I’m not going to re-review this figure because this is a straight-up repaint of the TSC 050 Naboo Soldier figure from the previous year.  If you want a more in-depth review of this figure, please consult that review as the figures are identical save for the fact that this 30th Anniversary Collection figure wears a red uniform, and that The Saga Collection (TSC) figure wears a yellow uniform.  The repaint doesn’t even represent different characters.  It’s just an on-screen uniform variation of the same anonymous character class.  I will give a thumbnail recap of the previous review in case you’re too lazy for the clicking.  As a soldier, this figure is pretty lousy, but as a generic background mechanic/technician in a Naoboo hangar display, it’s serviceable, and a 6 out of 10 overall. 

I will dedicate the rest of this review to a recap of how the figure came about.  This Naboo Soldier was part of a seven figure repaint wave for the 30th Anniversary Collection (TAC).  You may be incredulous at this next sentence, but there was a time when Hasbro’s motivations for repaint wave were not financial.  Sometimes repaint waves were necessitated because retail demand for product outpaced Hasbro’s ability to crank out new waves.  The waves were selling through too quickly and this was before 2008’s liquidity crisis when retail still considered unused shelf space a mortal sin.  Nowadays, retail seems utterly unfazed by empty pegs/shelves.  It’s illiquid and stagnant inventory that scares the britches off retail in 2020.  Anyway, back to the time prior to the financial system almost melting us down to martial law.  In order to keep up with retail demand, Hasbro had to resort to repaint waves. Alternatively, production issues within Hasbro, or their factories, demanded repaint waves.  We saw such planned waves annually from 2006 through 2008, likely due to demand, and then again in 2011, but that was likely due to production issues.

So that explains the why for this wave, but it does does not answer the reasoning behind the character selection.  Hasbro actually solicited the fan sites, who, in turn, tried to faithfully report the demands of their readers and/or members. So, how, exactly, did we end up with a cranberry colored repaint of 2006’s “Banana Trooper”, which peg warmed mightily, just one year later?  IT’S BECAUSE OF YOU!  Maybe not you specifically, but you collectively.  Fans were legitimately asking for the “other” Naboo Soldier almost immediately after they received the yellow version.  Fans are terrible.  I was personally apoplectic.  Not because I didn’t particularly care for the TSC figure on which it was based, which I didn’t.  Not because I’m not trilled by repaint waves in general, which I’m not.  I was upset because this is the 30th Anniversary Collection.  30th Anniversary of what?  A NEW HOPE!  Despite this, we had neither a coin of an Episode IV Princess Leia nor Chewbacca, both of which could have been accomplished with straight repacks.  We didn’t have decent modern movie based versions of Luke or Han in Stormtrooper disguise, but we did have comic book painted renditions which could have satisfied that need with an easy repaint.  I was particularly upset with this, one of the worst figures of the repaint wave, because it represented a huge missed opportunity to get some needed Episode IV characters into the line that was honoring Episode IV.