The first modern Princess Leia figure was bad.  Notoriously bad.  This bad:

Three years later when Kenner promised a new Princess Leia figure with an all new likeness, it was cause for celebration.  Finally, the “monkey face” Leia could be retired.  The Freeze Frame line has a special place in my heart.  It brought us so many deep cut characters to include, somewhat unbelievably, our only Original Trilogy Mon Mothma figure. But another reason I have so much affection for it is that it delivered to us what I consider our first true modern Episode IV Luke and Leia figures.  As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t consider the stylized “buff” 1995 figures to be congruent with the realistically styled figured that followed.

Looking at this Princess Leia now, it pales in comparison to last year’s VC316 - Princess Leia Organa, but for 1998, it was a huge step forward.  Everything about the figure does a much better job of portraying a young Carrie Fisher.  Keep in mind that “better” is a relative term.  It’s not great, but it’s certainly more feminine both facially and bodily.  Again, try to project back to 1998 when this figure was released.  The best analogy I can come up with is to paraphrase a joke Eddie Murphy told in Raw.  If you give a starving man a Saltine, he’ll think it’s a Ritz.  This release also takes a bold stance on what the Alderaanian senator dons under her skirt.  I don’t think it’s ever been canonically addressed, but most Princess Leia figures assumed it was white leggings.  This Freeze Frame Leia throws itself firmly in the same controversial bare legged camp as Elizabeth Banks’s portrayal in Zack and Miri.

By 1998, you could take the POTF2 out of the figures, but you couldn’t take the figures out of POTF2.  While the proportions of the characters were scaled down and more realistic, the items in their orbit still retained some gigantism.  These blasters are absolutely ridiculous to the point of being comical.  They almost provide justification for owning a carded sample of this figure all on their own.  The included E-11 is nonsensically massive.  It would be big if it were mounted to an AT-ST, but during this era, it was a handheld weapon.  Interestingly, Kenner added a foregrip to the E-11.  It’s a little reminiscent of the magazine on the vintage Kenner Stormtrooper blaster.  It also allows the figure to perform a proto two handed weapon grip.  It’s not a realistic pose by any means.  Leia is more holding the rifle across her body.

The silliness with the weapons does not end with the E-11.  The sporting blaster is even more ridiculous.  Unbelievably, it’s longer than the version that came with the 1995 figure.  Leia never would have been able to ambush the Stormtroopers in the back hallways of the Tantive IV.  They would have spotted at least two feet of the barrel of her blaster protruding from her hiding spot.  I honestly have no idea what Kenner was thinking here.  It’s worth noting that when Hasbro pulled the Star Wars line under their umbrella in 2000 for the Power of the Jedi line, they seemed to overcorrect on the scaling of the weapons.  We went from these gigantic accessories to micro-blasters in the blink of an eye.

Again, this is better than the 1995 release, but it’s not good.  It wasn’t a great figure in 1998.  It’s difficult to stand because the hard plastic skirt effectively eliminates any range of motion of the legs.  It’s so restrictive that I wasn’t sure if the legs had any articulation at all at first.  I had to push the pliability of the skirt to the point that I thought it was going to tear to determine that the hips do indeed feature basic flat plane articulation, which was standard for the time.  Another POTF2 affectation is a bit of an annoyance.  The figure is sculpted permanently listing to stage right.  Truly neutral poses are not possible as a result.  I gave the 1995 rendition a 1 score, so I’ll give this one a 3 out of 10.  It deserves at least that much distance from “monkey face” Leia.