Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight - Ultimate Quarter Scale

Name: Luke Skywalker

Homeworld: Tatooine

Born: 19 BBY

Species: Human

Height: 1.72 meters

Affiliation: Jedi Order

The most powerful surviving member of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker was raised in secret on the remote planet of Tatooine and only discovered his true Jedi heritage thanks to Obi-Wan Kenobi's intervention. Trained in the ways of the Force and gifted with his father's lightsaber, Luke quickly surpassed all expectations – rescuing his twin sister Leia Organa, destroying the insidious Death Star, locating and training with the reclusive Jedi Master Yoda, confronting Darth Vader himself and even singehandedly defeating a vicious rancor beast.

As powerful and capable as he was, Luke Skywalker remained tormented by his father's transformation into Darth Vader and struggled to come to terms with what he knew must be done. Finally confronting his father along with the immensely powerful Emperor Palpatine, Luke Skywalker utilized his growing Force powers to successfully sway his father from the dark side's influence though it cost Anakin his life. With the Sith threat presumed to be over, Luke Skywalker began the task of forming a New Jedi Order.

We’re huge supporters of the figures in the the Ultimate Quarter Scale line, but we have to admit that some of the released are really getting frustrating. One thing that Diamond Select Toys has mastered in this scale is the multi-layered outfits that adorn their standard “talking” buck that was developed for this lineup. We’ll give them that. While it’s not perfect, it serves the purpose. These extremely obtrusive action figures are just that. These aren’t hollow and their not cheap to the touch. More importantly, the costumes are beautifully woven and fit rather well. In fact, depending upon the character, the layers of clothing typically diminish the lankiness that the UQS body has. While it’s somewhat sad that the base sculpt was developed so thin and so long that it can be a template for every character in the line. As a result, sometimes it just doesn’t work that well for all characters. Other times it works like a charm. Just this alone should give you some indication that consistency is not a strongpoint in the Ultimate Quarter Scale line. That being said, we’re sad that the line hasn’t been embraced by Star Wars collectors. It’s true that pretty much any scale outside of the standard 3.75” figures that Hasbro does are off limits to many, many collectors, but the UQS line is extremely affordable (for the amount of “product” you get in the box) and collector-friendly despite it not completely catering to the same market that throws their money towards Sideshow Collectibles.

Take for instance Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight. The figure from the neck down is absolutely gorgeous. It’s stunning in fact and we’d be so bold to say that it’s one of the best outfits ever designed for a “Jedi Knight” Luke Skywalker character. All the pieces and parts of his fan-favored Jedi Knight costume are here. Diamond Select Toys has not only included all of the parts of his costume, but they have also developed the various layers from different types of fabrics to give it the most realistic layers possible to match the character in Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi. His Jedi robe is reminiscent of a wool crepe while his tight-fitting black pants and [under] shirt are cotton-like. Then his vest and cummerbund has a linen feel to it. And let’s not forget his leather belt with shiny silver buckle and leather pouches. Together these layers make for an impressive representation of our favorite Jedi hero from the Original Trilogy. What’s more, the outfit can be broken down piece by piece stepwise so that you can recreate every last iteration of Luke Skywalker as he appeared in Episode VI. Some looks of Luke are more flattering than others, but his time at Jabba’s palace, the battle at the Sarlacc pit, his Endor capture, and the final duel on the second Death Star can all be attained thanks to a cleverly developed costume. The only issue we have is that both right hands are his black leather glove, so you can’t make a configuration of him with two non-gloved hands. This must have been an oversight because it’s clear they intended to capture it all with this costume.

But that’s not the only problem with this figure. It pains us to criticize one majorly important aspect of the figure when the rest of it is so awesome, but Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight has a very bad portrait. It only barely looks like Mark Hamill at only some angles and we all know how important an exacting head sculpt is for any collectible. We can usually overlook many things if and only if the head sculpt is excellent. But for this Luke Skywalker collectible it’s the basest problem. Again, it’s frustrating to be so harsh about the head sculpt when the rest of this figure is so enjoyable, accurate and brilliantly created. Diamond Select Toys put too many eggs in one basket. In interviews they’d state that they wanted to keep this line at $79.99 for its entire run. They’re doing that, but they haven’t taken any chances to bring collectors characters they really want to see in this scale. Darth Vader and Boba Fett were highest on the wish list, but they instead focused on characters with non-helmeted portraits. Perhaps if they thought a little more outside of the box they could have garnered more interest from collectors. Basically, Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight is almost perfect. But the “almost” is a very hard problem to fix. They need to work harder on head sculpts. We really like this line a lot and we still are very found of Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight. We just want to see better. We do wonder however what it is going to take for others to feel the same way we do about it.