Stormtrooper - R - Saga Legends (SL01)

Stormtroopers are elite soldiers who enforce Emperor Palpatine's brutal rule, as the newly formed Galactic Empire takes control of the galaxy. No longer comprised solely of clones, the Imperial army recruits citizens to expand its numbers.

2013 and 2014 have been rough years for Star Wars collectors. We imagine it’s been similarly rough for Hasbro. If you think about it, they are now a licensee that can’t exactly think for itself like in years past. Sure, they’re able to make their own products, but when a new multimedia event comes to fruition, plans change to focus around it so that there are compatible products available at retail when the show goes live. (Oh the irony there!) With so many fans unwilling to let The Clone Wars go, fans were a bit gruff about giving Rebels a chance. And many still are on the fence. (Where is Darth Vader for goodness sake?) But one things is for sure. Despite the simply articulated figures that Hasbro is making to support this new franchise, the figures are actually looking pretty good, with few exceptions. Sadly, the Stormtrooper is one of these exceptions. (Sad face.) Although a faithful sculpt has been tooled, the inferior quality of the plastic coupled with sloppy paint operations on the helmet will leave collectors wishing for a bit more; and in some instances a lot more!

Is it Murphy’s Law, or is it just plain bad luck? A Stormtrooper has the least amount of non-white detail than any other Star Wars character. So how can the black and gray paint operations be so messed up and so choppy looking? And how hard is it to cast a figure from head to toe in the SAME plastic to prevent the limbs from discoloring (or just appearing to be a different shade of white)? It’s maddening. It’s a figure we’d love to army build (within reason), but it’s a crap shoot whether these figures look good or just really, really bad. We want answers. Again, even with “good” sample, why are the limbs a different shade of white than the bodies? We have noticed that the limbs are slightly rubbery and the torsos are harder, so is that the issue here? They have to add a softer plastic for limbs that are in danger of popping off of or breaking from the figure itself? So if that’s the case then Hasbro needs to add stuff to the plastic to get the torsos a little bit duller.

As far as the animated style, some collectors still aren’t sold on it. And after the sudden death of The Clone Wars line, hasn’t Hasbro learned that it may have been more ideal to tool realistically styled action figures so that when Rebels goes away kids and collectors will have a more homogenous line of action figures? (After a multimedia event ends, Hasbro then tools the characters from that source in realistic style if they had been animated in the multimedia event. So why no keep it one style throughout?) The Stormtroopers have pudgy cheek areas and the five points of articulation make them essentially useless as action figures. But with all of this being said, we bet that it will be hard for many collectors to pass on them because Stormtroopers just go over big no matter how they look. For the Rebels line, the Stormtrooper comes with an E-11 blaster pistol, but with the limited range of motion there aren’t too many exciting poses you can attain because of this. He will likely be a hit, so just be sure to get one that looks good.