Hasbro
Released August 2004
Reviewed by Adam Pawlus
Photography by Michael Sullenger
Reviewed on September 3, 2004
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Sometimes Hasbro totally nails a figure to the point where you might wonder if they could possibly improve upon it. Hasbro made one of the finest Yoda figures ever as part of the initial Original Trilogy Collection, but this Yoda from the vintage line seems a bit off once again, although it's not as bad as it could be.

This figure is packaged with a snake, cane, flute, and removable robe.

Sculpt/Articulation/Gimmicks/Paint

What happens when you take a good sculpt with a nice cloth skirt, good accessories, and a nice paint job and give it a rotten soft goods robe? Bad things happen, that's what.

One of the failures of this figure was the success of the previous Yoda. Hasbro made, for $5, a Yoda with a stand, good articulation, good accessories, and a fantastic paint job. Now, for $10, we're given a figure with slightly better articulation (a plus) and a big beefy FUBU coat. That's a minus. The head sculpt is a little bit fatter than before, but it seems to have this tiny wry little smirk-- that's a heck of a nice touch.



The paint on the whole is actually pretty good. The head is green where it should be, the eyes are cleanly painted, and the heair is very well done. It's nice to see that while Hasbro held to the 1980 Yoda's accessories, they opted to drop the silly grin in favor of a more thoughtful but still amused expression.

The downside of putting the old and new versions side by side is you can see that in 1980, Kenner could make the coat cut properly so that the figure didn't have an abundance of material bunching up in places making the figure look a little bulky. I guess this clothes-making technology has been lost to the ages, but at least we've improved upon the ancient art of toy sculpting quite a bit.

His articulation isn't restricted and he has joints at the neck, waist, wrists, hips, shoulders, and elbows. As such, he's better than the vintage 1980 figure and barely better than the 2004 OTC version-- still, he does have more joints and that's a plus. But what's under the cloth?

His legs are thin and he has three toes, not five like some AOTC figures have. (Seriously-- go ahead and check them, I can wait.) Apparently he's quite wiry in his old age and the soft goods covering his legs are actually quite well done for such a small figure, so kudos to Hasbro for a great job there. It's just that big beefy coat that hurts the appearance of one so small.

Accessories

This set includes the cane, coat, snake, and flute.

The cane is good. Similar to the OTC Version but still excellent and as the kids may say, cane-tastic.

The snake was a complete departure from the 1980 version. Instead of an orange or brown reptile that hangs around Yoda's neck, this little guy is coiled up and sits on the ground at his feet. Which, honestly, makes a heck of a lot more sense as many snakes slithered around Dagobah but Yoda didn't get cozy with any of them on-camera. It's an improvement over the original and the very first snake to be packaged with Yoda since that original figure, so kudos to Hasbro on a nice bonus touch here.

The flute hangs around his neck and is the very first flute to be created for the small Yoda. Astute fans will remember a fan being packaged with the 12" scale Yoda from Saga a few waves ago, assuming you were one of the 12 people that found one. He can't really play it, but that's OK-- all you need it to do is hang and hang it does.

Hasbro will have to settle for three out of four, because Yoda's super-beefy coat is all kinds of disappointing in every area except for texture and color. It's too bulky, he can't look good while posed, and it bunches up in the shoulder/armpit region and as such it just looks bad. It also seems too long, but as it is most difficult to engineer a decent cloth accessory for a small figure, Hasbro had few options. One of which was, of course, picking someone else from the flick that might be more suited to this line, especially given that we just got the first ESB Yoda since 1999 just a couple of months ago, and this one isn't what we in the biz call an upgrade.

Packaging

This should look familliar.

The front of the cardback is, basically, just the same as the 1980 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 is a new guy.

Fin

Again, the question here is one of value combined with a quality product. If Hasbro were to make The Perfect Yoda for $15, I'd have no problem telling you how wonderful it is and that even though you have six Yoda figures from four Star Wars films, that it's worth it. This figure is not a $10 value as a toy. As a display piece, something to leave in the package, it's great. This figure looks fantastic until you open the package.

Due to the figure's diminutive size and questionable costume, this is one you'll need to think about. It's not a terrible figure and $10 isn't exactly a ton of money, but if you want just one Yoda figure, the OTC one for $5 will be the way to go. Even if both figures cost the same amount of money, the Dagobah one is, overall, more exciting. As a collectible or keepsake, though, this one rocks.

Our sample was obtained from some guy in August 2004.