By: Jesse (Jesse James) McCracken
Dateline: Summer-ish time 2003: Hasbro
unveils its latest and absolute worst Luke Skywalker figure of all time, the
infamous Throne Room Duel Jedi Luke. To-date, this figure ranks as one of the
most horrifically posed, sculpted, action feature-laden figures of the modern
Saga line and that’s not a title any figure should aspire to. Die-hard
collectors around the world let out a moan of contempt for the figure almost
immediately upon its first images.
But there is another…
Hasbro, in an unprecedented maneuver,
makes an announcement almost immediately that another Jedi Luke figure, which
shall be known as “the apology Luke”, is already in the works. It is at this
time that Hasbro unveils their figure design sketches that show a much more
neutrally posed Luke that has decent articulation, and a nice accessory count.
Oh yeah, and he’s not got a horrible screaming face sculpt either, and no
horrible action feature that couldn’t work even if a rocket scientist designed
the thing.
All peaches and cream right? We should
rejoice in such utter perfection, should we not? Well, yes and no. Hasbro’s not
perfect, and nobody ever claims them to be, but they often times can make
improvements here and there that we as discerning fans can readily point out,
but for some odd reason Hasbro often omits these improvements in the final
figure.
Read on and ye shall see of what I speak.
PROS
Sculpt: Easily
this figure’s shining point is his sculpt. I would say this is the finest head
sculpt of any of the classic trilogy actors that I’ve ever seen. It is, without
a doubt, Mark Hammil that they sculpted here. Hasbro sculptors should give
themselves a pat on the back because they really outdid themselves here in
creating an impressive looking figure.
Not only does the head sculpt shine, but so does the rest of the figure. The
body has the now standard texture sculpted into it that brings the body of the
figure to a much higher standard than figures in the previous lines like POTF2
had. The figure’s vest is rough and looks just like the actual costume in the
film, whereas the black uniform underneath is much more smooth, and the
jackboots are smoother yet and look flawless. For a figure that didn’t have much
color to him, he sure has a lot of contrast just in sculpt detail.
Like I said, the Hasbro sculptor(s) who worked on this should be proud of
themselves. Top to bottom this figure stands out against any figure in the
modern line as being one of the most accurate representations of a character
from the film.
Accessories: One
cannot argue that this figure is sporting some nice and logical accessories,
though one may argue that the execution of ONE accessory wasn’t done
correctly. With that one accessory I agree, yet I disagree. I’ll explain more on
that later.
Luke comes with some dandy pieces
though, including a lightsaber (single-piece, and no base flare either, which is
odd), a Jabba’s palace blaster pistol (the first time this gun’s been sculpted
accurately since the vintage line), a black soft-goods (cloth) cloak, and a
simple “Star Wars” stand that’s got the tabs to interlock with other stands.
Not a bad tally really, but 2 things stuck out that were kind of disappointing.
First was the cloth cloak being a bit
bulky. The way Hasbro chose to sew this item makes it fall prey to the
shortcoming of cloth accessories on Star Wars figures, in that it doesn’t want
to sit in a realistic fashion on a figure this small. I can get my cloak to a
point I like how it looks to me personally though. That’s fine enough for me,
but a limper fabric and a different style of sewing might have helped improve
the cloak’s look overall. I’m going to say now that I like the cloth cloak
though. For the other carded Jedi Luke, he had a plastic cloak, so I say give
the cloth fans a chance to have a cloak they can enjoy as well. It’s only
fair folks. Plus, if you don’t like the cloth, you probably have the POTF2 Luke
to swap his plastic robe with too.
Second, is the lack of quality to the
lightsaber overall. I’m disappointed that the hilt/blade isn’t detachable as
well, but what’s more disappointing is that the blade doesn’t have the “flare”
at the bottom which I’ve grown accustomed to, and rather like. I’m also
disappointed that of the two Jedi Luke figures that I bought at a local Toys R
Us store, neither one has a good paintjob on the hilt, and silver paint even ran
up on the blades of both sabers.
Some cons mixed in the pros there, but
neither one’s a major flaw to me. I could take the time to point out that the
generic stands Hasbro packs in won’t interlock like they’re supposed to either,
but it’s just a stand so I can just pass that over too.
Articulation: Hasbro
at the very least made an effort to have a very nicely articulated figure. Sadly
though, the articulation falls short of what it could have been, and I’ll
discuss that in the CONS portion of the review in more detail. For now though,
I’ve gotta label this kind of articulation effort as a pro. It’s a deserved
praise because this Luke is able to pull off a couple decent poses, just not as
many poses as he SHOULD be able to pull off unfortunately.
Luke’s articulation is ample (on paper
at least), and is as follows:
-2 standard shoulder joints
-2 cut elbows (at a fairly sharp angle, which turns into a negative effect)
-2 wrist joints
-2 hip joints
-2 hinged knee joints
-2 swivel boot-top joints
-1 swivel neck joint
-1 standard waist joint
That’s a whopping 14 points of
articulation, which is a pretty large number of articulation points for a Star
Wars figure. Perhaps fairly common on figures in other toy lines, but it’s not
shabby for Hasbro who’s pretty much behind the times in articulation standards
in their Star Wars line. Hasbro, if you’re reading this, please make better use
of your unique ability with added articulation in the future, especially
ball/socket joints. They’re worth the extra effort to make a figure truly
special. Luke could’ve definitely benefited from ball/socket joints.
So anyway, as you can see, Jedi Luke isn’t hurting for articulation there at
all. Unfortunately though, there are some secondary reasons to the articulation
style Hasbro chose, or a feature on the figure itself, that make some of Luke’s
articulation less than ideal. Like I said, the articulation looks great on
paper, but read on to the CONS section to see how some of the articulation
didn’t turn out as nice as it should have.
CONS
Articulation Issues: OK,
I wanted to get this one out of the way first, as to me this is the key problem
Luke has that makes him go from being a GREAT figure to just simply being a nice
figure that could have been improved in some ways.
The elbow articulation Hasbro chose to
use is my first gripe. This is, unfortunately, a new trend I see in some of the
latest figures from Hasbro, including the Captain Antilles figure as well as the
Rebel Fleet Trooper’s rather unorthodox knee articulation. This articulation
style was actually borrowed from 21st Century Toys who pioneered it
with their X-Treme Detail military figure line’s first series of Infantry
figures. The articulation is based on the idea that the sharp angle will
minimize the aesthetic compromise the toy makes by having articulation, and it
will still allow two good poses (arms straight, and arms bent) that look good.
The problem here is that the articulation limits the range of cool poses that
the arms are capable of achieving. My solution to this problem would’ve been to
incorporate Hasbro’s ingenious use of ball/socket joints into the elbows of this
Luke figure. The range of motion wouldn’t be hindered at all, and the aesthetics
of the ball/socket joint generally look pretty good as well. It is unfortunate
that Hasbro chose not to give this figure that great range of motion though,
because Luke certainly was an action packed character when he wore this
particular outfit. The greater range of the articulation points would’ve then
allowed for a more fun toy in my opinion.
The second area of articulation that
Luke falls short in, is his lack of useable leg articulation because of the way
that Hasbro made his skirt piece hanging over the legs. This is a problem with
many figures, and a fix can be had if Hasbro were to use an EXTREMELY pliable
plastic for the skirt piece. Or better yet, I would suggest cloth where
possible, as I feel it blends well with the figure when done right, and it works
especially well on the Jedi figures, which often have a flap of cloth that hangs
down from their robes over their laps and backsides.
So Luke’s legs are pretty non-useable
right now because of this issue, and his arms aren’t as poseable as they
could’ve been, so while Luke’s sporting these 14 points of articulation, he’s
not the super poseable figure he should be. This is a bit disappointing, even
with the great features of the figure, and I think they’re items worth bringing
up so that Hasbro perhaps improves in the future, because we know they CAN
improve in these areas.
If Hasbro had chosen to make these improvements, this would be a figure that I
think could see re-release throughout the life of the line without the need of a
new sculpt.
Accessory Flaws:
Like I previously mentioned in the Pros, Luke comes with a nice array of
accessories, but there are flaws. I have to acknowledge that even though I like
soft-goods cloaks and things of that nature, the cloak accessory that came with
Luke is not what it could have been.
The lightsaber’s lack of good detail and paint errors make it a somewhat
disappointing accessory as well. I plan to give the one redeeming feature of the
Throne Room Duel Luke (his saber) to my Jedi Luke for display purposes. I love
those metal hilts better anyway.
J
Luke’s Hand Sculpts: A
lot of GOOD points have been made regarding the way in which Hasbro chose to
sculpt Luke’s hands. Particularly, his right hand, which is not in the typical
style where the hand’s in a loose fist to hold accessories.
Hasbro’s reason for sculpting the hand
this way is because it can look like Luke’s holding his hand out when talking,
or covering his left hand with his right in a look of calm, Jedi-like
tranquility. That’s cool, in a way, but there’s a problem. Luke’s right hand is
useless for holding accessories now. He can’t hold a single thing with that
right hand, and that’s disappointing since Luke is right handed (by the film’s
evidence) and it makes a double-handed saber position a bit difficult as well.
So the point’s noted about the way the
hand is sculpted, and it’s definitely a drawback to someone wanting to play with
their figure.
Paint Application: This is
probably one of the worst points of the Jedi Luke figure, and there’s good
reason for it. I had a HELL of a time finding a good paintjob out of half a
dozen Jedi Luke figures on the pegs. That’s a bad sign.
First, the paint wash on Luke’s hair is nice if it’s on the hair, but terrible
when it’s on the face and EVERY Luke at the store had paint wash on his face. I
chose the lesser 2 of all of the evils. Fortunately I was able to clean the
best Luke’s face up some with a material called goof-off, and some disposable
fine hobby Q-tip type tools. It cleaned up well enough, but none of us should
HAVE to do this to have a Luke that didn’t look like he was a filthy mess.
Of the six Luke figures there, I noticed that four of them had terrible eye
paint aps, with the application being off-center, or missing a pupil… Simply
atrocious paintjobs all around and it was tough to find two that were decent out
of them - decent enough that I could at least fix.
The final issue of paint is the
robes. Luke’s outer terrycloth looking robes were a noticeably lighter shade of
black than his uniform that he wore underneath in the film. The figure’s robes
then were painted to highlight the difference, but Hasbro’s paint applications
again seemed to bleed onto some of the uniform underneath and just sometimes
looked bad. The best Luke that I found even had a blotch of purple, which isn’t
even a color this figure has used on him anywhere, on the left edge of his
skirt-piece.
Overall I was probably irritated almost as much about the paint as I was that my
figure isn’t all that poseable for having 14 points of articulation. The paint
is usually something Hasbro does at least a passable job on, but on this figure
they really just dropped the ball.
Another key to look for is make sure you get a Luke with a GOOD hair paintjob,
because some of the Lukes I saw were missing spots with the paint wash in their
paint application. This made for TERRIBLE looking paintjobs on some of the Luke
figure’s hair, and it would be tough to tell because of the way the figure’s
packaged with his hood covering most of his head.
My advice overall, be discriminating if you have the ability. CAREFULLY look
these figures over so you’re not disappointed. You may not even be able to see
some of the flaws, so you may be disappointed either way, but you can at least
try your best to get one with a good face anyway.
OVERALL
Well, what can I say? This figure is a
series of peaks and troughs.
I like my Luke, and I give him a passing grade personally. He’s as nice a Luke
figure as has been on the market. Far superior to the Bespin Luke, who is too
scene-specific in pose and sculpt, and articulated enough for some cool looking
poses. He’s just not articulated like he should’ve been, and thus not quite as
poseable as I’d have liked. That kind of sucks, to put it quite simply.
I recommend getting Luke, but I
recommend you be careful of the quality of the Luke you get. I noticed gaps at
joints, bad paint applications, bad accessories… Lots of pitfalls for the
consumer, so keep your eyes peeled for a superior one on the racks. Don’t just
grab the first one you see (unless it’s the only one you see and you can’t risk
not finding it again).
This figure was actually difficult for me to find, and I just recently got it
even after finding later released figures before it. I’m happy to have this
Luke in my collection, and a second to perhaps customize, so I can definitely
say pick this one up though if you can get a good one, and enjoy him for what he
is.
Customizers can have him be far superior to Hasbro’s final product, but I think
the general collector will be happy enough with the figure as well, so I’m
thumbs up on this one.
Enjoy folks!
JJ
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