Captain Phasma - TFA - Armor Up (Desert/Space) (Exclusive)

Clad in distinctive metallic armor, Captain Phasma commands the First Order's legions of troopers.

Captain Phasma has become a fan favorite Star Wars character well before the release of The Force Awakens film. Her tall and imposing stature and her ultra cool chrome armor have piqued the interest in all Star Wars fans, and the briskness in sales of her memorabilia from various licenses has already exceeded expectations. Hasbro, in our opinion, is making a huge mistake making collectibles based on her exclusive. They’ve already granted Toys R Us the Captain Phasma 12-Inch Figure. But now they’ve devoted an exclusive Armor Up release in her honor once again to Toys R Us. Since Force Friday, she has been a rare occurrence in the wild, so making her exclusive makes her that much more difficult to find. Whatever. Now she is part of the “deluxe” Armor Up line which includes not one, but two Armor Up accessories. To confuse matters even more, the packaging reflects two separate environments, in this case Desert and Space, one each for the included Armor Up pieces. The packaging is literally divided in two to show how the one Armor Up accessory reflects a Desert climate while the other represents a Space environment. With the Captain Phasma (Build A Weapon) figure based on the Forest, we literally have Captain Phasma from 75% of The Force Awakens environments now. Weird.

As you know all too well now, Hasbro has refocused how they have approached simply articulated action figures. That’s old news. Hasbro has found a happy medium to bring an inordinate detail to a mere five points of articulation and it works better than we could have ever expected and this reissue of sorts of Captain Phasma is no exceptions. With a revised paint job (which reflects some dirt accumulation on her boots and the bottom of her cape), Hasbro makes Captain Phasma new again with the inclusion of two new Armor Up accessories. The vac-metallization is still nowhere to be found, but we’re assuming that this is off the table with Hasbro now. That being said, Captain Phasma still looks great without a correct chrome finish. Sure, the marbled color of the grayish-silver plastic will be second best to many collectors, but we think that the final action figure looks very much line the character we have seen in reference stills and trailers. On top of everything, Hasbro added sharp black detail to shape the contour of the helmet and the bodysuit underneath the armor. Simply put, Captain Phasma is beautiful in so many ways. Yes, we even surprise ourselves with these statements too.

Captain Phasma comes with a removable cape with a red stripe running along the seam. She also comes with a new First Order blaster. Both hands can accommodate the blaster which is a nice option to have. And then the ball-socket head can easily pop off so that the cape can be moved to give Captain Phasma a completely different look. Although female, Captain Phasma is indistinguishable as far as her gender is concerned. She towers over the rest of the First Order Stormtroopers and the rest of the soldiers that serve under her. Her limbs are solid and she possesses a brawn that would intimidate anyone who would come in contact with her. If we had to nitpick, we feel that her cape was given too much mass which makes her top heavy. The balance is a bit of an issue. Captain Phasma comes with two Armor Up accessories: one for a Desert theme and the other for a Space theme. Each makes her look really unique. Dare we say it, but we think we’re warming up a little bit to the Armor Up sub-line, accepting the fact that these are totally geared towards children. The price is still unacceptable, but this is a change of pace to the same old mundane 5POA they’ve been doing all along. Anyway, Captain Phasma is a figure to certainly enjoy, even with the silly Armor Up extras.