Beru Whitesun - TLC - Basic (BD 45)

Beru is the girlfriend of Owen Lars and is on the moisture farm when Anakin Skywalker arrives looking for his mother. The shy, young girl is content with her life on the harsh desert planet and looks forward to her life as a moisture farmer's wife.

Beru Lars, née Whitesun, was a meek and caring woman who shared in the daily responsibilities of rearing our favorite Rebel hero, Luke Skywalker. While Owen Lars was coarse, her personality contrasted dramatically against his as she was and empathetic, although it is more than clear that they both wanted the best and safest outcomes for Luke equally. Just as Beru has little to say in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the same was true for her character in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of The Clones. (And she even had less to say in Episode III.) It’s been a seven year wait, but Hasbro does right and gets us Ms. Whitesun into our collections finally. Unfortunately, her action figure suffers from a few issues. For one, (and we cannot believe we are saying this) her soft-goods do not work well. Specifically, the color doesn't match the rest of the figure and the material is much too thick. The sculpted parts of her outfit look great and when she was shown at 2009's NY Toy Fair, we have to say she looked much better without it. We know what Hasbro's intent was here, but the final product just didn't deliver the best results. However, it is very important to note that the robes that are sculpted are done very well and look excellent. All of the pouches are in the right spot and the colors used blend well and look authentic. Her features are very proportionate, but we need to voice our opinions about her likeness. Hasbro also ensured that the silver details were neatly painted and it just looks fantastic.

Beru's head sculpt is really another (unfortunate) issue. While Hasbro got her hair shape right (which is very reminiscent of Princess Leia Organa’s do), the colors are very off. Her hair color was clearly dirty blonde in the film but it looks much too reddish on the action figure. While Hasbro attempted to include darker highlights in various spots within the grain of her hair, it makes the hair look worse instead of better. Additionally, the rest of her face is not the best likeness to the actress. These two factors create havoc for the action figure and greatly affect the overall aesthetics. The likeness to the onscreen actress is not even really close and we think much more tweaking was needed to get this right. If that wasn’t enough of an issue, our sample also has issues with standing upright. She leans to the side and this is very distracting (and annoying). Why Hasbro still has issues with making leg length even is beyond our comprehension, but things like this cause unnecessary aggravation and we have reached a point where it is unacceptable now. We have come to a point in action figure evolution where the mechanics and engineering of a figure should not negatively outweigh the figure's positive points. As far as accessories, Beru comes with a milk canister (obviously used for storing a very popular desert beverage) and it is sculpted very well. Beru is good but not great and since she likely will never be revisited ever again, we would have wished for a figure with not so many issues.

On a more positive note, she is perfectly in scale with Owen Lars. So she does have quite a few plusses even though we seem to be concentrating on her with minuses. As one of the weaker figures of the Attack Of The Clones wave, Beru Whitesun should have had some fine tweaking done before the final version was released for mass distribution purchasing. As we mentioned, Beru Whitesun is not a figure Hasbro is expecting to pad their bottom line. She is a collector figure and not intended for the kiddies. And despite her imperfections, we are very happy to have her in our collections. She is an important character in the films and she really needed her time as an action figure. And since she was attempted in 2009 instead of 2002, she should age very well (in spite of her issues), so don't expect to see another version of her any time soon. As another figure that will surely complement the Disturbance At Lars Homestead play-set to make it perfectly set during the Prequel era, Beru Whitesun is not the worst action figure you could add to your collection. But she certainly will not be the centerpiece of it either. Whatever you decide, she may just be an inevitable purchase if you are an Attack Of The Clones fan. We hope that when Hasbro attacks future “one off" figures that they do a better job of making it as close to definitive as possible.