Some thoughts now that I had this out of the box and
played with posed it for a while.
First...
-Articulation... It's articulated out the whazzoo, and the joints are all very stiff/sturdy. It's funny how poseable it is, because it actually probably goes beyond what the real thing would be capable of.
It certainly exceeds the studio props which needed support, actually. That's kind of neat in and of itself.
-Sculpt... I feel the sculpting is superb. The immediate mistakes I noticed are small. The head's not quite as tall as it should be, but not horribly off either. It's very minimal, and really only would be noticeable to someone so fixated on the props I think. The AT-TE and other vehicles feature similar flaws, and this is pretty minor. I disagreed with Anton on the legs... I really felt the details here matched the props nicely, as did the detail all around. The fact they got the booted neck joint really had me giddy. I'm ecstatic to see that kind of thing. The inner-rings for the cheek turrets was a nice nod, and they got the feet and weapon details really right. They also tried getting cockpit details as nice as possible, to a point, and that's appreciated.
Another detail that's "off" is the "railing" around the top of the head separates into 3 pieces when it's really one solid rail all around on the prop. It's a little thing I noticed and am wondering if I can fix it on one easily enough (I believe I can).
-Paint aps... The only negative I can really say on this is the paint sucks. It's nowhere near realistic and the lacking paint aps do no justice to the finer details. The gun pods on both cheeks and the chin could stand a darker shade of grey. Gun barrels could use a slight dose of black misting to simulate burns. The turret head lacks any of the insignia the Endor walkers were seen with, and there's no "wash" to speak of save for very faint darker grey shades here and there. The rear of the cockpit should also feature a bit of a darker grey paintjob. Mud splatter on the feet would've been appropriate too I believe.
To some, and myself to an extent, the genericness of it is a nice pallet to work with... but to the usual collector who doesn't want to spiff it up, the paint's a big disappointment I'm sure and I agree. It's very generic though and that has its merits.
-Stickers... Not a fan of stickers at this point and I was disappointed to see some details were stickers inside rather than sculpted in (which wouldn't have cost anything, so it's a tad odd).
-Cockpit Interior... Some "fudging" was done on the interior because ultimately the lifesize prop interior is/was cramped and confined like a real tank would be. The cockpit is a good proper size, but because of figure limitations it's sculpted so a figure sits straight-legged rather than in a proper seated position. THis means liberties get taken and so you cannot fit a Wookie and 2 Ewoks inside obviously. Part of me almost wishes they'd not given us a figure, and instead designed the cockpit interior more realistically to accomodate a future AT-ST Driver that has bendable knees. This would've been more realistic, but at this stage of the game I really don't mind the liberties taken to make this accomodate more figures. It's still a flaw I noticed though early on before I had it.
My thoughts overall though are that it's simply fantastic. THis may be my favorite vehicle ever. It's a little difficult to balance it, but it does balance well and it's sturdier than I imagined it would be even. The thing is big too. In "walking" mode it looks just menacingly large... Standing still "at ease" like in the movie's it's still big. I love it and picked up 3 so far. I'd like to dirty up one proper, and fix some of the aesthetic things on the outside (and a few on the inside) to make a more movie-accurate item. I'm excited at the prospect actually, as this is a really nicely made item overall and there's not a whole lot beyond a great paintjob that it needs to look like a movie prop. That's impressive from a toy company I think!
