Hasbro
Released August 2004
Reviewed by Adam Pawlus
Photography by Michael Sullenger
Reviewed on September 1, 2004
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Hey kids, do you like disappointment? Luke Skywalker delivers! Sure, it's the most posable Farmboy Luke ever, and Hasbro tried to go the extra mile by adding cloth components to the figure, but dagnabbit, it just doesn't work.

This figure is packaged with a lightsaber, tunic, and belt.

Sculpt/Articulation/Gimmicks/Paint

While Luke looks excellent in the package, stellar even, as a toy he starts to fail.

OK, so for starters, he looks good. There's really no getting around it that just looking at him, he looks OK. The garment is a wee bit bulky, but that's acceptable, right? I mean, it's a small toy, and cloth can only get so thin. Heck, and apparently not only is he a Jedi-in-training, but he's ready to put on a show for the ladies, too. Ain't that right farmboy?



I had a really great joke here but I couldn't find out how to spell the word properly. So any wit that may have been here has been reduced significantly. The one thing you can see, though, is that Luke is super-posable. One thing you can't see is one of those joints on his torso is fake-- the top arch one works, the straight line beneath it is fused. This is most likely to hold the belt in place, and it does an ample job of this unless you try to make Luke sit down, in which case the belt will almost always pop open and Luke will flash you, removing your innocence in less time than it takes a microwave to heat up a dinner roll.

The head is new, and ball jointed too! Luke can look every which way and that's a good thing. The figure has a wide-eyed sense of awe that you just can't find everywhere these days, and while nobody will admit to this being a dead-ringer for Mark Hamill, it looks a little bit nicer than the head sculpt Hasbro used on most ANH Lukes since 1998. So, kudos to Hasbro for trying something new here, it's a step in the right direction.

He's posable, too. He has ankles, knees, hips, waist, elbows, forearm, shoulders, and neck articulation. Check out how mobile this guy is.

This mobility exposes the weakness in the design, unfortunately. The cloth just doesn't drape well, and the problem here is that it's really hard to get a good cloth part on a piece this small. Sometimes it's easier, like on Leia and Darth Vader from this series, but as you can see here it looks like Luke's clothing is for us, by us. For a comparison, here's the 1978 original. Thats the one on the left.

It's nice that the cloth was added to make the figure look a little more worthwhile, to give him added value and, in theory, interact better with playsets. Oh wait-- there's a problem here! Hasbro made the hole in the foot far too shallow to work with any figure stand we have, official or otherwise. So, out of the four ANH Vintage Original Trilogy Collection figures, only two can work with any sort of foot peg.

All in all, the figure was an interesting attempt at something new. This outfit has been tweaked and rereleased several times with varying degrees of awesomeness. This one is significantly less awesome than many were hoping, but he does look nice in the package.

Accessories

This set includes the lightsaber, the tunic, and the belt.

The lightsaber appears to be new, or at the very least, new-ish. The saber is sculpted with a non-removable blade and has the flare at the handle just like most of the weapons made since Eeth Koth in late 2001.

The belt and tunic were made of materials that appear to be the right colors, so much like many reviews of Ed Wood's plays, I can say the costume is very authentic. And think, most reviews don't even mention the costumes. The outfit looks good as long as you don't touch it, because the cloth is a little beefy and I think that you might be able to save it if you can sew. I can't, and I also have little to know idea how one would go about this. But maybe you can, and if you can, you can probably really help the figure.

My main beef with the figure's accessories is the fact that there isn't much here. I appreciate that Hasbro made the figure true to the 1978 vintage original, but if this truly is the ultimate Luke from this outfit, it would be nice to see another accessory that he maybe used in more than two scenes. Of course, when one sits down and looks through the movie, there really aren't many of those, so this is, in fact, the best choice. A gun would have been nice though.

Packaging

This should look familliar.

The front of the cardback is, basically, just the same as the 1978 cardbacks. I don't much feel like combing over the part numbers and such to check for differences, but it's certainly close enough to be acceptable.

The back of the card is somewhat lame, using similar graphics to those used on other OTC products. It would be nice to have a vintage-esque lineup of the new VOTC figures instead of just the four from that movie. It's OK, but nothing too special.

The clamshell is nice, and it's taped shut to avoid people... I guess buying it and returning a 1978 figure in its place. There's an embossed Star Wars logo on the back, and you could probably cram any old vintage figure in here if you open your VOTC figures and happen to have other real vintage figures in need of star case type storage. The case is too shallow for anything but vintage figures, or perhaps thinner, early POTF2 and POTJ figures.

I especially like the embossed Imperial and Rebel logos on the top of the clamshell. All in all, it's good packaging, but the regular OTC style impressed me a little bit more.

Availability

As of today, this figure is just becoming available in the USA, but isn't exactly common since he was a late addition to the assortments. So, keep your eyes peeled.

Fin

Looking to save money? Let me save you $10. Pass on Luke. Other Vintage figures, like Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Darth Vader are really something special that you'll no doubt embrace when you find them. Luke looks great in the package, but there's enough annoying things about him that will make you scratch your head if you buy one. So unless you really want like a shirtless Luke or some such, odds are you won't need to open one of these.

Our sample was obtained from some guy in August 2004.