Packaging - ****
All the good things we've seen with past Star Wars boxes, we see
here. They use the nifty magnet closures, they hold all the
accessories and figures in place without any twisties, and this time they
have almost NO tape as well! There was one small piece holding the top
and bottom trays together for Leia, and that was it. The packaging is
extremely collector friendly.
The graphics are decent, but even better is the well written text,
covering the films and the specific characters.
Sculpting - Leia ***1/2; Luke ***
Both head sculpts have some issues, all of which are pretty apparent.
Leia's is the better of the two. There's nice detail work on the
hair, and the sculpted expression works great with the painted expression of
the eyes. She also looks very much like the young Leia, and is one of
their better human female likenesses.
Unfortunately, her head is too big. It's very apparent in the
photos on the box, but I tried some angles to try to make it less
obvious. Still, she's got quite a melon. The big problem is
probably not the head size, but the body size, which is very small.
They also added a very long neck, and the neck along with the petite female
body doesn't allow for a very big head.
Her other sculpting is great. I love the boots, and the hands work
great as well. She can hold any number of the accessories, and look
great doing it.
Luke's head sculpt seems a bit damaged by the manufacturing
process. He has a better sculpted expression than the previous
versions (and is miles better than the last one), but the painted expression
doesn't really do much to help. Also, his face seems distorted, with
one eye and cheek sunk further into the skull than the other. That
looks like a manufacturing issue. He also has a very deep head, if you
look at the profile. I spared you that pain.
His hands are all well sculpted though, and again he has a terrific boot
sculpt. The sculpted hands and boots actually bring his overall score
in this category up a half star from where they were going to be, based only
on the head.
Paint - Leia ***1/2; Luke ***
When I first saw her in the box, I wasn't particularly thrilled with
Leia's eyes. But once I started posing her, I found that the
expression gave her quite a bit more personality. The eyes, skin and
lips are all quite clean too, although they still look a little more zombie
than I really like.
They aren't as bad as Luke's though, which is perhaps why she pulled the
***1/2 and not *** in this category. Luke's lips are poorly painted,
and his eyes have the dark eyeliner. They eyes also lack the gloss
finish, and are very much like a mannequin. I was a bit disappointed
in the eye work, and it certainly didn't do anything to improve on the
slightly warped sculpt.
The rest of the paint ops on both are great, particularly those super
cool boots. Can you tell that those are going to really help their
Outfit score?
Articulation - Leia ***1/2; Luke **1/2
Luke is getting hit here for a very specific issue - if it wasn't for that
issue (which I'll explain in a minute), I would have added another half star
easily to this score.
Leia has a much better body, and actually allows for plenty of
poses. The body also seemed to hang much more naturally, and the
joints are nice and tight, holding poses for long periods. Her ball
jointed neck works great, and she has all the other joints you expect in a
high end sixth scale figure. She doesn't pose quite as nicely as some
of the Hot Toys figures...yet. But you can see that Sideshow is
working on it.
I suspect they are trying with the male body too, but there's still a few
basic issues. Luke's ball jointed neck allows for some tilting, and
some backward movement, but he STILL can't look downward to save his
life. He has the newer shoulder joints that allow the arms to come in
toward the center of the body in a much more realistic manner, and the hips
seem improved as well. Like Leia, he doesn't hang as well as a Hot
Toys or Medicom figure, but they're trying.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get either of his elbows to work
properly. The upper joint on both elbows is frozen and/or glued so
tight that I couldn't break them free. I worked on these until I
thought the elbows would snap, and they still wouldn't free up. That
meant he lost a ton of posing ability, and that was a real disappointment.
Both figures did stand great on their own though, and I would have still
had more fun posing Luke if it hadn't been for another issue...
Outfit - Leia ***1/2; Luke ***
Leia's outfit includes her basic white gown, along with her very cool
boots. The gown is well tailored, and is made from a high quality yet
thin fabric that flows nicely. She has the hood in back, but it
doesn't include a wire around the edge, so I didn't find any good uses for
it. If it had included the wire, I'm betting she would have squeaked a
four star score here, even with such a basic costume. Again, that's
largely due to the cool boots.
Luke also has cool boots, and a MUCH more complicated uniform. The
shirt and pants look terrific, and are fitted nicely. The t-shirt
looks good, and he has some really amazing boot sculpts, as I think I've
mentioned several times. So what pulls his score down a half
star? It's that damn belt and holster.
In fact, the belt and holster almost pull this score down to **1/2 stars,
and the only thing keeping it from dropping that far is the work on the rest
of the clothing. If I were grading just the belt, it would get **.
The belt has some very cool pouches around the perimeter, but none of
these can be opened. The buckle stayed in place pretty well for me,
but it's removable as well.
The holster has a strap that should fit over the blaster, and into a
small hole in the front of the fake leather. It doesn't. The
blaster doesn't fit low enough in the holster to allow this (the cut out
section does not make room for the scope), and that means you have to tuck
it off someplace else.
On top of that, the tie down on the bottom of the holster is very likely
to break for just about everybody. Mine broke almost immediately out
of the package, and that's the number one thing to annoy the Hell out of
me. When I pay that kind of money, I expect it to make it out of the
package in one piece.
The problem with the tie down is the size of the rivet head that is
supposed to hold the two pieces of strap together. This small 'ball'
is almost as wide as the strap is, which means that the hole punched for it
to go through has very little fake leather around it. Mine was even
punched off center, which meant that it was no good right from the start,
with one edge non-existent. I was able to fake it for a few minutes,
but it finally broke completely apart. That's completely unacceptable,
and I'm sure that when I call Sideshow on Monday, they'll happily replace it
- but I have no confidence that any of them won't have this problem.
Accessories -***1/2
Both figures come with some great goodies, although Leia is much lighter
than Luke.
She has her regular blaster, plus the battle damaged stolen Stormtrooper
blaster she carried briefly. Both of these weapons have fantastic
sculpts, and the trooper blaster even has a folding stock! You can
pose her holding it either way.
She also has the small Death Star Plans doohickey, and the exclusive
includes a pair of the handcuffs used on her when she was captured.
These cuffs come apart from each other, to make it easier to place them on
her arms. I can't say these cuffs really make the exclusive all that
much more attractive than the regular release though.
Luke comes packin' quite a bit more. There is his blaster, which is
another fantastic sculpt. These are some of the very best Star Wars
sixth scale weapons I've ever seen, and give the Medicom stuff a real run
for the money.
He has the usual two light sabers, one lit and one not. They look
good in his hands, and the unlit version can be hung on his belt.
There are two additional hand sculpts, one left and one right. The
right is designed to hold the blaster, while the left is designed to be
gesturing. I had a very tough time getting the hands swapped, and this
was really the only negative with any of the accessories.
He also has the cut stump for his right hand, and the exclusive version
comes with the auto-tourniquet used on his arm. That's a nice
edition, which makes the exclusive worthwhile.
Both figures come with a display stand, but you know how I feel about
using display stands unless it's absolutely necessary.
Fun Factor - Leia ***1/2; Luke **1/2
Leia is surprising sturdy, with some terrific accessories and improved
articulation. She was a lot more fun out of the box than her poor
brother, who suffered from the easily damaged holster, and bad elbows.
Value - **1/2
Fifty five bucks seems to be the norm for the regular figures these days,
and I can live with that. Compare what you're getting here at this
price with the quality that Medicom or Hot Toys is doing at much higher
price points, and you won't feel bad about the cost at all. Of course,
it helps to pick up the exclusive at this price.
Things to Watch Out For -
That damn holster tie down! I'm betting that breaking it is going to
be a common occurrence, because of the size of the ball that has to fit
through the hole. It's very easy to tear it loose completely while
you're posing him, so take care!
Also take care putting the blaster in the holster. The funky cut
out section did not work well for me at all, and did not allow the gun to
rest far enough down inside the holster to connect the strap. When
you're putting it in place, try not to damage the fake leather of the
holster.
Overall - Leia ***1/2; Luke **1/2
At the beginning of the review, I mentioned that my initial opinion
changed once I had these guys opened up. Until then, I was not
particularly enamored with Leia, but I thought Luke looked like a huge
improvement.
The big difference is that once they were out of the box and I was able
to pose them, I found all the real pluses and minuses. Luke's sculpt
was warped, the holster was a huge issue, and I was not happy about having
elbows that wouldn't work. It's possible that you'll get one without
some or all of these problems (although I think the problems with the
holster tie down are going to be pretty universal), and so you're personal
score might be higher. But I can only judge the one I received, and
that one turned out to be a disappointment in many ways. In the
individual categories, he had some real pluses that managed to keep the
single issues from being to major. But when I look back at the overall
figure, and my overall impressions once I was done posing him, he ended up
getting a much lower overall score. With three versions of Luke
produced, they still haven't managed to hit a home run.
Leia didn't look all that exciting in the box, but once I had her out I
had a great time posing her. She was much more interesting to
photograph, and I think she's going to look much, much better on the
shelf. I don't need another Leia (although if they'd like to do a Hoth
version, I won't complain), but I still hope we see them get a Luke out that
really wows me.
Score Recap:
Packaging - ***
Sculpt - Leia ***1/2; Luke ***
Paint - Leia ***1/2; Luke ***
Articulation - Leia * **1/2; Luke **1/2
Outfit - Leia ***1/2; Luke ***
Accessories - ***1/2
Fun Factor - Leia ***1/2; Luke **1/2
Value - **1/2
Overall - Leia ***1/2; Luke **1/2
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