Luke Skywalker - TBS [P2] - Basic (#02)

While on patrol on Hoth, Luke is attacked by a carnivorous wampa that drags young Skywalker to its icy lair. Although wounded, Luke is not ready to become the wampa's next meal.

Collectors sometimes have to process, consume and digest where they are with the basic figure line.... and with Hasbro. Did any of us ever imagine that a full wave of almost all-new figures based on The Empire Strikes Back wouldn’t sell through the moment they hit e-tail and retail? (We’re talking about The Black Series [Phase I] wave 4.) Not that the “orange” phase is over, what’s to be said of the brand new “blue’'/TIE-fighter pilot” line look that opens up with a Build A Droid figure, a retool, two (2) The Vintage Collection repaints and two repackaged figures that were released just a few months before in the previous line look (same line). But that’s the exact state The Black Series [Phase II] is in as it opens up for collectors for the 2014/2015 product year. There’s no doubt that Luke Skywalker is about the most interesting figure of the first wave, but we imagine that his updates will do very little to interest everyone collecting Star Wars figures, except for those that maybe need to have them all. And some of the new enhancements are anachronistic to the events that transpired in the film. Although we’re personally thrilled to see him get updated to a scene specific appearance, we don’t feel that it’s aggressive enough to be an “out of the ballpark” hit... and it's technically wrong. But that opinion may lie within the eye of the beholder. Let’s itemize what makes him better.... and worse.... to see if Luke Skywalker will become a worthwhile purchase and addition in your collection.

Luke Skywalker comes with an all-new head sculpt. At first glance it’s impressive. It is without a doubt better than the head sculpt from 2012’s TVC Luke Skywalker (Hoth Outfit) (VC95) figure. But upon closer inspection, you will see that Hasbro didn’t give it the tightest paint operations which also work against the sculpt actually looking like Luke. The flesh color used to give him his living human form doesn’t go all the way up to the helmet, so you will find splotches of white here and there. There is no swivel joint added to Luke’s scarf that hangs down the side of his head. So should you decide to pose him upside down hanging from the ice, the scarf will defy gravity. He also still is wearing his goggles, something he didn't have while hanging upside down either. Sadly, this is the only new tooling this action figure has received. If we had been approached to tweak it, we would have revised the pointy shoulders and changed the sculpt of the hands a bit more. (They still feel too bulky in our opinion.) The paint operations are better and they also are worse. Let us explain. Hasbro definitely ensured that Luke’s color palette was spot on for this release, but they decided to forgo painting the ranking badge on his right upper arm and the communicator on his left hand. They are glaringly missing paint operations and we find this particularly disappointing. That being said, the tan vest is deeper and the gray pants are darker, all details that were missed on the TVC release. TBS [P2] Luke Skywalker definitely has the better paint job overall. And it’s the better figure overall. But it isn’t without some faults.

Luke comes with four accessories. He comes with a lightsaber hilt, lightsaber fully lit, a blaster pistol (that fits nicely into his functioning holster) and a removable collar. Hasbro decided to not glue the collar down for this release. Because he doesn’t come with an interchangeable head accessory, Hasbro could have made the collar a permanent addition, something that we honestly would have preferred. The point of this release was to present collectors with an updated version of Luke after his encounter with the wampa. Unofficially referred to as Luke Skywalker (Wampa Attack), Hasbro did ensure that he received facial battle-damage to recreate these scene specific details. But we think they went a very cheap route to do it. Luke simply has random red stripes on his face that look a whole lot more like Hasbro attempted to imitate Mike Tyson’s facial tattoos in a Star Wars theme than actually give him authentic “wampa swing” damage. It’s not a terrible detail, but you can see that our action figures just aren’t decorated with the same love from years past.... something that breaks our hearts completely. Our first “wampa attack” Luke Skywalker action figure came in 1998’s POTF2 Wampa And Luke Skywalker creature set. Then Hasbro released the first basic figure version as 2004’s SW [S - P3] Luke Skywalker (Hoth Attack) (‘04 #03). (This sculpt was used multiple times in multiple ways since.) Now we have a semi-definitive version now. It isn’t perfect, but it does look nice.... from a certain point of view; head sculpt nonwithstanding.