Hasbro’s engineers have been working on getting a proper version of the B1 Battle Droid since they received intel on the character for the manufacture and release of the “Sneak Preview” STAP with Battle Droid. Rumor has it, the 25+ year attempt at converting the CGI design into 3.75” plastic has driven mad over 2/3 of these engineers.  And the those that staved off insanity did so at the expense of their dignity.  Most of them moved on to work on the Black Series Overly Large Gigantor Scale dollies, so they could work within more forgiving parameters.  This was like when Stephen Hawking gave up on the Theory of Everything because it was too hard, and instead decided to spend his remaining years working on the recipe for the perfect soft boiled egg.  And here we are, in 2025, about to receive a half-measure upgrade to give us a work-in-progress Battle Droid.  We can put a man on the moon, but this has confounded our best and brightest for over a quarter century.  It’s a disgrace!

What we gon’ do right here is go back…Way back…Back into time.  And we’re going to pretend it’s 2005 and this is a new figure, just released, and fresh on the wall of pegs at Toys R Us.  It’s awesome!  Yet…not the best one that was available, and still far from good enough.  A lot of people, to this day, like the Episode I battle droids.  I’m not a huge fan, but I get it.  They are built well, but posing options are limited.  I feel that the best Battle Droid by 2005 was in the 2001 POTJ line; the one with the red “security” flashes.  Yes, it had arms that were preposed to perform the THWG.  This is a no-no today, but at the time, and specifically with this droid, it was welcome.  The POTJ figure also had a double-jointed neck, joints at the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees.  It was the most realistic looking Battle Droid, and also relatively stable.  Again - limited options, but it was the best those engineers could do and to me, it was a huge upgrade to the EP1 figure.

In 2002, we got the “Blue” Saga 02-11 Battle Droid (Arena Battle).  This one essentially took the idea of the POTJ figure, but nixed the knees for some reason.  Perhaps Hasbro thought it would be sturdier.  They were wrong.  It was nevertheless pretty good, and it was released in two variants, ostensibly tan (TPM) and red (AOTC).  To my horrible color vision, I found the colors to be more reminiscent of mustard and ketchup, than the more muted on screen colors.

For this figure, Hasbro repainted the Saga figure, giving it more screen accurate coloring, with some excellent weathering details, and even some lettering on the backpack.  Deco-wise, this was far and away the best Battle Droid at the time, I’m just curious as to why, if they were going for a repaint rather than an all new sculpt, they used the Saga figure instead of the POTJ figure.  The only real gripe with that POTJ version was that it had a lever in the back that moved the arms up and down.  Definitely didn’t need that, and it was good that it was dropped for the 2002 figure - but sadly so were the knees.

Anyway, the figure certainly isn’t bad, it’s just yet another imperfect version of the character.  It looks nice, can perform a THWG.  Comes with a blaster that it grips well, a blaster effect that can either enhance the blaster to simulate firing, or connect to a peg on the chest to simulate getting blasted.  It also comes with a forest base, which is a nice change of pace from the ship/hallway base we’ve already seen several times in this retrospective.

Hasbro still has plenty of work to do on the Battle Droid.  Hopefully the TVC 4-pack is a step closer, but let’s stop with the half-measures and get a proper definitive figure already.  5/10.