Luke Skywalker (Hoth Attack) - SW [S - P3] - Basic (’04 #03)

While patrolling on Hoth, Luke was savagely attacked by a Wampa and dragged by the ice creature to its cave, where he was suspended from the ceiling in anticipation of becoming the Wampa's next meal. Luke used the Force to retrieve his lightsaber from the floor of the cave and freed himself from the ice entrapping his leg. The Wampa attacked again, and Luke fought the vicious creature, escaping only after severing one of the Wampa’s arms.

It really stinks when newly released action figures that have created high levels of anticipation end up not meeting our full standards, true? It’s bittersweet at best to do this, but sometimes we need to look at the bigger picture before assessing whether or not the action figure has merit. And perhaps it’s the “merit� we see in Luke Skywalker (Hoth Attack) that supports our fond affection for this action figure. Hasbro made strides to bring us a better Luke Skywalker (in Hoth clothing) action figure, but it still has a while to go before most collectors will be happy. But there are some important points here on why this is a necessary purchase, all of which we’ll get to shortly. After multiple tries of a Luke Skywalker (Hoth Outfit) action figure during the POTF2 era, Hasbro finally changes directions and gives us a sculpt that is so much closer to being screen accurate than all others released to date. The figure is awesome because of the stuff that comes with him, as well as the improvements and updated details made to the sculpt. If you can find a sample with a great paint job, you’ll see that this is one of the best likenesses of Mark Hamill in this scale (with regards to his post-accident change in appearance). You’ll especially see the resemblance when you articulation his head in upwards and side to side manners and see how much of his profile was capture. A head on view lessens the resemblance because the paint operation as good as they could be, but overall we have to say that likeness gets high marks from us.

There are some coloring issues with Luke Skywalker (Hoth Attack) and we won’t pretend that they’re not there because screen accuracy is very important to us, especially for main characters like this. The color in the shoulders is supposed to be gray and not match his tan vest. And his pants are generally much more gray in color than the tan Hasbro used. Those are two of the errors that we have discovered and honestly it’s a minor setback, but like we’ve said we want to see screen accuracy. Luke has a graphically bloody face from the blow he sustained from the Wampa. The injury actually looks more severe on the figure than the film, but we appreciate that they added this attention to detail. Luke comes with a lightsaber hilt and lightsaber blade, a feature we are on the fence about due to the easy breakage of them, as well as ill-fitting goggles and a Hoth cave base. The goggles are really a surprise. You have to force them over his head to have them sit on top of his cap and they are too big to fit over his face. We would chalk this up to just being a goof on Hasbro’s part because they’re essentially useless. One feature of this figure that is anything but useless however is the Hoth cave base. It interacts with the Wampa With Hoth Cave (Hoth Attack) Ultra figure set and it’s one of our most favorite things Hasbro has produced to date. In the base that comes with Luke are foot holes and the it can be turned upside down and placed on the ice “pillar� like a perfect puzzle piece so you recreate this scene. What’s more is that there is a spot on the Hoth Cave where Luke’s lightsaber hilt can sit in until he utilizes the Force to retrieve it. Color us impressed.

Luke Skywalker (Hoth Attack) comes with interesting articulation. The head alone has two points of articulation: a hinge-jointed head on a swivel neck post. The movement you can achieve with this double articulation is pretty impressive and the functionality of the two points together creates natural movement. Two ball-jointed shoulders are up next and while we appreciate these premium points of articulation, without elbows or wrists they’re nearly pointless. Well, maybe that’s a bit too harsh. You can get a nice range of motion especially when you pose Luke with his lightsaber. The figure also comes with a swivel waist and finally two swivel hips. In all honestly, this is really all of the articulation you need with this action figure. Most collectors will most likely be posing him upside down along with 2004’s SW Wampa With Hoth Cave (Hoth Attack) Ultra figure anyway, so that’s about as much articulation as you’ll need. Oh, we failed to mention that his scarf is articulated too and when you pose his upside done, you can flick it up so that it doesn’t look like it defies gravity when Luke is upside down. It should be more than clear to collectors that Hasbro thoroughly thought through the way Luke Skywalker (Hoth Attack) was approached and took most of the important details into consideration to develop a action figure that would appeal to collectors, even if the articulation isn’t completely ideal. We have to say that Luke Skywalker (Hoth Attack) is worth the $4.99 MSRP. In our opinion, the chunky ice base is almost worth most of that cost alone and it is necessary to interact with another Ultra figure to complete the display. We are overall overly impressed with the products released in the Star Wars “Saga� line and we believe it has set future blueprints in the right direction for Star Wars collectors.