Darth Vader - OTC - Basic (OTC #29)

The evil Imperial Lord Darth Vader is ordered by the Emperor to crush the heroic Rebels. Vader tracks the Rebels to the planet Hoth and launches an attack to capture them and destroy the Rebel base. He is furious when the Rebels discover his forces are coming, and the Rebels are able to escape the base before the evil Empire can capture it.

Hasbro knows all too well that they can sell is a bridge if they package it the right way. They know our impulses and what makes us tick. And they feed that our addiction rather well. Because Hasbro was designing a basic figure line of Star Wars characters based solely on the Original Trilogy films, it made sense that they would find three ways to release Darth Vader (one for each film). They did this is an interesting way. Because Darth Vader looks relatively the same throughout The Empire Strikes Back (save for the scene where the dome of his helmet was off and returned to his head), Hasbro thought a unique approach to the character would be best. They decided to go with his appearance on Hoth. The only detail that makes this version of him different from the rest of the film is the collection of snow that sticks to his boots and the hem of his flowing cape. So to do this Hasbro took a decent sculpt of Darth Vader and added some “snow” paint detail to the action figure and called it a day. Shipped in the final wave of The Original Trilogy Collection, it’s actually the rarest of the three in the collection. But rare should not be translated as valuable to you. It’s just that this version shipped the least.

The conundrum wasn’t which figure to use to represent an Episode V version of Darth Vader. It was what scene would be a unique take on a very popular character that looks relatively identical in every minute in the film. Knowing that they could dust off the Darth Vader figure from 2003’s SW Imperial Forces Toys R Us exclusive multipack, it ended up being the “go to” figure for many other iterations of Darth Vader from The Empire Strikes Back. This Darth Vader figure is actually the same figure as 2001’s POTJ Darth Vader (Emperor’s Wrath) figure. They cast the head in a solid black plastic for this release since their was no need to see the skull underneath the helmet.So this is the version that made its debut in the Toys R Us exclusive Imperial Force set. Hasbro then in turn took this figure and added the white paint detail to make The Original Trilogy Collection version. Darth Vader is limited in articulation, but he has very powerful stature and that’s probably the reason why this action figure has been used so many times throughout the years. The figure comes with a removable plastic cape and a lightsaber, although the lightsaber wasn’t lit in the scenes on Hoth.

With all figures from The Original Trilogy Collection, the packaging is the selling point. There are indeed some great figures here, but a great analogy to liken them to would be cereal boxes. The outside of the box (or in this case the packaging) is more exciting than the junk cereal inside (or in this case the old action figure). There is no denying that any Star Wars character doesn’t look extra special positioned in front of a backdrop from one of the three original Star Wars films; and that’s exactly where Darth Vader’s strength lies here. Plus, any figure based from Episode V is a rock star in comparison to figures from A New Hope and Return Of The Jedi. That’s the just the way it is folks. Originally shipped one per case, that particular assortment was canceled in mid production so that Hasbro could meet better demand and release multiples of the final wave in each case instead of only one. The Original Trilogy Collection surpassed Hasbro’s expectations and did much better than they ever anticipated. Yes, even Darth Vader was partly responsible for this success. It was a great collector-focused line and for how quickly Hasbro had to whip this up in such short notice, we think they did a rather fine job.