Darth Sidious - EI - Basic

Cloaked in flowing robes and shrouded in evil, Darth Sidious is a Dark Lord of the Sith and the mysterious power behind the Trade Federation's blockade of Naboo. As he conspires and manipulates, he keeps his presence – and his true intentions hidden – well hidden.

It may be one of the biggest anomalies of the entire Star Wars collecting era, but the Episode I Darth Sidious figure just wasn’t a strong seller. This was a terrible shame because it was a strong figure, perhaps one of the strongest from the entire Episode I line and gave lovers of the Original trilogy a younger look at Emperor Palpatine, a figure who we have been dying to learn about in his early days for a while now. The figure isn’t exactly perfect. He has one major flaw, and it is his robes. They interfere with his balance as the tail end of them do not line up with his feet. As a result, he leans terribly, and unless you fight with the figure and balancing it with something else, you’re going to have a devil of a time making this figure assume a natural and threatening pose on your shelf. If you forget about the figure’s main issue for a moment, the rest of the figure is otherwise well made. The hood obstructs the view of the figure’s face (which is perfect in our eyes). And the texture of the robe is simply glorious. It’s a crying shame how much effort went into making these robes look so lifelike only to be demeaned by a badly angled tail that prevents a solid balance of the figure.

Darth Sidious also has an impressive amount of articulation too. Sadly, a nice portion of it is rendered useless because of the robes. We honestly don’t mind this too much, but if Hasbro could have cut a nice perpendicular slice across the body of the figure robes, so it was flat with the surface you stood him on, it would have made a world of difference to this action figure. Where you do get good use of articulation is Darth Sidious’ upper body. He has a swivel head, although its movement is severely inhibited, swivel shoulders, swivel elbows and impressively two swivel wrists. You can make Darth Sidious bring his arms and hands together and hide them in his robes, or you can open up his arms in a beckoning fashion. The options aren’t limitless, but you do get a fantastic range of movement out of the articulation you can indeed utilize. Darth Sidious comes without an accessories, but his dark and unassuming appearance in the Star Wars line is about all you need. He does look imposing, and that’s a lot to say for a figure that is just wearing baggy robes. Hasbro could have improved the paint operations on the figure's face a bit more, but thankfully, you can’t see them without looking under his hood.

Despite being essentially useless, Hasbro did add a swivel waist and swivel hips to Darth Sidious. But we’re telling you, they are not helpful to the action figure. The center robe around the body makes it nearly impossible to articulation this figure’s legs. We have to wonder why Hasbro sculpted independently moving legs at all, especially since the robes aren’t removable, or at least not removable without sustaining some damage. Even despite this figure’s standing issues and simplistic design, we still feel that Darth Sidious should make any Star Wars fans’ Top 10 Episode I figure ranking. That may sound contradictory, but just because a figure isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it doesn’t have relevance to the brand. We truly believe that this figure got unfairly overlooked during its heyday on the pegs in 1999. There is more than meets the eye with Darth Sidious, and this is one of the character’s biggest strengths in the Prequel Trilogy. As one of the most important characters in the Prequel Trilogy, Darth Sidious ultimately is a necessity in any Star Wars collection. We’re glad we have ours, and you should have one too. Darth Sidious will stand the test of time.