Hasbro definitely did the main characters to death in TPM, and most of them didn’t have much of a wardrobe change throughout the film.  Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Maul took their outer robes off at the end of the film.  Anakin wore padawan clothing in the last scene.  Jar Jar had no change to his outfit.  Hasbro could have made “definitive” figures of all of these characters from the get go, but added accessories, and slight difference in the paint and sculpting to so they could re-release ad nauseum what were basically the same figures. 

In Anakin’s case, Hasbro did release his Padawan outfit once in this line, but did his slave outfit 6 times in the year or so of the line’s run.  In addition to the original release with the backpack, we got this version which included a starfighter helmet and cockpit control assembly, the Tatooine Showdown cinema scene figure (running with the backpack), the Mos Espa Encounter cinema scene figure (no accessories), the podracer pack-in figure (non removable podrace helmet), and the Naboo Fighter pilot pack-in figure (non removable starfighter helmet).  The base figures were almost the same (slight retools and repaints).  After the Episode I line was over, Hasbro released a version with hinged knees in POTJ, and then repainted it three times in separate releases over the years through the TPM3D phase in 2012.  At that same time, Hasbro did make one more sculpt (a regression, if you ask me) which included a nonsense jetpack in the Movie Heroes line. 

Here we are in 2019, and we’re still stuck with 1999/2000 era figures for Anakin Skywalker from 99% of The Phantom Menace.  They did update the Padawan figure for TVC when they released VC80, and it’s pretty great.  I know it wouldn’t exactly fly off the shelves, but Hasbro should have figured out a way to get us a definitive super-articulated update of Anakin Skywalker in his slave outfit with all the appropriate accessories (podrace helmet, starfighter helmet, wrench, backpack, japor snippet - maybe even a swap out head with the post race grimy face) in TVC.

Well, that’s actually most of what there is to say.  The figure itself may be the best version of this Anakin available, mostly because of the accessories.  The figure has 5POA.  It looks passably like young Jake Lloyd.  It can sit in the cockpit of a Naboo Starfighter, and the hands can hold (although not grip tightly) the control sticks.  The sculpt has some nice textures in the clothing, and the paint wash helps bring out the details in the figure.

The original release had the important backpack (and less important grease gun), while the POTJ version came with what may be the tool he used to fix his podracer mid-race.  But with this figure, the removable helmet is neat, and fits his head perfectly.  The cockpit assembly fits right into the Episode I Naboo Starfighter, and has articulated flight sticks so that they can be moved into better position to be held by the underarticulated figure.  You can also pretend he moves the controls to try spinning.  I always loved whenever Hasbro includes accessories with one toy release that are meant to interact with a different toy altogether.  This control panel is, however, rendered moot with the release of the TPM3D Naboo Starfighter.  By the way, both ships are pretty great.  The EP1 version has lights and sounds, while the TPM3D version has a much better (and screen-accurate) cockpit and droid socket. 

It may not be at the top of people’s wish lists, but we do need a modern TPM Anakin.  The two base molds that Hasbro created are each about 20 years old, and are woefully outdated.  I’ll give the figure a 4, because of the decent accessories, and note that it is possibly (and very marginally) the best of many versions of this character available.  Basically it’s coin flip, but you’ll need at least one of them in your display since Hasbro has yet to do better.