Emperor Palpatine - POTF2 [R/G] - Electronic Power F/X

Recreate the Emperor's powerful movie scenes with remote-activated action!

Emperor Palpatine is the second best-looking figure in the Electronic Power F/X line. It’s very, very far from a definitive designation of course, but for the practicality of the Electronic Power F/X gimmick, admittedly, Emperor Palpatine works very well in this format. Instead of tooling and adding an oversized and bulky lightsaber hilt to the right hand like many others in this line, Kenner/Hasbro worked in the electronics in a much more seamless fashion. Sure, Emperor Palpatine has two big holes etched into his palms, but once you add the clear Force lightning bolts into them, you can’t tell they are there at all. The biggest setback for Emperor Palpatine is that the “light up” effect is tough to see. In bright light, it is impossible to see as well. So, perhaps Kenner/Hasbro should have tooled the Force lightning bolts in white or blue to help pick up the flickering yellow lights emanating from Emperor Palpatine’s palms better. But maybe you won’t care that much whether you can see the light-up effect or not, because there is something else to appreciate here instead.

The Electronic Power F/X Emperor Palpatine thrills us because of the environmental display stand they added to the figure. It’s gorgeous. Based on the “window” situated behind his throne room chair, we have a nice diorama background for any interactions with your Emperor Palpatine action figures you own (from any time period) The background is screen-accurate and sized appropriately to flawlessly interact to the three main characters that partook in these scenes: Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, and Luke Skywalker. Interestingly, Kenner/Hasbro tooled all three characters in the Electronic Power F/X line. So that works out very nicely as well. The Included Emperor Palpatine figure doesn’t look all that different than 1997’s POTF2 [FF/TKC] Emperor Palpatine figure, but there are some important differences. You’ll notice that he is a tad smaller in size and stature. We’re not sure why that happened, but this is noticeable. However, when lined up side by side, they look more alike than they don’t. Likely you can understand why much difference wouldn’t exist between all of the sculpts.

When completely set up, the Electronic Power F/X Emperor Palpatine sets looks very, very nice. Once you cut out the cardboard background from the packaging and add it to the display stand, you’ll see how everything together sets up a beautiful scene. In the background you can see star destroyers and TIE fighters and explosions from an apparent battle happening out in space, it pulls everything together. Again, Emperor Palpatine isn’t the most=perfect action figure out there, but Kenner/Hasbro did a fairly decent job here. For packaged collectors, you might be interested to know that there is a running change. The first version shows an image of this toy set up where Emperor Palpatine is posed with his Force lightning going in an upward direction. Revised packaging shows the Force lightning bolts facing downward which looks increasingly better than the first version. Emperor Palpatine finishes off the Electronic Power F/X figure sub-line so we won’t be getting any others in the future. He was a great choice to end on since he turned out so well. But the line as a whole didn’t grab collectors as it should have.