You know this review is going to be as much about the Special Editions as the figure itself.  Truth be told I don’t entirely hate the Special Editions.  Not at all.  I rather like the cleaned up special effects.  The restored scene with Biggs in the Yavin hangar provides tremendous narrative value especially since the context of the Anchorhead scene was deleted.  I don’t even mind the added Jabba scene in Docking Bay 94, as excremental as the effects are. It was an addition and provided me more A New Hope.  I would take a four hour director’s cut of A New Hope if you gave it to me.  Lastly, I like making Mos Eisley look like the bustling spaceport it was meant to be in wide shots.  What I loathe is the gratuitous insertion of CGI screen barf just because ILM could.  The injection of the ASP-7 Droids is just that:

I do like the Republic Transport in the background, however.

I don’t like the design of the ASP-7 at all.  I feel it’s very far off the Star Wars aesthetic.  It pulls me out of the movie entirely for a moment, and I don’t think it was particularly well executed.  It looks every bit as artificial as it is. This scene portended what Star Wars would become for a generation, more Roger Rabbit than The Empire Strikes Back.

So what happens when you take a crude, gratuitous, unimaginative CGI design and marry it with POTF2 aesthetics?  An action figure abomination that can’t even be appreciated ironically like some of the other “worst of the worst” figures.  This figure stems from an era when the Star Wars line was still “toys” and not adult collectibles.  I weep for the child that received this figure.  It can do practically nothing save for posing in a permanent hunched stance while clamping on to its lone accessory, some supply rods (YAY!).  In profile, this figure could be the universal pictogram for someone with a bad back. The head, which borrows from the uninspired design, is a blank plate that clips on to the neck.  You can only move it up and down a few degrees after which it pops off.  Swivel shoulders, swivel hips that can’t be engaged because the figure won’t stand if you do, and no waist joint whatsoever.  This figures is anti-fun.

You know trouble is brewing when a figure of a never before made Star Wars character doesn’t sell from the very beginning.  This ASP-7 figure peg warmed mightily back in 1997 from the instant it showed up in stores.  This is literally my least favorite figure in the history of the line.  I’m bothered by its existence.  As for the score: