Slave Leia - Premium Format Figures

The beautiful Princess Leia Organa is a symbol of diplomacy, strength, and hope within the Rebel Alliance. While serving as the youngest member of the Imperial Senate, Princess Leia secretly leads the struggling Rebellion in their mission to overthrow the Galactic Empire. Even after being captured and forced to witness the destruction of her homeworld, Leia continues to place her dedication to the Alliance above her own personal needs and safety.

Princess Leia was one of the commanding members of Echo Base on the frozen planet Hoth. When the Imperials attacked Hoth, Leia took the initiative and acted in a number of command roles, ordering the evacuation of the base. Leia's access to her own escape transport was cut off, but she managed to escape in Han Solo's Millennium Falcon. Evading Imperial pursuit, the Falcon landed in an asteroid field so that its crew could repair the vessel. But Darth Vader captured Han Solo, and Leia was forced to watch as the Dark Lord froze him in carbonite and handed him over to the bounty hunter, Boba Fett. Leia escaped Cloud City with the aid of its administrator, Lando Calrissian.

Leia eventually traced the carbonite encased Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt's palace on Tatooine, where Boba Fett delivered him to collect on the bounty offered by the great crime lord. Leia participated in Luke's plan to free the captured Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster, disguising herself as Boushh, an Ubese bounty hunter, and infiltrating the palace to free Solo from his carbonite imprisonment. Jabba and his minions uncovered the plot to free Han Solo, and with Leia's true identity revealed, Jabba ordered the princess to be chained and clothed in a scant golden bikini. Leia bravely faced her captivity and Jabba's vile presence, secure in the knowledge that soon enough Luke would arrive, and the full plan for Han's rescue could unfold. Leia repaid the gangster by throttling the Hutt with the very chain that bound her, strangling Jabba and ending his cruel reign.

The first license Sideshow Collectibles attained from Lucasfilm, Ltd. was for quarter scale figures. The first Premium Format figure was released to an adoring crowd in 2005 and the line has been a mainstay ever since. But it also started up collectors begging Sideshow for all their favorite Star Wars characters to be realized in this format. Due to their size, price and long production process, there is really no way for Sideshow to keep up with the demanding requests, but they have been doing a pretty fine job hitting on all the main characters and most popular outfits. Princess Leia in her skimpy bikini (affectionately known as Slave Leia) was a no-brainer and she finally went on pre-order in 2008 with an April 2009 product release. She is a fine example of what the awesome artisans at Sideshow can do. They are absolutely an impressive team of painters and sculptors and the final results are usually pretty incredible. Slave Leia is excellent. But we think her portrait is not as good as it could be. It’s not terrible, but her head unfortunately looks a little bit bulbous for her body and her eyes are too big and round. But while these aspects of the figure may need further tweaking, Sideshow absolutely mastered the body and outfit perfectly. Slave Leia is a figure than doesn’t utilize a great deal of multimedia, so Sideshow had to figure out how to make her look as awesome as possible with basically focusing only on the polystone.

But they definitely succeeded. Despite not having a perfect likeness, her hair looks amazing. The headpieces are exact and in the right place and the ponytail that hangs down to her belts looks absolutely perfect. She also has real metal hoop earrings in her ears that actually dangle when you move the figure around. Slave Leia has beautiful skin tone and the bronze (or gold) parts of her bikini have a stunning metallic paint job that picks up the light in the room. Her contrasting silver next chain looks a little too shiny and we wished Sideshow would have weathered it a bit more before release, but it still look incredible. The only soft-goods you’ll find on this piece is the “skirt” that is in two pieces to cover her in the front and back. Her backside is visible if you lift up the back portion, but the front has been painted in a similar color to the fabric to simulate underwear (for obvious reasons). In her hands is an expertly sculpted force pike with is so realistic is it mind-blowing. Her boots are also screen accurate and trimmed with the same gold as seen in her bikini. Slave Leia stands in a slight action pose (like she is taking a step) on top of a well crafted stand that looks like what would be the floor of the Jabba’s sail barge. This is a piece that really impresses.

For what Sideshow may have lacked in Leia’s sculpt, they made up for tenfold in the exclusive Salacious Crumb figure. Crumb sits on his own stand which has been decorate with one of Jabba’s ornate pillows. The whole “system” comes in three pieces: the stand, Salacious Crumb and his tail. Once assembled, Salacious Crumb is the absolute perfect “accessory” for Slave Leia. With a paint job that is unmatched in any other Premium Format figure to date, we believe that getting the non-exclusive version of this figure would definitely be the wrong decision. Salacious Crumb has all the right colors and speckled dots that a monkey-lizard should have. And his eyes and beak have the perfect sheen that brings life to this quarter scale version of him. But be warned. This is one delicate figure and we were extremely nervous handling him for the photo shoot. He has way too many points and parts sticking out away from his body and they are all thin and spindly. We suggest finding a place to display him and then leave it alone. All Star Wars characters that can be tied to the whole Jabba sequence in Return Of The Jedi remain popular with collectors. And Slave Leia will probably be the most poplar outfit ever for our favorite heroine. Sideshow offers a definitive collectible version of her via this Premium Format figure. It is an excellent work of art and we know it will serve as a prominently displayed piece in your Star Wars collection.