them have felt somewhat flat and average. Well, based on the figures that have been showing up this week, I think Hasbro may be turning things around. That’s good news for the line, bad news for my wallet. Just as I was about to quit… they pull me back in! Let’s check out Luke and Leia in their Endor fatigues! Both of these figures were offered recently in a Pulse Exclusive boxed set, but I sat that one out and went for picking them up individually. These figures follow an Endor trend with Han Solo, Teebo, and Admiral Ackbar also released in similar packages.

And here’s the new packaging! Goodbye boring black and red boxes and hello new hotness! OK, so they’re still mostly black with monochrome character art, but the splash of color makes all the difference. Also, it looks like they abandoned the numbering on the package. The boxes adopt an angled side panel to showcase the new character art and if you put these two together, the art actually connects, which I have to admit is cool, even though I’m still not keeping the boxes. So let me shred these open and check out the figures. Ladies first!

Princess Leia comes out of the package wearing her camouflage poncho and looking fabulous! One of my ongoing gripes with the SWBS is how infrequently it makes use of softgoods, so it’s nice to see this figure get a cloth costume. Although it would have been embarrassing if they didn’t since even the original Kenner figure gave Leia a cloth poncho. The tailoring is absolutely superb and I really dig the cloth they used. It just looks and feels like quality. The front of the poncho is belted with a black plastic utility belt, which includes a working holster and a sculpted pouch, as well as a little silver paint on the buckle. The back of the poncho is left to hang free like a cape. It also has a hood, which is stitched in the down position. It looks like you could probably pull the stitch so she can wear it up, but I’m not going to mess with it.

The likeness here is excellent! Not perfect, but pretty on point. Boy, we’ve come a long way in a short time, since that first release of Leia from A New Hope! The sculptors have often not been kind to Carrie’s likeness, but this one is pretty damn solid. The printed facial features look great and they did a wonderful job on her hair. The removable helmet fits great and features a chin strap, which pegs into the side.

The belt pegs together behind the pouch, so it’s pretty easy to take the poncho off the figure without too much fuss. You can then re-attach the belt once the poncho is off. Under the cloth, Leia has a sculpted tunic with the sleeves rolled up and a lot of detail, including pockets on the sleeves and what I presume is a rank or ID badge on her chest. She’s got high boots and yellow stripes running up the sides of her blue-gray trousers. The included pistol features the rather distinctive long barrel, a design that The Princess seems to favor. Her right hand is sculpted with a trigger finger, but she can hold the gun in either hand.

Articulation holds a few surprises. The princess has rotating hinges in her shoulders, elbows, knees, and wrists. Ball joints in her hips, swivels in her thighs, and both hinges and lateral rockers in her ankles. There’s a ball joint in her waist, and most interesting is the two ball joints in her neck, one at the base and one at the top. I’d like to think the added neck articulation is there if you want her to mount a speeder bike, but I might be giving Hasbro too much credit there. Let’s move on to Luke!

Everything I said about Leia’s poncho remains true for Luke’s. The camo is a bit more brown and the green is a lot less vibrant than his sister’s, but the tailoring is still top notch and it fits well. It too is belted in the front and the back is left to hang like a cape, and the hood is stitched in the down position. The quality and texture of the fabric is the same as Leia’s and absolutely top notch. Once again, Hasbro did a fine job here.

The portrait here is not bad. Maybe not a home run, but pretty solid. It’s definitely a whole lot better than what we got with the last Return of the Jedi Luke. The helmet sculpt is almost identical to Leia’s, just a bit bigger and it has a little more weathering brushed on it. Once again, it has a chin strap that pegs into the side.

Luke’s sculpted black belt is simpler than Leia’s as it has no pouch or holster, but then Luke doesn’t come with a blaster anyway. He does come with his lightsaber, which is the standard hilt with translucent blade that pegs into it. The sculpt and paintwork on the hilt look great, but there’s no hook to hang it on the belt. , You can kind of thrust it up through the bottom of the belt and it stays put.

Remove the belt and you can take off the poncho to reveal Luke wearing his black Jedi outfit. It’s not as impressive as what’s under Leia’s softgoods, but it looks fine and is an easy favorite to replace that last Return of the Jedi Luke. Indeed, I may pick up a second one of these for that purpose. I’m also curious to see if the head will swap with that figure, but I haven’t dug it out to give it a go yet.

The figures fit great on the Black Series speeder bike. Hasbro even had the forethought to put the peg holes at the front of Leia’s feet to better work with the pegs on the bike’s foot pedals. I’m glad that I picked up a couple of these, but I think it’s well past time that they reissued the Scout Trooper/Speeder Bike pack. Yeah, I know we’re getting one from The Mandalorian, but I’d like a couple more of the Return of the Jedi versions now. Maybe I should have just bought that PulseCon set because it included one.

It’s nice to see Endor finally getting some love beyond the Scout Troopers and speeder bikes, and that goes double for how great these figures turned out. These are easily some of my favorite Black Series releases in a while. Or at least my favorites from The Original Trilogy. I’ll be checking out Endor Han and Teebo soon, and hopefully we’ll see some more Ewoks, because this Leia really needs a Wicket to go with her. And some Rebel Commandos? That would be nice.

Nov 7 2019

Star Wars Black: Deluxe Emperor Palpatine by Hasbro

The first time Hasbro released The Emperor as part of the 6-inch Black Series, I took a pass. I think I was on the outs with collecting Star Wars at the time. or maybe I had too many other things on my wish list that month, but for whatever reason I didn’t pick him up. It was a decision I learned to regret because he started going for a good amount of money on the second hand market, so when I finally decided I wanted him, I was shit out of luck. But to my surprise, this was a case where hesitancy ultimately paid off, and Hasbro released this new Palpatine figure with an extra pair of heads and his almighty throne. Truly, the Sith Lords had smiled upon me.

Submitted for your approval, the terrible mock up package used by Amazon as their official image. Mine arrived with the package smashed to smithereens, so I’m forced to use this one. You get the idea. The window box follows the usual deco for this series with a black box, red interior, and red right panel. You get some monochrome character art in the lower right hand corner, a multi-lingual blurb about the character on the back, and as usual everything is collector friendly. The only difference between this box and the regular releases is the size, as this one is thicker than normal to contain the throne piece. Also, this release is an Amazon Exclusive, so there’s no number on the right side panel.

And here’s Papa Palpy out of the box and overall I am very pleased with him. One of my unending gripes with the Black Series is Hasbro’s reluctance to use soft-goods when it’s called for. Hell, it took a do-over from The Mandalorian to give us a proper robe on a Jawa! Well, if there was ever a figure that needed soft-goods, Palpatine was it. The figure features sculpted robes covered with a black cloth skirt, and finally a hooded and sleeved robe on top of that. There’s a plastic sash around his waist and a plastic catch holding the robe together just under his neck. Does it look perfect? Nah, not really. But I am willing to grant some leeway because of how difficult it is to get tailored clothing to look right at this scale. Hell, even at the bigger one-sixth scale, it can be tough. But in this case, I think the robe falls about the figure quite naturally and the sleeves are tailored to give him the hanging wizard sleeve effect. I do find that it’s necessary to futz around with the cloth a bit to get it to look right, but that’s to be expected too.

The only area where the cloth gives me trouble is in the hood. The sides of the hood are supposed to fold out a bit on his shoulders, and the garment is tailored to make that happen, but they tend to hover a bit higher. Also, the fold on the left side tends to ride higher. It sometimes gives him a Sally Field Flying Nun look to him. That’s a reference to an old TV show, kids. It’s not a deal-breaker for me, and honestly, it may not be an issue on all figures. My guess is that a lot of these will have their own individual quirks, so your mileage may vary.

I’m not going to run down the articulation here, but it feels like the figure makes use of all the standard points. He is definitely a lot more agile than I need my Emperor figure to be. Seriously, in terms of posing him, he can do most anything, but all I need him to do is stand there looking haggard and menacing. Palpatine comes with his rustic black cane, which he can hold in his right hand, and his left hand is sculpted so as to be pointing. The cane feels a little short. I don’t remember The Emperor hunching over quite that much when walking. But I can live with it.

You get three different heads and all of them are spectacular sculpts. The figure comes out of the box with a neutral expression or, in The Emperor’s case, slightly dour. You also get a smiling face and an angry “Imma Gonna Force Zap You” face. All of these are excellent sculpts with some solid paint to back them up. Unfortunately, all the years of Robot Chicken have made it difficult for me to take The Emperor seriously. Especially when he’s pulling that smiling face.

Of course, the big draw of this set is the inclusion of his throne. It’s likely to get collectors to double-dip on the character, so how is it? Pretty damn good, actually. It’s solid and sturdy and features some great detail, particularly in the control panels on the arm rests. It’s a shame they couldn’t have included a cardboard backdrop showing the window behind him, but then I guess I’m asking for a lot.

The figure fits in the throne quite well. At first, I thought there wasn’t enough head clearance, but it looks like that was the case on the actual film prop. I think my only gripe here is that his feet don’t quite touch the floor when he’s sitting in it, and that looks a bit silly.

The last accessories in the box are a pair of Force lightening hands. I’m really glad, Hasbro went this route, rather than just give us blue energy tendrils to attach to his arms. It works very well and I think the effect looks great.

I pre-ordered this figure ages ago, and had completely forgotten that it was even coming. At close to $40, it was a bit of an indulgence, since I try to be finicky about how much I spend on my Black Series collecting these days. I’m at that point in collecting where space is running out and something’s got to give. Black Series is often close to hitting the chopping block, but then it releases a figure like this and I’m sold on it all over again. With that having been said, if some third-party out there wants to produce a display base for this set with the illustrated cardboard backdrop, I would probably pony up the cash for that.

Aug 29 2018

Star Wars Black: Gamorrean Guard by Hasbro

Indulge me folks, for a moment, as I preface today’s review with a heartfelt thanks to @Grip_86 on Twitter for hooking me up with today’s review. He’s a fellow Floridian, fellow toy collector, and an all around great guy! If you’re reading this, thanks again, man! Ok, on with the review…

Boy do I love the Gamorrean Guards, and boy do they not love me. When this fellow was released as part of the Vintage Collection, I went back to toy hunting for the first time in a while to try to find some. I never did. And I was never willing to pay the crazy prices that he was selling for online. In the end, I got shut out, and was forced to be content with the handful of Gamorreans from the Power of the Force 2 line and my old Kenner originals. And now when Hasbro finally gets around to releasing these Space Pigs in the 6-inch Black Series, it was the same thing all over again. Of course, I lucked out this time (see above) and I’m super excited to get this guy opened up and check him out!

The presentation here is the same thing we’ve been seeing all along: Black box, red interior, monochrome character art, although there’s no number on the side panel, because this release is a Target Exclusive. Of course, the box is also bigger to contain the corpulence of the figure. It’s also what I would consider a Deluxe release, because he comes with more stuff than your average Black Series figure, along with a heftier price tag of $30. All in all, the presentation here isn’t as snazzy as the Amazon Exclusive First Order Stormtrooper, but it’s nice enough to make me want to keep this figure in the box when I’m not playing with him.

And I have to say, out of the box this guy does not disappoint as it is a tremendous sculpt! As expected, he’s a figure with a big presence. Either Jabba feeds these fellas well or I’d imagine a lot of prisoners go missing. His leather tunic is sculpted with a patchwork of stitching as well as the circular embossed medallion on the front and the whole thing is painted with a sumptuous brown and black wash that makes it look like the finest of supple Bantha hide. The short sleeves are sculpted with ragged edges and covered with two pieces of silver armor on each shoulder, each sporting some ornate studs. The shoulder armor is matched by his silver arm bracers and down below he has sandals sculpted into his feet and legs.

When it came to the Gamorrean’s fuzzy diaper, Hasbro did the right thing and splurged for soft-goods. This was an absolute must as far as I’m concerned, as they did the same for the smaller Vintage Collection version. The brown fur looks and feels great and underneath it, the Guard has a sculpted and textured brown plastic diaper. I also really dig that the belt and shoulder strap are sculpted separately from the buck. Sure, it’s a little thing, but not having it sculpted onto the buck adds some nice additional depth to the costume.

The head sculpt is also well worthy of praise. Generally speaking, Hasbro has done a fine job with most of the aliens and creatures in this line, but even having said that, I think they went above and beyond here and the results are porcine perfection. They captured all the nuances in the shape of the face from the prominent brow and puffed out jowls to the pronounced piggy nose. I also dig that they lathered a load of glossy paint on his lips and nose to simulate space pig snot. The helmet is permanently attached to the head, but side flaps are soft plastic to make it look like it could be removed. Also, I never noticed what haunting blue eyes these Gamorreans have! And if all this wasn’t good enough…

GAHHHH! You get an articulated jaw! Oh boy is this great. The Gamorrean has a maw like a large mouthed bass and a beautifully sculpted tongue in there to boot. It’s perfect for putting him in a squealing pose for when Hasbro inevitably releases a two-foot tall Black Series Rancor.

I wasn’t expecting a whole lot of poseability on this figure, and it’s true that his girth does limit some of the range of motion, but all the points are there and he’s still surprisingly fun to play around with. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists, and you get a surprisingly tight bend on those elbows, all the way to 90-degrees. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double hinges in the knees, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. There’s a ball joint in the waist, and another in the neck.

As for accessories, the Gamorrean Guard comes with three different weapons. First off, you get the rather distinctive looking axe that came with the original Kenner figure. It has a handle sculpted to look like wood a nice pitted texture to the blade, along with some paint for weathering. This design is so iconic to me that it’s going to be my weapon of choice, providing I only end up with the one. If I get more, I’ll probably mix up the weapons for a little variety.

And just to show Hasbro isn’t playing favorites, they also included the axe that came with the Power of the Force 2 version. This weapon is more of a straight on hatchet. It doesn’t look anything like a space weapon, but I appreciate it for it’s simplicity.

And finally, he comes with this staff weapon, which I assume is some sort of vibro-axe. This is a nice sculpt, and it’s a design that I don’t recognize from any of my previous figures. I’m always a sucker for these staff weapons among Jabba’s crew so I’m really glad they threw this in the box.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that the Gamorrean Guard is quite possibly one of the best figures Hasbro has released in this entire line. Yeah, that sounds crazy because he’s such a bit character, seen only briefly in a few scenes at the beginning of Return of the Jedi. Nonetheless, it’s a design that gave the sculptors a lot to work with and they certainly rose to the challenge. The only shame here is that the figure is tough to find, at least for me, because I’d love to pick up at least one or two more of these guys. Hell, now that I know how great he is, I may even just plunk down a premium online to ensure I get one more. Having this figure in hand is also reminding me how badly I want Hasbro to start turning out more of Jabba’s denizens in the 6-inch Black Series. I need Skiff Guards and Bib Fortuna, and why not a Max Reebo band? Hasbro needs to start playing to their strengths with this line and clearly their strengths lie with the aliens and creatures.

Feb 20 2018

Star Wars Black: Imperial Royal Guard by Hasbro

Oh, Star Wars Black Series, why can’t I quit you? You are a line of figures I really want to walk away from, because you’re all over the place when it comes to sculpts and paint and actor likenesses. But whenever I try to leave you, I keep getting pulled back in by some figure that turned out pretty damn good. And even if I did quit today, I’d still have a good half-dozen or so figures waiting to be reviewed, so let’s get to it. Today I’m looking at a figure that I was really looking forward to, even if he really doesn’t have a place on my display shelf. The Emperor’s Royal Guard!

Or, apparently he goes by Imperial Royal Guard these days, at least according to the box. There was something about the magic of Star Wars that could capture our imaginations with just a cool costume design flashed on a couple of frames of film. Thanks to the old Kenner action figures, I could spend countless hours speculating on a background character, just because I had an action figure of him and needed to invent a backstory. Nowadays the crushing weight of the Expanded Universe canon spoon fed to us by the InterWebs does that for us, but back in the day it was all up to our imaginations. Case in point, these Royal Guards remain one of my favorite troop designs in the whole series. I find these guys to be intimidating and badass. But that’s all based on mystery spiced by my own whimsical extrapolations, because the Royal Guards were merely window dressing in Return of the Jedi. Or more accurately, elevator dressing? Either way, I’ve owned every version of these guys that Kenner or Hasbro have put out and I’ve loved all of them. Suffice it to say, I was eager to see how the Black Series version would turn out.

Softgoods! The Black Series hasn’t always taken advantage of this scale to incorporate softgoods, but I think it was a no-brainer for this figure. The Royal Guard’s majestic cloak is fashioned from a nice soft and brilliant red fabric that falls pretty naturally around the figure. It can bunch up at the shoulders a bit, but all in all I think it looks really good. The only sculpted plastic this guy is showing is his very distinctive helmet. The sculpt for the helmet matches all of the sexy and sinister curves I remember, but the paint used for the black visor could have been a little crisper. It doesn’t even fill out the entire area that’s supposed to be black. Come on, Hasbro. There is literally one paint application showing on this entire figure and it turned out a bit dodgy. Eh, the truth is it’s only really noticeable if you get in close, so let’s give him a pass. As for what’s under the cloak? My guess would be they cheaped out with just a blank buck, but let’s take a peek…

OH MY GOD!!! You’re just going to have to believe me on this one, folks. I haven’t read or watched any reviews of this guy, so taking him out of the box and lifting his robe is the first time I saw what was going on under there and I am in awe. Not only does he have a fully detailed and sculpted suit of armor under there, it is absolutely beautiful in both its design and execution. It’s not quite the Imperial Guard from the Shadow of the Empire, but it’s close enough for me to use as a stand in. Hell, we’re going to have to get rid of those robes and take a closer look at his business!

Removing the robes is as simple as popping off the head and popping it back on and I’m actually surprised that the figure looks as good as it does with the robes off and the regular head reattached. I will, however, throw it out there that Hasbro should have included the Shadows of the Empire Imperial Guard helmet as a swap out because that would have been amazing. But I digress. Getting the cloak off this guy is like I’m seeing him for the first time, and I really dig what I see. He’s wearing a sculpted dark maroon suit with bright crimson armor pieces sculpted onto it. Little touches include the painted buckles on the straps holding on his shin guards, pouches on his belt, and a holster for a pistol that I did not even realize these guys carried. I really am impressed and yet also supremely disappointed that we never got to see these guys cast off their robes and show off their fighting skills like the Praetorian Guards in The Last Jedi did.

The Royal Guard comes with two accessories, the blaster pistol and a force pike. The pistol looks identical to the one carried by the Biker Scouts, but I don’t have that one handy to do a comparison. Either way, the Guard’s left hand is sculpted to hold it pretty well, but I had no luck getting it into his right hand. The cross draw required for the holster on the right hip isn’t unheard of, but as we’ll see in a bit, the cloak makes wielding the pistol in that hand a little problematic. The force pike, on the other hand, is a new weapon and Hasbro put a lot of effort into the sculpt. I’ve only really seen this accessory before in the 3 3/4-inch scale, so it’s cool to see it fleshed out with some of the finer details.

The articulation includes rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs, double hinges in the knees, and hinges and rockers in the ankles. There’s a ball joint in the chest and the neck is ball jointed, but the helmet doesn’t offer a whole lot of range of motion. So my big question is, how well does the articulation and accessories work with the cloaked figure. Let’s put it back on and find out.

Most of the time, these guys tend to stand there with their force pike in hand and flank The Emperor. Let’s face it, how many times do you think some random Joe takes a pop at Papa Palpatine? Probably not often. So I tend to think of these guards as mostly for show. Anyway, thanks to a slit running down the right side of the robes, the right arm is accessible for him to hold the weapon in his most iconic of poses. I’m not sure why they went with the pointy index finger in his right hand, but maybe it was so you can get a bit of an angle on the way he’s holding the weapon.

Of course, if you want him to start busting out the action poses, it helps to roll the cloak back over his shoulders. I didn’t think this would work that well, but it’s actually not too bad. However, the left arm with the gun can still be a little awkward. If I can grab another one of these, I may try out slitting the robe up the left side as well to offer a little more easy access. I’d like to think that the Royal Guards just drop the cloaks when the occasion for combat presents itself.

I started out by saying this was a figure that has no real place on my display shelves, and that’s kind of true. I skipped the Black Series Emperor, because I honestly didn’t think it looked very good and now I’ve got an Emperor’s Guard with no Emperor for him to guard. It’s something that I can’t easily remedy because Palpy is now going for a shit ton of Republic Credits on the secondary market, and if I wasn’t going to buy him for $20, I sure as hell am not going to pay more. That having been said, this figure has both surprised and delighted me by all the work Hasbro did on the body under those robes. I expected him to look good standing there at attention with his force pike, but not much else. Who would have thought that a simple figure like this could have just possibly rekindled my love for this line.

Jul 28 2015

Star Wars Black: Princess Leia in Boushh Disguise by Hasbro

I’m working to get caught up on a lot of figures lying around here before new stuff starts piling up on top of it and I need to call in an archaeologist to dig my way out. And so, today I’m jumping back to the last wave of Hasbro’s 6-inch Black series. I started this wave a week or so ago with a look at Commander Cody, today we’ll check out the second Princess Leia figure in this series and it’s her in the Boushh disguise from Return of the Jedi.

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There’s the packaging and I’ve got nothing new to say about it, so let me take this time to ponder what the hell is going through Hasbro’s collective head with character selection these days. OK, maybe not character selection per say, but rather the versions they’re choosing for Princess Leia. She’s cropped up twice now in this series and both are from the beginning of Return of the Jedi. The fact that we haven’t seen a New Hope version of her yet is just criminal. Not only is that version of the character the most iconic to me, but I also think it’s some of her best moments in the saga: All on her own, fighting against Vader to safeguard the plans that she knows will put an end to the Empire. All I want is her white outfit, a couple of hair buns and that bitchin’ long barreled pistol, is that so wrong? Hot Toys gets it. That’s why that’s the first version their doing of Leia. And have you seen that figure? It’s gorgeous! What? Oh yeah, back to Hasbro’s Boushh Leia…

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By now you all should know my take on this line. I have a litmus test that begs the question, is this figure better served by being in the larger scale? I’ll come back to that in a bit, but let me start out by saying that I think this is a very solid figure. All the regular points that I touch upon in my features, like the sculpt and paint look fine. Indeed, there’s some lovely little touches like the gold paint on the cartridges on her shoulder strap, the Ubese lettering on her backpack and the softgoods half cape that hangs down her back, which both Ubese and Mandalorians seem to love so much. These are all solid efforts.

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I’m torn on the portrait. On the one hand, Leia sports a pretty face and some well sculpted hair. On the other hand, I don’t see any Carrie Fisher in there at all. The Slave Leia figure’s likeness wasn’t a hit either, but I think there was a bit more resemblance there than here. The paint is also rather off. The brown from her hair line splotches unevenly on her skin, the lipstick doesn’t really match her lips at all and the eyes, while not totally wonky, aren’t terribly precise either. None of this is a huge deal for me as I will likely keep the helmet on her all the time, just like I did with my Kenner figure when I was a kid.

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And the helmet is indeed a nice piece of work. Not only do you get a lot of great sculpted detail, which is not always the case on these softer plastic removable helmet pieces, but some really nice weathering paint. It fits on the figure very well too. It’s also perfect for that Breen custom I’ve always wanted to do.

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The articulation features a nice range of points, only slightly marred by the sculpted robes. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels in the thighs. The ankles have rotating hinges as well as lateral rockers. The rockers are nice, but with the restrictive plastic skirt, it’s tough to get a wide stance to use them. There’s a waist swivel hidden under her belt, a ball joint in the torso, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed.

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Boushh-Leia comes with four accessories. You get her removable helmet, a removable backpack, a thermal detonator and her staff-gun thingy. Seriously, what is this thing? If it’s a rifle how the hell does she hold it with no stock or trigger? Is it some kind of staff weapon cattle prod? I’ve been pondering this question since I was a kid. The detonator is a tiny ball of plastic that can peg onto her belt or be held in her hand. Yes, Vader couldn’t get a peg for his lightsaber hilt, but goddammit if we’re not going to let Boushh put her bomb on her belt! As tiny as the detonator is, Hasbro still managed to get some silver paint onto it.

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Scale continues to be an issue with this line. Just look at the difference between these two Leias. It’s even worse than the discrepancy we saw between regular Han and Hoth Han. This is a $20 collector line, why is it so hard to get the scale right on these figures from wave to wave?

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But, getting back to my original point, because here’s an instance where Hasbro has released this version of the character in both the 6-inch and 3 3/4-inch Black lines almost at the exact same time. I don’t own the smaller scale version, although I may pick it up for the purposes of comparison, but the pictures that I’ve seen tell me that the smaller scale version is every bit as good. Softgoods cape? Check. Removable helmet? Pleeeease… the original Kenner figure had that! Articulation? A few changes there, like the smaller figure appears to have rotating hinges in the knees as opposed to double hinges, but let’s just say comparable articulation.

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And so once again I ask myself, is the point of this line just to sell us up-scaled versions of these characters? Or is it to deliver us versions better than what we could get in the smaller scale? It’s increasingly obvious that the answer is the former. Now, you could argue that’s a credit to how good Hasbro has become at making the smaller scale figures, but I would argue it just devalues these 6-inch figures as a collector line. And yet here I am… still buying them. And maybe it’s not fair to unload all of this on this particular figure. It’s been the case all along and I’ll reiterate that I think this is a solid figure. Maybe It’s time to just accept that these are more or less up-scaled figures and not dwell on this stuff so much in the future.

Nov 25 2014

Star Wars Black: Luke Skywalker (Jedi Knight) by Hasbro

We all know that Luke Skywalker is an important character in the Star Wars Universe. Hell, he was certainly arguably the most important character until Lucas retconned Vader into that position. But it still feels like Hasbro is really over-pimping the hell out of Luke in the 6-inch Black line. The series of figures is still relatively young and yet here I am looking at the third version of the character and we’ve already seen pictures of the fourth (Hoth) Luke arriving soon in the next Deluxe Wave. I get it, Hasbro, but how about spacing out the Lukes and getting us a Lando? Or maybe a Princess Leia with her clothes on? The glut of Lukes is kind of getting out of hand, especially in the absense of so many other important characters, or even not so important characters that I’d still like to get figures of. Now, with all that having been said, I do have to admit that this version of “Jedi Luke” makes for a nice companion figure to the “Return of the Jedi” Vader that also shipped in this wave. Let’s take a look at Luke #3…

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The package is a little worse for wear because I left it on the floor and the cat tried to open it. Actually it turned out that he just wanted the box to play with and not the figure inside. Well, there’s no accounting for taste. Anyway, the window box is exactly what we’ve seen for the last couple of figures in the wave. It’s a black box with a black tray and a mostly black figure inside and it’s called Black… that’s a lot of black!

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So speaking of black, that’s really one of the few things worth mentioning about the figure. His Jedi Knight outfit is almost void of any notable detail apart from some sculpted wrinkles and seams. Seriously, this is one of the most nondescript figures I’ve seen in a while. To help things along, Hasbro included a removable piece for his tunic, which can be replaced with another piece that makes it look as if his flap is folded down.

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I call it the Captain Kirk “Wrath of Khan” look. All it’s missing is a bloody handprint. I guess the extra tunic part is a nice touch, but you know what would have also been a nice touch? A FREAKING SOFT GOODS JEDI ROBE!!! Even the god damn original Kenner 3 3/4” version of this figure came with that! Seriously, there’s no excuse for leaving it out this time. I’m beginning to think we may not even see one with the “A New Hope” Obi-Wan when he comes out.

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The head sculpt is OK, but it’s not great. It’s very gaunt and sickly looking, so maybe this is supposed to be Luke after he got the shit zapped out of him by Palpatine. The likeness is sort of there, they certainly got the chin dimple right, but it strikes me more as a caricature than anything else. It’s definitely my least favorite of all three Luke portraits in this line. In fact, I think the X-Wing Luke is the best, so I’d argue they’ve been getting progressively worse. Seems like it should be the other way around.

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Anyway, the only other thing worth mentioning about Luke’s outfit is it has a separate belt with a hook that you can hang the lightsaber hilt on. Hey, at least that’s better than Darth Vader got. In fact, all the Luke figures in this line so far have had ways to carry the hilts on their belts, so that’s cool. Naturally the blade can come out of the hilt and Luke’s articulation allows him to wield the saber in both hands.

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Speaking of articulation, Luke’s poseability is right in line with what we’ve been seeing all along. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels in the thighs. The ankles have hinges and lateral rockers. There is also a ball joint just above the waist and the neck has both a ball joint and a hinge. Luke is a pretty fun figure to pose and I’m happy to report no soft or mushy joints.

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So, how does Jedi Luke fare against my 6-inch Black Litmus Test? He fails, because there’s virtually nothing about this figure that couldn’t have or hasn’t been done better in the smaller 3 3/4” scale. The lack of a soft goods Jedi robe is frankly inexcusable, especially for a figure that required so little sculpting and paintwork. Plus, I don’t see why Luke’s head sculpts are getting worse and not better. Both Luke and Vader are both similar in that they are not bad figures, just decidedly average. They strike me as missed opportunities and fine examples of how this 6-inch Black series continues to be wildly inconsistent.

Nov 15 2014

Star Wars Black: Darth Vader (Return of the Jedi) by Hasbro

Alrighty, It’s Saturday and I’m running into overtime, but I promised to end this week with another Star Wars Black figure and so here we are to take a look at Darth Vader. Obviously, the Dark Lord of the Sith was on a lot of collectors’ 6-inch scale want lists and Hasbro didn’t take too long to deliver him. However, they did go the somewhat controversial route of giving us a Return of the Jedi version with a removable mask. Was it a good call or will I be crying for a do-over? Let’s find out together!

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There’s Vader in his box. As noted last time, Hasbro has done some tweaking to the SWB packaging, but it’s mostly just cosmetic. You still get a collector friendly window box that is happy standing on the shelf or hanging on the peg. To be honest, Vader doesn’t look all that impressive in his box, but I think that’s because he’s kind of all smooshed in there.

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With Lord Vader out of the box and properly fluffed, I’m digging him a little more. The first thing that strikes me about the figure is how well the soft goods are executed. I remember back when the line was first announced the use of soft goods was one of the selling points for me. How’s that been working out so far? Not so great. We didn’t even get proper Jedi cloaks with Obi-Wan or Anakin… just skirts. Vader here, features a cloth inner garment, which wraps around his torso, flows under his belt and forms a skirt plus a nice flowing cape. The cape secured around the neck with an actual chain and also secured to the shoulder armor. The soft goods are far from perfect, but it is pretty much the selling point for me with this figure. Maybe it’s just because I’m so desperate to see mixed media used in this line to some advantage.

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The sculpted detail on the rest of the figure’s body is fairly good. The suit has that great quilted leather texture and I dig the way the shoulder piece looks. Plus… oh, hell… I can’t do this anymore. How many Darth Vader figures have I owned over the years? I don’t even have a large Star Wars collection any longer and I’d still bet I have two dozen. The body sculpt here is passable, but is it better than some of the better 3 3/4” Vader’s. Not really. Regular readers should know my litmus test with the 6-inch Black line by now. Is the figure improved by the larger scale? Again, not really. The truth is there’s nothing here about the sculpt that really stands out as anything we haven’t seen before, but it’s certainly good work. Let’s move on to the portrait.

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So, when I heard Hasbro was going with a removable helmet, I expected a soft and squishy train wreck of a sculpt. We did not get that, but there’s still something seriously off about it and I can’t quite put my finger on it. Granted, I’m not a Vader helmet expert and I can’t tell you all the little differences between the costumes. The red eyes are certainly off putting, because whatever the truth is about the costume, they always looked black on screen to me. Overall, I was expecting worse, but that doesn’t make it particularly great either.

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Pop off the helmet and you get Anakin unmasked. Here again, I’m going to throw out a “meh.” It’s not bad, it’s not great, it just is. I think the sculpt on the face is actually pretty decent but it’s let down by the paint job. I’m particularly put off by the cartoony look of his eyes. What I do think is fairly impressive is the work they put into the little controls and doo-dads on the tray in front of his mouth.

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Generally speaking, I don’t require a lot of articulation out of my Vader figures, but this guy features some competent poseability. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists, but alas no bicep swivels. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs, double hinges in the knees, hinges in the ankles and we even get some lateral rockers in those ankles too! There’s a ball joint in the waist and a ball joint in the neck. On the downside, those hip joints are pretty loose and sometimes Vader can’t support his own weight when doing those wider stances.

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Vader comes with his lightsaber and the blade is detachable so you can go for a lit or unlit look. The problem? There’s no way to attach the hilt to his belt. Seriously, Hasbro? How hard is it to put a peg and a peg hole on the figure? This kind of oversight really pisses me off, especially when they’ve released three Luke figures and all of them have had a lightsaber hilt that could attach to the belt. Grrr…

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Armed with the knowledge that Hasbro went for the removable mask, I was expecting this figure to be pretty damn terrible. Now that it’s in hand, I wouldn’t call it terrible, but rather pretty average. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that going for the removable helmet on the first Vader in the line shows poor judgement on Hasbro’s part. Granted, I’m not sure if my issues with the helmet are caused by the fact that it’s removable or if this is the sculpt Hasbro would have went with otherwise, but either way it isn’t all it could have been and that really sums up the figure as a whole. It’s far from the worst figure we’ve got in the line, but a character as important as Vader deserved better than this. Still, it certainly won’t be the last Vader we get in this line, so better luck next time, Hasbro!