Please excuse the interruption to our ROTS20 coverage.  The TVC Howler came into play as we launched our feature, and we had to get it out there.  But back to the business at hand.  Enough about 10/10 super-articulated beasts from 2025, we need to talk about terrible figures from 20 years ago!

Fans first got to see Yoda’s lightsaber skills in AOTC when he shocked audiences with his prowess while he dueled Count Dooku.  He participated in a much more dramatic and higher stakes fight in ROTS when he battled Darth Sidious in the Senate chamber.  But between those events, we saw Yoda oversee the Battle of Kashyyyk.  He didn’t participate in the actual fight, as he was in the command center high above.  But there was a memorable moment when he activated his lightsaber and decapitated a pair of clones seeking to execute Order 66.  I always found it funny that Tarfful and Chewbacca just kind of shrugged off this rather abrupt assassination attempt with little thought, and just immediately took Yoda to his shuttle.  They were kind of like, “Huh, that was odd. Welp, guess we should take you back to your ship, tiny guy.”  And that was that.

ROTS III-03 Yoda is intended to portray him during his stay on Kashyyyk, and presumably, the moment he avoided being 66’ed.  As promised, it’s a terrible figure.  There’s very little it gets right, and a lot that it gets wrong - even for its day.  First of all, the head sculpt actually isn’t bad.  And the figure is at its best if you take away the plastic outer robe, and pose him with his lightsaber.  Although he lacks super-articulation (which was not the style at the time), he can still pull off a pretty nifty battle pose or two.  He’s got ball jointed head, shoulders, and ankles, as well as swivel hips and wrists.  But the good stuff more or less ends there.

Once you put the plastic robe on Yoda, the illusion of non-terribleness dissipates like a Marrok Fart Cloud.  Yoda is essentially a statue with the sculpted robes restricting any meaningful articulation - which is already quite limited.  His hands are left with only two options:  a double-fisted grip on his lightsaber at the ready position, or a double-fisted grip on…something other than the lightsaber.  It’s an unfortunate pose that is almost unavoidable. 

While he comes with his lightsaber, he lacks a gimer stick, which he uses for 99 percent of the time he is on Kashyyyk.  He does, however, come with a weird Wookiee-styled tripod cannon.  It “fires” a red projectile - but only if you can get the contraption to stay together and work.  It’s possible, it just requires patience.  I’d recommend skipping this exercise and instead using your time more wisely to clean out dead insects from inside a ceiling light fixture.

I don’t recall this being a good Yoda even upon release in 2005, but maybe I just forgot to remember.  If he came with soft goods robes, it probably would have made a huge difference.  I’ll give it a 2/10.  You should skip this figure if you see it in Kay Bee Toys.