Editor’s Note:  This review has been updated with a second look…

Original Review:  Chris 1/27/2014 04:45 AM

Let me preface this review by saying that if you click on the first image and use the right arrow key to navigate through the gallery, you will get the full intent of the image selection which borrows from a little gag made famous by my ol’ pal, Ruadh.

If you are reading this at a later date, the exact day of publication of this review is a Monday.  Since we all hate Mondays anyway, I thought it would be the perfect day of the week to review the latest fart Hasbro has deposited directly into our collective mouths in the name of the Stormtrooper character.  Why this TRILOGY-spanning ultimate army builder is given such second class treatment by Hasbro, while the occasionally derided Clone Trooper gets four star treatment in the adult oriented collector line is getting tiresome.  My desire for pithiness right now is in direct contradiction with our oath to keep front page material profanity free as a certain scatological colloquialism would be my comment to Hasbro right now. 

Wave 2, in general, of the Black Series line has more than its fair share of misfires.  For that reason, we have decided that in addition to our own reviews, we will also be soliciting guest celebrity reviews.  In this case we have reached out to Michael Rooker, from the movie Mallrats.  Please read what Mr. Rooker has to say to this Stormtrooper figure HERE and then come back.  I will be waiting.

Thank you, Mr. Rooker. So rather than belabor the faults of this lousy figure, I’ll just cut to the chase.  This is the VC14 Sandtooper figure minus the shoulder pauldron.  So not only is it saddled with the decade-old arm and hand tooling that is limiting to the point of being useless for all but a few poses, it also has a hole in the back to accommodate a nonexistent backpack and is missing the paint applications to the ab plate.  As I’ve mention before, for the 3.75” scale, the way Hasbro differentiates the Stormtrooper from the Sandtooper on the common torso is to paint the dots on the ab plate on the former and skip that execution on the latter.  The true Sandtrooper armor does not have the ab plate at all.  This is actually reflected in the 6” line tooling.  And finally, the only merit to this half-hearted delivery is that if has a non-removable helmet which is preferred by the majority of collectors.  BUT, that helmet sits too high because it makes room for the pauldron that’s not there.

As if the Sandtrooper switcheroo were not enough, the execution of the figure is poor.  The limb plastic looks dirty with occasional inclusions in the plastic.  The paint applications are sloppy with overspray and random unintentional misapplied paint.  Were it not for this website, I would never have purchased this figure.  It will never see the light of day in my display.  1 out of 10.  Essentially a worthless figure to me.

Updated Review:  Bret - 11/05/2018 07:05 AM

This is one of those figures that I have no interest in reviewing.  We already reviewed this sandtrooper mold twice recently,  for our Vintage Collection retrospective.  Both of those figures WERE SANDTROOPERS.  We all know that Hasbro need to get the most out of tooling in order to reduce costs and get the best return on investment.  But as Chris alluded to, this is not acceptable when it comes to certain marquis figures, like the revered Stormtrooper.  It would have been less egregious (but still annoying), if Hasbro created an excellent Stormtrooper, and then repurposed it as a sandtrooper.  Not OK, but not the end of the world.  This stormtrooper is the end of the world.  THEN END OF THE WORLD I TELL YOU!

Completely unintentionally, we’re doing an updated review of this figure on a Monday, which, if you read above, was the day that it was originally reviewed.  The figure is terrible, just like Mondays.  It suffers from many problems, outlined by Chris.  First and foremost, it should be a stormtrooper, but since it was created (with errors) as a sandtrooper, Hasbro merely left the mold as is, just dropping the pauldron and backpack.  That would be all well and good except for the huge slot left exposed on the back of the armor.  For the record, I recreated the specific series of images in order to preserve Chris’s homage to our former colleague, and so that the reference would still make sense. 

The hands are made of rigid and unforgiving plastic.  Previous figures can barely (if at all) grip a standard blaster with two hands.  This figure comes with Hasbro’s 3 part blaster, with the moveable stock.  It’s impossble for the figure to grip the barrel in the normal configuration.  The figure also comes with a long rifle, which is a bit surprising considering that many other figures in the Black Series have lacked.  Either way, the dated articulation and crappy hands don’t give you a lot of realistic posing options.  The blaster doesn’t fit into the holster.  The paint apps are sloppy, and the plastic is cheap.

It would be nice if Hasbro could update the Imperial Stormtrooper and give us something better and worthy of the flagship line.  What’s that now?  They are?  Oh.  Well, then forget this stupid figure.  Seriously, forget it.  Cross your fingers and hope Hasbro finally got it right in 2019 with the recently announced TVC Imperial Stormptrooper.  But at least we got to use those neat Space Walls for the gallery!

Verdict: Resculpt (High priority) - [Already announced for 2019] 

Really, this is not the stormtrooper you are looking for.  It’s cheaply done and not worthy of your time.  But click our eBay link anyway and go shopping for something else.

Verdict Guide:
Re-sculpt = The figure is not definitive, and a new version should be developed.
Re-issue = This version is definitive (or close enough), and shows sufficient secondary market demand to warrant a straight repack.
No Action = This release does not require new attention.