Imperial Sentinel - EU - Basic

Prepare to jump to lightspeed with Kenner's Expanded Universe, now offering the most memorable characters from Star Wars Dark Horse comics, Bantam novels, and LucasArts video games. Finally, the entire galaxy can be yours!

Six years after the destruction of the second Death Star, the galaxy is thrust into turmoil. A reborn evil threatens to enslave the galaxy, and the Republic's closest friend – Luke Skywalker – may become their greatest enemy.

At the doors of the evil Emperor's palace, giant Imperial Sentinels, twice the size and power of other Imperial guards, await their prisoner – the Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker.

You can probably look at Kenner’s Expanded Universe Imperial Sentinel as either a refined concept art figure, Atha Prime (a legendary 1986 Kenner canceled toy concept), or the actual Imperial Sentinel as reflected in the Star Wars: Dark Empire. Either way, this all-new sculpt will fill in nicely for any of the three because all three characters are almost identical. Made popular in the Star Wars: Dark Empire comics, the Imperial Sentinel’s design and look started years before the 1991 comic. The earliest concept art sketches for Return Of The Jedi showed a nearly identical Imperial Sentinel like design for what were to the Emperor’s Royal Guards in Episode VI. And Kenner was apparently so inspired by this design that they thought it should be the basis for the abandoned Atha Prime character that never came to fruition. We do, however, have the Dark Empire interpretation of the character, and aside from weak articulation, the tooling of the Imperial Sentinel is nonetheless impressive. Included with a gimmicky light port to make his eyes glow, the Imperial Sentinel will be on the top of most collectors’ wish lists for 1998. Part of Kenner’s dedicated Expanded Universe line, the Imperial Sentinel saw unfortunate limited distribution as The Power Of The Force “2” line experienced its greatest purge in years. Still, Kenner made great efforts to get these action figures out again and the Imperial Sentinel has since met fan demand.

With only four points of articulation, articulation junkies may not be able to find full favor with the Imperial Sentinel. Perhaps because this character has roots to the Emperor’s Royal Guard concept art (or maybe not), Kenner approached him very similarly to the way they did 1997’s POTF2 [FF/TKC] Emperor’s Royal Guard action figure. By this we mean that the figure only comes with four points of articulation, has a single lengthy weapon and a separately sculpted outer shell, which in this case is removable for the Imperial Sentinel. Sadly, the rest of the figure is a statue. It has no legs or feet, but just a large base for a lower body. But admittedly we cannot neglect to compliment how wonderful the tooling is and the amount of glorious detail Kenner has added to this long-awaited action figure. Interestingly, the bio describes the Imperial Sentinel as twice the size of the other Imperial guards, but this certainly isn’t the case when comparing the Imperial Sentinel to Kenner’s modern Emperor’s Royal Guard. Sure, it is slightly bigger than the average Kenner Star Wars action figure, but it isn’t noticeably huge as the bio suggests. Wider and bulkier? Yes. Tall and imposing? No. Even so, the design and all of the details have been incredibly captured. We know that this action figure will impress many collectors. And probably many more will want to army build this character.

Perhaps the best part of the Expanded Universe line of figures is the packaging, and that’s saying a great deal as we’re loose collectors and disregard packaging as a necessary evil. One of the thickest card backs we have ever encountered, Kenner worked in a “pop-up” diorama that captures a moment from the Star Wars: Dark Empire comics to serve as a beautiful backdrop for the Kenner action figure. What makes this completely special is that the artwork has been inspired from the comics and looks like the scenery has been pulled right from the pages of the storyline. A little bit of careful cutting will give you a glorious backdrop, but keep in mind that the MIP quality of this action figure instantly deteriorates to “nothing” if you decide to take advantage of this diorama…. which you should. It will be interesting to see how far Kenner will go to create characters from the comics that are adored by so many Star Wars fans across the globe. There are some amazing characters throughout them and it appears that they’re only touching the tip of the iceberg with what they can bring forth in a concentrated line. But if they come out minimally like the Imperial Sentinel, Star Wars collectors are going to be very thrilled.