Yay!

It’s Revenge of the Fifth 2025!  It seems some of our readers are disappointed in the lack of an ROTS anniversary acknowledgment from Hasbro.  Well, in lieu of that, we at Banthaskull have decided to jump into the breach and present to you a monthlong retrospective and celebration of the ROTS line from 2005.  We are going to squeeze as much as we possibly can before May comes to a close, so there’s a good chance that you will see multiple entries in a day.  So check back often to discuss these products.  They may bring back fond memories, or perhaps they may be terrible items that have not aged well.  Either way, it’s time for some PT love.

For those of you that have been with us for a bit, or peruse our older galleries, you may notice that we have pretty solid coverage of the (realistic) line going back through TVC 1.0, around 2010.  Yes, there are definitely gaps, and we are working to address those.  Going further back, you’ll notice that while our reviews of vehicles, playsets, and beasts need attention, we maintain solid coverage of basic figures going back to The Saga Collection from 2006.  But then it’s very hit or miss before that.  Banthaskull was in near-hibernation during the Dark Times (while Chris was working to keep the lights on with assists from CJ and a few other contributors).  But when TVC 2.0 was announced, we revved up the engines and began a reverse journey through the basic figure lines.  We even covered almost all of the 5POA figures from the ST, RO, and Solo.  But when we got to ROTS, we hit a wall.  Why?  Because we lacked the equipment and space to effectively photograph the curved plastic bubbles of the ROTS line.  It was an exhausting and futile effort for us.  And we stuck to our guns in our best attempt to only add complete galleries of items, to include packaging.  While we have skipped packaged shots of many big ticket items that we don’t possess sealed in our inventory, we rarely do this with basic figures.  So our methodical march backward in time ground to a halt, and we were left doing the occasional random item from whatever pre TSC item we had at our disposal.  It wasn’t too devastating because there was enough current TVC product to keep things moving forward. 

Then we decided to try again, due to ROTS20.  After some frustrating results, Chris and I decided to meet up at that alien monolith.  Placing our hands on the featureless structure we had our eureka moment.  We figured out a way to defy nature itself and capture decent photographs of the ROTS basic figure packaging.  So here we are.

There were something like 30-ish basic ROTS figures that were released for Midnight Madness, in advance of the film premiere.  A total of 68 basic figures - as well 5 additional significant running changes - were a lot for a single year - and that was with a late start holding off until the MM event.  And that doesn’t touch on the multipacks, vehicles, beasts, playsets, and exclusives.  It was a continuous and nearly overwhelming flow of new merchandise.

To launch our commemoration, we start with ROTS III-01, Obi-Wan Kenobi.  The figure itself was fun when it first came out, because it was the first version of Obi-Wan in his ROTS look.  His outfit was the same, but he had a new haircut!  As was typical for the 2000’s, the initial batch of new movie figures was much more kid-friendly than had been the norm for the previous “between” lines.  Later [Blue] Saga, as well OTC, gave us more “serious” collector-oriented products.  But this came to a temporary end to make room for the kiddies.  As such, many of the figures were sculpted with action features that prioritized play value over realism. 

Once you got beyond the “new look” for Obi-Wan, you probably realized pretty quickly that the figure was disappointing.  It has an action feature where you squeeze the legs together and it creates a lightsaber slashing motion where the waste twists and the arms move.  In order to make sure the lightsaber didn’t go flying out of the figure’s hand, they are sculpted together.  While this isn’t great, Hasbro did include an additional hand and an unlit hilt, to add some display options.

In spite of this effort, the figure was still lacking.  The sculpt was negatively affected by the action feature, with loose and wonky arm joints that are difficult to pose and look awful.  As was typical for the day, there was a distinct lack of lower body articualtion, aside from swivel hips - which were themselves hampered by being the trigger for the action feature.  Essentially, you can do very little to pose the figure, unless you are willing to mix the included parts with imagination and patience.  I lack the last 2 things, so this didn’t work for me.

Anyway, it was great to have so many figures on Day 1, and it was admittedly a delight to have a new Obi-Wan.  While the figure was lacking in 2005, and simply aged poorly almost immediately, it’s still notable for it’s place in the line’s history.