Jayson hooked me up with the Imperial Pilot Evolutions set recently (Thanks man!)...
After finally getting to look the figures over, it's a mixed bag... The Episode 2 style Clone is pretty cool and a new paintjob. I liked that figure the first time and was always glad to get more... The "special" paintjob on this one makes it less appealing ot me than a movie deco, but still it's a good figure overall to me.
The Episode 3 style Clone is interesting... I am disappointed Hasbro didn't cast the chest box and hoses out of a more solid plastic, but instead they painted transluscent orange just like the helmet. It looks bad as the paint's thin and you can see the orange plastic underneath. I'm a bit disappointed in that aspect, but the removable helmet is nice and super thin due to the style it is. That makes it surprisingly accurate too, if not a little fragile. The pilot maybe re-uses the lower body of the ROTS figure which lacks ankle joints, but overall this figure's very nice and the highlight of the set to me. It's a movie Clone afterall, and one we didn't have.
Lastly, there's Biggs in Imp. Pilot uniform... I'm disappointed in this though. On various levels too...
First, Hasbro clearly re-used the Saga Pilot's legs for this TIE Pilot, and that was dumb. First it's dumb because Biggs wasn't "short" and that pilot clearly is short. Second, it's dumb because those legs are a tad awkward to pose for some reason. It's like they're too close together or something.
Next though, the gun is ridiculous... Hasbro resculpted the "Imperial Pistol" for absolutely no reason. They have a perfectly scaled version of this gun which was sculpted for Bo Shek, so why not use that? It fits in the holster better, and shows the true size of the blaster which Hasbro just completely botched. The new pistol is 2 or 3 times the size it should be, making it comically oversized and dumb looking in the holster. Moreover though, why would Hasbro put the money into a new mold for a gun when one exists that's superior? Dumb, dumb, dumb...
Likewise though, and third on the list of suck, is the open-faced helmet... I knew I wasn't going to like this, and Hasbro was sculpting a helmet for accuracy when the comic book artists themselves admitted that the open-faced helmets were just so you could tell who was talking, and that it wasn't meant to be some new kind of helmet... IE: basically they wanted/intended the helmets to be closed faced the whole time. In EU, TIE Fighters do NOT have atmosphere inside them, and the suit is a necessity for pilots to survive, so I really dislike the open mask. And beyond that the helmet is goofy big I think, as they insisted on Biggs' hair looking all nice and wavy instead of being "flat" for the helmet's sake.
The sculpt of the figure overall is nice, though those legs are a letdown, and no ankle articulation sucks as well. The body, holster belt, and all that is great though, and the Biggs likeness is spot-on so that's cool... I just wish those legs were a tad more normal height and a slightly broader stance on them.
Overall, $20 for 3 figures isn't horrible these days so I'm digging the set and I'll get another one of them if I can ever find one in the wild myself, but this set is by far and away not without flaws. It's not on par with the Rebel sets by a longshot, which make smart re-use of parts overall, and resculpts where appropriate. It's superior to the Padme set though, but only because army builders always beat Padme figures... Then again, so do Senators, droids, aliens... OK yeah, Padme sorta sucks. I don't get why you guys dig Padme so much.
I always wind up feeling jipped by her figures.
Anyway though, yeah, I'm ok with the Imp Pilots set but Hasbro could've done miles better with it. 2008 is becoming truly the year Hasbro shows it can cut corners everywhere... And it's becoming a glaring issue with lots of figures and things.
