Well, I currently have possession of one UGH figure, and I've agreed to trade it to someone for two other figures I was wanting. It's a good deal in my book, but I'm wondering: what's the point of these figures? The silver stands and packaging look cooler, but... why? Is the entire thing a ploy to make MOC completists run out and spend money trying to collect them??

I don't really get it. I like the silver stands, but not enough to run out "chasing" anything.

Is there a point to this that I'm missing, or have I hit the nail right on the head?

I meant hips, not waists- on almost all the VOTC figures and all the evolutions figures there are standard hip joints just like those on a POTF2 figure. VOTC Luke has ball-jointed hips, more like a GI Joe or 12" figure.

*shrugs*

Hmm, in the most basic, he does kind of have a point. And at that, I am probably a very, very Luke person, with Luke being my favorite charachter and Han my second, actually...

He whines and worries and doubts himself, but when he really learns and understands what he's doing, he's good, despite so many opportunities to do worse. He's put in a situation not at all unlike his father was, but he learns from the past and makes a conscious decision to be good no matter what it would cost him, I think. I also just generally like the way he functions as a character, I guess.

At the same time, Han is pretty awesome and loads of fun and stuff. He's cool.

So it's kind of a balance but leans toward Luke, for me.

One of my favorite characters, however, is Grand Admiral Thrawn (though he's an EU-exclusive character)- and he's not in either "camp." He threatens the heroes equally, and there aren't many you can really say that about. I'm pretty fond of him as a character all by himself, though.

Jedi Defender Image Database - TSC 019 Yoda

Ahh, Yoda. Yoda is a character I put off buying new versions of with each new movie based on the money-saving excuse that he didn't really change in appearance a whole lot (though after AOTC I did find myself wanting one, I never found any that looked all that promising and thus spent no money on him). Ahh, the days when I just gave my POTF2 Yoda the extra green lightsaber from Count Dooku! Yeah. Needless to say it was time for a new Yoda figure in my collection.

So how does he fare, and how does he seem to compare to other Yodas? Well, he's a reprint of ROTS "Firing Cannon" Yoda- the second one made IIRC- packaged with different accessories from a previous Yoda (I'm not sure which one though). I saw no differences in the design of these items by photo comparison, but I'm sorry if I'm mistaken on that account- I didn't check for this review.

That said, I'll be reviewing Yoda from my typical behind-on-things perspective, discussing him as though he were something more new and exciting than he is. But is he really exciting? Let's see...

Sculpt: 4.5/5
Yoda's looking pretty good, but while this figure is packaged as an Attack of the Clones figure, he really doesn't quite look it. He has a removeable soft plastic cloak- not unlike Pilot Gear Obi Wan's cloak- and can't pose too many different ways with it on. The cloak itself is very nice looking, with lots of folds and detail, and it does a decent job of hiding the fact that it's sleeves are in fact, very very fake and are really just sleeve-shaped bumps to accomidate Yoda's arms inside.

Yoda's outfit is simplistic, as it was in the movie, but it's well sculpted overall. The "pants" or leggings (it looks kind of like a jumpsuit) are kind of windblown-ish, but not in an original Saga collection "With dynamic action windblown clothes!" kind of way, and are passable for when Yoda is just standing around talking with his Jedi Concil buddies.

His hands are nicely detailed as well, and his face is pretty good. He has a worried/tense look on his face, which I guess is pretty accurate for AOTC and ROTS, and is pretty multipurpose within those films. The details are nice, and the head overall pretty much looks correct- but it seems a little small. I know Yoda is small, but I could've sworn his head was about human-sized, but here it's a bit smaller than normal.

Articulation: 3.5/5
I want to give this articulation a better score, but can't because he simply can't move much with his cloak on, meaning he has to be uncloaked to really get the benefit of his poseability. This is unfortunate because Yoda didn't do much in this form except fall as he lost his battle with Sideous in ROTS (and the scenes thereafter IIRC), and he was never seen this way in AOTC.

That said, Yoda has a lot of joints for Yoda. He's got 9 points: ball shoulders, turning wrists, standard hip articulation, ball ankles, and a ball head. That's pretty good, but I think this figure would've benefited if they could've got in a turning waist- I know there's not much room in there for it, but it would've really made him a bit more poseable in light of the cloak.

Otherwise, this is pretty good, and Yoda can do a lot of lightsaber poses and force-wielding and such. The ball ankles are a little odd-  I guess they let you pose the legs a little differently, but it's hard to really take advantage of this, and they wind up feeling kind of useless. Useless articulation is still articulation though, and since this doesn't damage the sculpt I can't complain. The only downside is you need to be a little careful in standing him up- either align the ankles before doing so, or push him down gently on a surface and they should confirm to a stand-able pose.

With his cloak on, Yoda can pose his arms a little differently, spreading them a tiny bit or having them meet to hold his lightsaber two-handed- he can also sort of look like he's gesturing with the force with one hand and holding his lightsaber in the other. The wrist articulation is a lifesaver here in regards to how he holds the lightsaber.

Paint: 4/5
Yoda looks pretty good paint-wise, with no real flaws I can see. The cloak is nice- it's done in two tones of that bright beigey color it is, so it sort of looks shaded yet maybe dirty, maybe not. It looks realistic I think.

Yoda's head/hands/feet are good also- I think they're molded in green plastic, but the eyes are okay as are the nails.

His "jumpsuit" is prety uncolorful, and is just molded in this maroon color. I'm not sure it has any paint on it except the neck.

Accessories: 3.5/5
Yoda comes with some dark side lightning that kind of swirls on the end (I think he's suppose to "repel" it?), his tiny lightsaber, and his cane.

The lightsaber is great on detail, but I never noticed Yoda's lightsaber seeming quite this short in the movies- it might be accurate though. The cane is nice except Yoda's hands seem a bit big for it and this makes it hard for him to hold- you kind of have to lean it on the hands to get it to stay really. The lightning is okay, but he can't seem to hold it up either- and what's even worse is it doesn't stay on a normal figure's arm unless the swirling end is on their arm! This doesn't really look that scene-accurate, and as such I'm really not too impressed with it, though I am glad to have another lightning accessory around. Maybe I'm just not using it right?

Yoda's cloak could be considered an accessory, and as such it's pretty nice. While it doesn't agree with the arm articulation much, it's hard for a soft plastic cape to do such a thing. It looks really nice and is as I said full of detail, so I kind of like it, but perhaps if they'd given Yoda a soft-goods cloak it would've been better; it would lose it's nice detail, but it would've let him move around a lot plus given him the advantage of being able to raise his hood, though he never does this in the movies. As such though, the cloak is nice I think.

I would've liked to have seen a hole on Yoda's belt and a saber hilt, also. Most later ROTS Jedi figures seemed to have one, and I think it would've really enhanced this Yoda, especially given the memorable way he pulls it off his belt with the force to land in his hand. It's okay that he doesn't have one, but it would've been cooler.

Yoda also comes with the standard TSC swag: a stand and the ever-awesome "exclusive hologram figure!" The stand is embossed with the Attack of the Clones logo, and while I like these stands and for the most part they're very cool looking, I have to say the AOTC logo looks kind of silly when you compare it to, say, the ROTJ logo. But that's a tangent, and the stand is overall very nice. It simply says "Yoda," no subtitle such as "Hanger Duel-" so this makes it multipurpose.

There's one problem with this stand- Yoda's feet have holes, but they aren't deep enough and are a little too large to fit well on this stand. This means he's hard to really put on the stand in the traditional way and I find myself just having him stand normally on it, so it's not really a sand so much as a fancy plaque. Not a major issue, but it's kind of disappointing.

These hologram figures are mega yawn-worthy, though maybe I'd be swayed if I had a Fett or Vader or Stormtrooper, or heck, even a Luke (who really shouldn't have had his cloak up IMO) to show for any of my purchases; sadly, the only Yoda I found in stores had a Yoda figurine, which makes two I have now. zzzzzzzz...

A question for the readers to ponder, because I don't think it has a real answer: what's "exclusive" about these holograms? It can't be too exclusive if I keep getting doubles.

It's not really that I detest pack-ins; I rather like a good freeze frame, and force profiles can be nifty to glance over. But these hologram figures are really kinda boring. I like the suggestion by someone to make a chess set from them, but I don't have enough to do that as of yet.

Packaging: 4/5
I still really love the TSC cards, and Yoda is not exclusive to the aspects that make TSC cards nice. It has a scene-specific backdrop, kind of a generic picture of the hanger where AOTC's climactic lightsaber duel takes place. This is fine and accurate, but it's kind of boring as TSC backdrops can go, with no other characters or items to make it really interesting. Maybe Obi Wan/Anakin lying in the background, or Dooku looming somehow, would've jazzed it up a bit? But as such it's okay and Yoda looks pretty good on his card.

Yoda's cardback is okay- there's the usual mediocre shot of the shortly prerelease figure (in this case you can't tell any differences, unlike say Carbonite Han who looked kinda wonky on his), and some text describing what Yoda was doing during part of the movie. There's also those cheesy three lines that are all "So and so: so and soes," and Yoda seems cheezier than most here with his "Engages: Count Dooku in a lightsaber battle" and such. These lines make my eyes glaze over and I tend to ignore or not even notice them before buying a figure.

Maybe it's just a fluke, because I think the bubble's the same size, but when I opened Yoda I found that his bubble was completely below the Star Wars logo- I could swear on my other figures I tore off part of the logo to open the packaging! I should dig out my cards and check this, because I see no reason why it should be different in this case.

Overall: 4/5
Yoda's pretty cool, but he could be better. He's fairly versatile but the cloak is limiting on how poseability and dynamic he can really be. This figure is better for fighting Sideous than Dooku/Tyranus, what with the removeable cloak; but he's not terrible for this scene either.

All in all, I like my Yoda, he's probably the best Yoda I own (vs. original POTF2 Yoda and POTF2 Dead Yoda Ghost), but that's not a very fair comparison. If you like Yoda and didn't get this figure in the ROTS line then I reccomend this version, and I prefer the lightning and cane to the looks of that "Firing Cannon" he came with originally.

Not an awesome figure, but a pretty good figure I think.

Colossal piece of ****?  I guess he looks kind of funny because of his articulation- the ball shoulders aren't well-hidden, and the torso sculpting does suffer for having a swivel waist... but that brings up the question of which you prefer, sculpting or articulation. Me, the articulation doesn't really ruin his sculpting so it's kinda cool.

I guess with the two Hans out there, they cater to both sides of the argument. Then again, if you just want good sculpting we have the normal Saga line for that; Carbonite Han's sculptwork exceeds both VOTC/VTSC figures IMO, but his articulation is dull and very 1999ish.

Take your pick But personally, I crave one of the things.

I can agree about the elbow joints there, didn't know the Tusken Raider had those- angle cuts are fine on $6 figures, you can argue for it when the VOTC line was $10, but what the heck is a $13 figure doing with angle cuts that could just as easily be ball joints?? If he at least has ball shoulders I guess it might be okay for posing, but it still seems kinda lame.

I'm pretty sure Luke comes with Vader's hilt in this line. Oops. But, it'll balance out for my collection if I get one of those and an Evolutions Anakin set, since I can probably swap the saber hilts out and Vader can have a hilt

Not 100% sure but I think that hilt is identical to VOTC Vader's, the only time (I think?) Vader was produced with a bladeless hilt (except for Saga "Bespin Duel" vader and his metal hilt, which was identical to the metal Luke hilt) in 3 3/4" scale.

Vader's hilt is the most similar saber hilt to the Anakin/Luke hilt, which is probably why Hasbro made the mistake...

I thought the line seemed a little skimpy with 5 figures...

I personally hope one R2 or another shows up here. If it's a reprint/repaint of the VOTC one but includes the accessories or something to make him interesting like a rope or something, I'll buy him, or if he's some totally new cool thing.

If he's POTF2 R2 or Naboo Escape R2 or something he's soooooo not getting bought

But 3PO is a must. The rest of the figures are kind of interesting- Palpatine is really pretty lame though, I don't own the original but I don't want one as long as his hood's like that. It's like two different people sculpted the hood and the face, and they couldn't coordinate! But I'll have to wait and see how money is as far as the rest of the line is concerned.

Ah, I come to rant once more on my favorite subject. Actually, not really.

I'm curious, though; eBay tends to overprice most SW figures except the normal POTF2 line and such, it seems. Mara Jade loose has gone for at least $16 every time I watched, and on card at least $20. There's buy-it-now stores that have carded ones for like $40, but that's just bogus.

But after someone else mentioned to me that a store in LA carried the EU figure set and she (maybe all of them were, dunno) was about $17 there. So I'm wondering, is $16-$17 some kind of universal price that's on 99% of Mara Jades these days? Are cheaper ones absolute flukes, or is this figure just in the more vicious part of a price cycle ATM?

I'm just curious. I'm pretty sure I'm going to try to make my own custom- someone pointed me to a good head for Mara and the parts combined will probably cost less than the official figure would.

Also, from those who own one, how much do you think the figure is worth? It looks like she's got pretty good sculpting and detailing, and I haven't seen any samples with bad paintjobs; the only problems seem to be that the area where the head meets the neck looks kinda lame like it did on Dagobah Luke, and that she has typical POTF2-style articulation (as most figures did in 1998).

Thanks for any input Sorry if this is like 40% of what I talk about here...

http://afigures.com/g/?mode=album&album=2006_Toy_Fair%2FHasbro%2FStar_Wars%2FSaga_06&start=15

Bottom-right. Or you could go directly to it here:
http://64.34.172.56/g/albums/2006_Toy_Fair/Hasbro/Star_Wars/Saga_06/101_6333.jpg

The funny thing is I'd have bought him if he was exactly like that Of course, I dont have a Jabba's Palace Luke yet...

Even if they rerelease this figure at some point, I really think they need to reuse the sculpt from Obi Wan's ROTS saber. All Jabba's Palace Luke's saber had was a repaint with a different color blade of the lightsaber that came with some Obi Wan- I think it was the set with the Obi Wan/Vader Death Star duel- and while copying Obi Wan's saber isn't really a bad idea (Luke's ROTJ Saber is nearly identical to Obi Wan's ANH/ROTS saber in construction- I think they might've modified the prop that had been Obi Wan's saber to make it actually, but I could be wrong), they've made a far, far better sculpt and should be using it. It's not like it'd be cheaper to rerelease the older one or anything.

And while they're at it, use entirelyli] the same mold, that way you get the part of the blade at the base that sort of- I don't know the word, but where it's sort of bigger and "fades" into the rest of the blade.

If they were really cool they could punch a hole in Luke's belt- although he doesn't actually have a belt- and give him the saber hilt, too. And maybe do something about the right hand... but now we're getting into changing the sculpt.

Then again, they're doing it for Cantina Han