By: Jesse (Jesse James) McCracken
I come before you today with a review so scary… A review so wrought with
terror… Reviews SO horrid that you will scream like a little girl!
OK, this figure is bad, but he isn’t really THAT bad… I mean, he’s
not the end of the world, because at least we have R2 with Holo Leia, right? He’s
just a bad lil toy in the here and now. He’s not "up to snuff" as
they say.
Still, I did squeak once a little when I was going over him for the review…
This R2-D2 Droid Factory Flight is just a nasty, cheap, ugly little figure. And
no, unlike Ephant Mon he wasn’t INTENDED to be this way.
This R2 is probably one of the all time weakest figures I’ve ever seen from
Hasbro. That’s no small feat when you consider he’s being ranked up with
such memorable figures as…
Princess Leia (1995, "Monkeyface" Leia)
The 1st Rebel Fleet Trooper (And you think I trash the NEW
one!?)
Lobot and his funk-a-delic pose
And most of the April 23rd figures from last year… but I
digress.
I’ve heard people refer to him as a "Happy Meal Toy", and
honestly I can’t disagree with that too much. Put your $5 figure allowance
back in your wallet and walk away slowly (And if you are one of the
designers/sculptors of this figure and are reading this review, grab a Kleenex
and try not to take this personally).
Basically, we’re in for a doozey of a letdown on this one, folks, so on
with the berating!
Pros (this will be short)
Accessories:
The only accessories you get with R2 are his blast
effects, which attach to his boosters. The effects are clear blue and snap on
easily enough. They’re new, and seem accurate so no complaints from me there.
I’m always a fan of the blast effects personally. Hasbro can do these up
really nice sometimes (Pit of Carkoon Fett’s blast effects rock!)
If I had a gripe about accessories with this figure, I’d say this figure didn’t
come with much, and he doesn’t. What would you include though really? The
Deluxe 3PO’s head is my only suggestion as an "extra", but it would
hamper the interactive playability Hasbro was shooting for (You buy the Deluxe
3PO set too and make the toys interact) so I say it’s as much a
"Pro" as this figure is going to get.
I’ll toss this loser figure a bone I guess.
Action Feature(s):
"What!?" you say? You cannot believe
that I’m actually nominating the action feature as a plus? Well, believe it or
not I am… Only because it works as it was intended. It’s not exactly
interesting really, but it does work.
Here’s the gist of the thing. R2’s got a rope that runs through his body
on some mechanism. At one end he has his tow magnet he used to pull the Deluxe
3po’s head along the arena floor, and on the other end it’s tied to his
sensor scope which fits into R2’s dome.
When you have the tow magnet, and sensorscope open on the figure, you can
pull holding both ends of the rope, and R2 goes up and down on the rope.
Um, yay… I guess.
Not interesting really, like I said, but it does have a 2nd
"concept" to it where the rope also can tow the Deluxe C-3PO’s
noggin’ along the arena floor… Kind of neat that Hasbro was at least
thinking this figure could pull double duty.
As such, I’m gonna label the action feature as being better than what some are
that I’ve seen, and it works so it’s going to go in the "Pro"
column for me.
Hey, this figure doesn’t have much "Pro" about it so I had to try
and balance this out somewhat.
Let me say, the fun stops right around here though.
Cons (See, I told you that would be short)
Sculpt:
Well let’s start off with a
general synopsis of this little bugger’s sculpt
The body’s not the best work by Hasbro on an astromech droid (Not as crisp as
say R2-Q5 which I hold as the pinnacle of astromech sculpting), and the head is
down right laughable. And R2’s domed noggin’ is just hideous to look at. In
all fairness though, the deco doesn’t help this sculpt at all either. Read on
for that "con" though.
The sculpt is new, but it’s definitely a downgrade from past astromech
sculpts. Personally, I would not have minded a "flying R2" had Hasbro
just gone with something simple… Reworking R2-Q5’s sculpt to have removable
(Or even hidden) thrusters would have been neat. Hasbro went a different
direction though, and hit a dead-end if you ask me. Hell, I’ll be honest here
and say that if they had reworked the Episode One R2 somehow, I would’ve been
a little more impressed since it at least looked a tad better.
R2’s dome here is easily his main downfall in sculpt though. That thing
really is just sad when compared to the crisp lines and details of the more
recent figures. It seriously resembles something you’d get from a Happy Meal
toy; it is that plain and simply atrocious looking. This is easily the WORST
sculpted R2 dome, and the deco doesn’t help it at all, like I said. Some areas
where a recessed line would show some effort aren’t even touched upon by the
sculptor, and then other areas where a raised or recessed line was sculpted are
done so in what seems like some excess. This sculpt just doesn’t seem as
"crisp" and real looking as say the lines on R2 w/Holographic Leia
(Arguably the best R2-D2 figure ever). The Holo Leia R2 didn’t even have the
recessed head panels, yet the decoration was still straight, accurate, and other
lines and details sculpted on the dome really were done well.
Dare I say R5-D4’s figure was superior in sculpt? Yes, I dare! How’s that
for a cheap shot!
Deco:
Again, this figure is just NOT an impressive thing to look
at in sculpt, nor decoration. And like I said above, a bad deco doesn’t help a
poorer sculpt in the slightest. Decoration is an area Hasbro can sometimes make
up for a weaker/inaccurate sculpt (Compare the 3-pack Dr. Evazan to prototype
images of the Wal-Mart Exclusive Cantina Dr. Evazan… A simple paint job made
that Evazan sculpt look 100% different and better).
My R2 I got has a few "attempts" at detail with various paint
colors on the dome, but they come off having that "happy meal toy"
look that I mentioned earlier. The panels on the dome are the worst though, as
they are uneven, and just simply do not give the R2-D2 the "depth" to
the dome’s sculpt that one has come accustomed to in figure’s like R2-Q5 or
R3-T7. Even R2 w/Holo Leia’s painted on panels looked better and more
realistic, as the paint used appears more to match the film on that figure, not
to mention they’re all even and perfectly placed.
A major flaw I noticed in the deco is that R2’s "eye" is the same
silver of the dome, and not the proper black color of the films. This is a
noticeable flaw I found, which really just reinforced the "cheap" look
to this toy. There’s something unprofessional about it that makes it just not
hold up, and that’s what’s so disturbing on this figure. Hasbro’s set
benchmarks that this figure didn’t come CLOSE to achieving.
The rest of R2’s body has some silver and blue details, but they’re hardly
anything to give this figure a thumb’s up for. It’s really very plain, and
in some cases, simply unattractive/inaccurate. There were attempts at mixing in
various unique colors though, so that’s something good to note I guess. A
violet shade here and there can be seen, which did show some kind of effort was
made. It isn’t enough to make up for the obvious flaws though.
Action Feature(s):
I know, I know, I know… I listed this as a
pro, but I’m notorious for listing it as both sometimes, and it’s my column
so I can do what I want. So there!
The reason I listed it as a "pro" was because the intended features DO
work. The thrusters retract when you pull the 3rd leg down, and they
aren’t really noticeable either. The rope mechanism does pull R2 up and down
too, so that feature works as well. The rope also can be used as a
"tow" for pulling 3PO’s noggin’ along the floor.
The reason I listed the action features as a "con", though, is that
the features take away from the figure in other areas. The rope runs through the
3rd leg making the leg pretty useless, and the retractable thrusters
cause the outer 2 legs to be immobile. These things detract from the figure
enough to make it just overall weaker toy in my opinion, and as such I gotta
list them down here in the big, fat, negatory column.
Basically, these features cause some of the following problems this figure
suffers from in the articulation department.
Articulation:
Can’t rave about what isn’t there, and that’s
a problem with this R2.
The legs are molded to the side of the body, which renders them completely
immobile. This is due to a feature where you pull the 3rd leg down
(And it only moves SLIGHTLY) and it pulls the 2 thrusters into the figure’s
legs. Personally, give me removable thrusters and posable legs. That would’ve
made me happy, but I guess this "neat" idea of hidden thrusters would
be lost then. I can see where Hasbro was a bit "stuck" at how to make
this feature work and retain articulation though, so on one hand I can see where
they made their decision. On the other hand, I just don’t like what they did
so I can’t give it any sort of praise really.
The dome on R2 is poseable, and even moves a full 360 degrees. That’s pretty
impressive considering the rope piece of the action feature actually goes
through the body and dome completely. That’s a good side to the figure’s
articulation I guess.
The only other area of articulation is then the 2 feet on the outer legs,
which are poseable, but really there’s no reason for them to be other than
maybe the "bent toe" flight pose that R2 pulled off when he flew
around the droid factory. It’s nice to see the thought was there, though I
still feel this figure is grossly under-articulated. And they do bend for the
flight pose, which is this figure’s "gimmick".
With all the poesability of recent astromechs though, I really am
disappointed with this R2’s. The lack of articulation makes him not even very
great for customizing. That is something that I believe keeps astro droids
flying off the shelves for retail personally.
Overall
Well folks, that review was a rough one, let me tell you. I’ll be honest, I
wouldn’t have even bought this R2 if it wasn’t new, and my new duties here
at JediDefender.com didn’t require me to have something new to review.
Under any other circumstance, I’d have left this one on the pegs, as I’ve
now seen it 3 times, and it may be a peg warmer someday. Then again it’s in
these new "in limbo" cases, so who knows. I’d have otherwise left
this guy on the pegs to get him during a clearance sale or something though.
I can’t say he’s bad for little kids maybe, as his feature does work, but it’s
really rather dull to any adult. Like I said, the lack of a poseable figure
really makes this one even kind of lame for customizers. I remember the flying
R2 from Episode One’s line not exactly flying anywhere either, and I really
believe that it’s because a gimmicky astromech doesn’t lend itself to good
customizing. Shelf-warmer it then may be.
This R2-D2’s biggest flaws really are the lacking paint applications, and
the weak sculpting job from Hasbro. Sculpt is an area Hasbro generally excels
at, and they just did not show the same effort in this toy that they have in
others. With paint, it’s 50/50 if you’re going to get a decent figure or not
anymore. This case went with the lesser 50 I guess.
I can’t even say if much of anything would’ve saved this R2 though,
really. It would just have to be a completely different toy to get my seal of
approval.
My final verdict on R2-D2 (Droid Factory Flight) is thumbs down, on
pretty much every level. I suggest you save your $4.99 for an army builder,
sandwich, or anything else you can spend $4.99 on though.
To Hasbro, I can only suggest not doing anything like that again because it
is just such a poor figure when compared to pretty much anything in the modern
line, and DEFINITELY when compared to anything on the shelves right now.
JJ
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