Revenge of the Sith prototypes have surfaced online, and Galactic reader Dockingbay was gracious enough to send a batch of pix our way. These are all characters we've seen in Attack of the Clones, so hopefully very little spoilage exists in showing these. If you are spoiler sensitive, hide your eyes.

Everyone's favorite "secretly" evil geezer, Chancellor Palpatine sports a whopping 18 points of articulation, which may do little good under his plastic robe, but that remains to be seen.

His likeness is spot-on, and Hasbro has obviously delivered on their promise of more articulation and improved likeness. Comparing this figure to The Phanton Menace's Senator Palpatine figure is very much like comparing a vintage Star Wars figure to its modern version.

Attack of the Clones super villain, Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus is truly ready for the battle of his life with roughly 16 articulation points, and another dead-on likeness. (Did we say "dead"? No, that's not a spoiler.) Dooku's alter ego, Christopher Lee, never even looked this realistic in that other line's larger scale. We think Hasbro employs little sculptors, no bigger than a Smurf, to get likenesses that are this lifelike.

Finally, Princess Leia's adoptive father, Bail Organa, gets his second figure and four-star treatment with his heroic sculpt and detailed likeness.

This light smattering of figure prototypes is a tempting appetizer, and we're pleased to see that Hasbro is working so attentively on our favorite line of action figures.

Fans may want to start lining up NOW to buy these must-have toys for 2005.

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