Luke Skywalker (Snowspeeder) (Prototype Edition) - RC - Basic (Exclusive)

This Luke Skywalker figure is inspired by the colorful prototypes that enable the development team to look past the deco and focus on the sculpt, analyze mold alignment, and adjust for quality.

The current Hasbro Star Wars team is clueless when they make a never-before-released Kenner figure into a “Prototype Edition” figure that costs more than the standard version with more paint. But here we are. Luke Skywalker (Snowspeeder) (Prototype Edition) is now part of the rainbow coalition of Target-exclusive Prototype Edition figures, and it’s probably the most boring of the bunch. Why they didn't instead release a character from Episode VI at the start of 2023 is beyond us. Before we begin, we’d like to know why Hasbro insists on using bright prism colors to cast these figures’ parts. If they use “leftover” plastics to make these figures, we should see white, black, light pink, light blue, brown, and other earth colors in this lineup since so many Star Wars characters have a “lived-in” appearance. We digress. We only want to see Hasbro change things up a bit. If they made this sub-line of exclusive action figures look like authentic prototypes, we believe they’d go over better with the Star Wars collecting community. Once again, the approach is made with a few variances from past releases. If you gather one of each color head/body, you’ll have all the variations produced of this action figure.

Another Target exclusive, the Luke Skywalker (Snowspeeder) (Prototype Edition) figure, is an easy cash grab. Besides, this time it’s $1.00 more than the last release in this lineup. Star Wars collectors generally despise trying to secure Target exclusives. The pre-order process is almost nonexistent, although better with the most recent pre-orders, and pleading with your local red shirt to go to the back stockroom to see if they can find the item you’re looking for with the trusty DPCI number is hit or miss. With Hasbro producing indeterminate numbers of Star Wars action figure volume, distribution for store exclusives is spotty. The supply chain is getting a little better, but there is still a reduction in the workforce. So, there are fewer resources to produce and locate the items. Also, the store reports are inconsistent and varied. Someone in California will find them the day someone in New York does. And then some areas never see these things. Despite the impossible chore of buying Star Wars action figures, Star Wars collectors should expect to go through this routine for the foreseeable future. But this seems to be the new normal with Star Wars collecting, and everyone appears to be fleeing this misery.

The Luke Skywalker (Snowspeeder) (Prototype Edition) action figure comes multicolored across eight parts: head, body, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg, lightsaber, and gun. Hasbro returned to the same approach of adding colorful accessories, but you also get a solid black gun like some of the other figures in the past. If you recall, Boba Fett (Prototype Edition) came with a black blaster. But each version of the Luke Skywalker (Snowspeeder) (Prototype Edition) figure has a differently colored lightsaber, and they all match the head color of the six figures. We still wish they’d use random colors, including pastels and whites, blacks, and grays, as we’ve explained, but that doesn’t look like part of the plan. Luke Skywalker (Snowspeeder) (Prototype Edition) is a repaint of the figure from the 2020 Retro Collection Hoth Ice Planet Adventure Game. And because it’s not a vintage Kenner figure, we feel it doesn’t fit this format well. The tooling is different, but that’s nothing new here. Although many collectors have complained about another rainbow-colored action figure, it’s proving to be a challenging action figure to acquire. Target online shows that many stores don’t carry the figure, and others have said that the stock magically appears later.