Here’s a mildly interesting piece of info:  I believe this may be the only figure named “Darth Vader” that shows the character during his pre-armor scenes.  Anakin was christened “Darth Vader” by Palpatine after he helps kill Mace Windu, and remained in this “Jedi” outfit throughout his assault on the Temple and until he was nearly killed by Obi-Wan on Mustafar.  Most ROTS figures of him are just named “Anakin Skywalker”, regardless of what scene during the film that the particular figure is meant to depict.  This is probably the second best figure made of Anakin from ROTS.  It is, however, easily beaten by VC13 Anakin Skywalker, but this still has some merit, and an important distinction.

Vader is super-articulated, except for the swivel elbows.  He also has swivel forearms instead of wrists.  A minor gripe, but generally a dated approach to articulation.  The sculpt is very good, with a decent face and likeness to Hayden Christensen.  The lightsaber can be gripped in either hand, and can also be positioned into basic two handed weapon grip (THWG).  The figure stands well, and can be posed in a decent, if not overwhelming, variety of positions.  The soft goods skirt allows for good range of motion of the ball-jointed hips.  The figure even has a ball-jointed waist.  If it had proper ball-jointed elbows, this might be a true winner of a figure.  But those swivel elbows are devastating.  Darth Vader comes with a lit saber as the only accessory.  He even has a peg hole in the belt, but did not come with an unlit hilt, as was the case with the Obi-Wan wave-mate figure.

This is meant as the companion to yesterday’s TAC 08-01 Obi-Wan Kenobi.  That figure is probably the best ROTS Obi-Wan to date (even surpassing the VC16 version).  As mentioned, this one has been surpassed, but is still worth looking at.  VC13 is a tremendous figure.  And while the face sculpt may miss the mark a bit, it has almost everything else you’d want in a Jedi figure.  An update by today’s standards would include rocker ankles, ball-jointed wrists, and FACE! tech, as well as a lightsaber hilt (utilizing the belt hook/hilt loop combo) and the pilot headset. 

But here’s the big reason why this TAC figure is still worthwhile.  While it’s generally a good figure (minus the swivel elbows), it’s the best pre-Mustafar Anakin/Darth Vader figure available.  Even though VC13 is definitely a better figure, it is limited by the “Sith Eyes.”  They’re pretty cool, but limit the figure to representing Vader on Mustafar, particularly after he wipes out the Separatist council.  VC13 isn’t accurate to any earlier part of the film, so that leaves TAC 08-02 as the best available.  Hasbro already gave us a near definitive AOTC Anakin Skywalker in TBS (orange) #03.  An all new sculpt, similar to that one, would be needed to get us somewhere close to a definitive ROTS Anakin.  And then they could do an alternate head to reflect “Darth Vader” Anakin.  Until then, the swivel elbows and lack of accessories drop this figure down to a 6, but don’t sleep on this figure completely.  It’s still pretty good, and worthy (for the time being) of your display.