So far in these throwback reviews, we’ve covered figures that broke the internet and figures that broke the community.  This is a figure that broke me.  Not because it’s a figure of a scantily clad woman (you pervs).  It’s because this was one of those figures for which the entire planet would be out hunting.  The hype for this “Slave” Leia was off the charts before it even shipped.  There were rumors that some toy department managers were holding this figure back from the floor, and would only allow customers they deemed worthy to purchase it.  “Worthy” was presumably a designation that could be paid for.  I personally knew of a Toys R Us manager who insisted that all Starting Lineup and Star Wars cases went to his office first for cherry picking before they went to the floor.  I saw the Starting Lineup evidence in person, so I considered this rumor valid upon hearing it.  I would later have the practice confirmed as fact.

This figure was my first indicator that my relationship with the hobby wasn’t exactly healthy at times.  I wasn’t excited that this hugely anticipated figure was coming out.  Instead, I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to get it to the point of agita.  It’s not the last time I would get this sense about an upcoming figure.  Most recently,  I remember feeling this way in 2010 when the Gamorrean Guard was coming out.  Thankfully, the ability to pre-order individual figures online these days has completely mitigated this point of anxiety for me so that I don’t have to come to grips with this utter lack of proper perspective.  Saved from having to deal with my personal issues by technology.  SCORE!  But in 1997, brick and mortar stores were still the only practical option for purchasing figures.  So when word came out that a store some 100+ miles away had the figure in-stock, I called, got them to hold me one, and had myself a road trip.  Did someone say something about a lack of perspective?  But if you think I’m a mental case for driving 200 miles round trip for a single figure, I actually found a second “Slave” Leia on the pegs when I got there, so I got two.  IN YOUR FACE!

Of course all this gnashing of teeth and worry was for naught.  This Princess Leia Organa as Jabba’s Prisioner figure would become plentiful in time, as is the case with most figures when a line is thriving.  It was even carried forward into the “Freeze Frame” line look in 1998.  As mentioned last week, the only time figures might be scarce is when they are in the dreaded “last wave” of a particular line look.  Today, this figure is nothing to write home about.  It’s another gargantuan POTF2 6POA offering.  You know this already.  My open sample, which was just opened the day prior to this review and purchased for $7 the previous Wednesday, has difficulty standing.  You may have noticed in some of the pictures above that the figure had to be precariously balanced on the tippy toe of its left foot.  The side profile shots took me longer to shoot than some diorama photos because the figure kept falling over backward.  Due to the plastic skirt, the figure cannot sit even though Princess Leia spends a great deal of time sitting while wearing this garb.  On the positive side, the figure is decidedly womanly which wasn’t always achieved in the early POTF2 days.  Princess Leia figures tended to look more like Princess Vespa’s stunt double.  That womanly depiction isn’t Carrie Fisher, however.  This figure represents some sort of Amazonian goddess and not the diminutive Ms. Fisher.  I am going to float a theory that Gisele Bündchen was the model for the figure (and even then it’s too tall). 

Most of these early POTF2 figures get grades of 1 or 2 due to the ridiculous proportions.  This figure looks like a realistic human female, so it won’t suffer the same fate, but it is much too tall for Princess Leia.  So it gets a 4 out of 10 which is the baseline for minimally articulated figures with the “looks good” and “too tall” canceling each other out.  One last bit of northeast nostalgia about this review:  the aforementioned opener sample still had the original store price sticker on the bubble.  It was from Ames.