I don’t know what to tell you guys.  This happened.  This literally happened.

I’ve spent a whole two minutes trying to Google the back story to this figure, and couldn’t find what I was looking for, so you’re going to have to rely on my aging memory.  I’m sure I’ll get a few minor details and at least one big detail wrong, but hey, urban legends don’t write themselves.  The Power of the Force line was revived in 1995.  Even though Hasbro gave no indication that this was a successor or sequel line, fans quickly named it “Power of the Force 2” or POTF2 for short.  Fans were very correct to do this.  What was offered in 1995 should never be confused with the legendary POTF ‘85 line. 

This relaunched POTF2 line was barely five minutes old when rumors began to swirl of an “Attack C-3PO” and an “Attack R2-D2”.  Do you get this?  The line was just starting.  There were dozens of core characters that Hasbro, via subsidiary Kenner, still needed to tackle, but despite this, they were considering spinning off and making totally unnecessary, invented, and contrived versions of characters that had already been released.  That was how Hasbro would milk the core characters back in the day.  Today, Hasbro just gives us Darth Vader in every incremental scale between two nanometers and 1:5.999999 scale.

Well, cooler heads must have prevailed.  Attacks 3PO and R2 never materialized, nor did the community ever get an indication of what those designations were supposed to mean.  I feel like I vaguely remember seeing a prototype C-3PO years later, but Google failed me for a second time.  As the story goes, the Attack R2-D2 was repurposed into this…thing...that was simply named R5-D4 minus any “attack” designation.  R5-D4 is an important character to have as an action figure, especially in the days when the Star Wars movies numbered three.  Part of this importance stems from the fact that R5-D4 was one of the new figures that helped vintage Kenner lineup expand from twelve to twenty figures.  So when this monstrosity was unleashed, it was very disappointing.  It took ten years before Hasbro would finally give us a proper R5-D4 with the TSC 032 figure.  It’s why it’s really unfortunate when a figure totally misses the mark.  It may take a decade plus, or perhaps never, for redress. 

Even in the era of POTF2, it was hard to argue that this figure served any purpose aside from being a placeholder for a proper R5-D4.  The figure is entirely too large.  It suffers from elephantiasis of the third leg in order to accommodate the rocket launching mechanism that exactly zero people asked for.  The upper half is basically the equivalent of one of those Kinder Joy eggs minus Herr Doctor Tinkletush’s schokolade num num bits.  This means that the dome does not rotate (and also means no candy).  The last insult is that in the days before Hasbro figured out how to execute a dirty wash, they gave this figure a good speckling of black dots instead.  The only thing I will commend is the detailing on the inside of the shell.  It’s a neat little splash of high contract color that could have been easily bypassed.  This figure is a 1 out of 10 for no other reason than 1 is as low as our grading goes.

We grade figures on the level and not for camp, irony, or comedic reasons.  Having said that, this figure could be appreciated for just those reasons.  I’m happy to have the orange carded sample above as a reminder of a very silly moment in the history of the line.