We are still basking in the joy of the arrival of the Sail Barge, but I’m taking this opportunity to return to the Legacy Collection (Blue) line to discuss this “playset.”  At least it’s Tatooine-based, so it’s not completely random.  But more importantly, Hasbro has recently rekindled their interest in producing environments that will expand display options for collections.  Look no further than the recently announced Jabba’s Palace Adventure Set (sponsored link).  Hasbro seemed to try producing a film-accurate set piece that would serve as a perfect collector-driven backdrop to your figures.  This is something for which many of us have been asking for a long time. 

Hasbro has tried many times to produce items that generally fell short of success because they attempted to satisfy both kids and collectors. We’ll get something that may works well as a backdrop, but is compromised aesthetically by unsightly action features or brightly colored accessories.  They would tend to not work well enough to satisfy those interested in launching missiles at invading troops, while also offending those who are looking for a higher grade environment to show off their action figure collections.

Here we have multipack from 2008 that fails on many fronts, and has perhaps only a couple of redeeming qualities.  Most important to this set is the homestead itself.  This is clearly the centerpiece, with it being the very reason for the existence of the set in the first place.  What did we get?  Well, if you don’t spend too much time analyzing the home itself, it makes for a decent environment set piece.  There’s not a whole lot to it. It’s just a plastic shell sculpted to look like the main entrance to the Lars Homestead.  It’s not painted in a particular striking manner, and there’s almost nothing you can do with it, short of having a figure stand in the doorway.  If it looks good enough, that might be all you want.  If you detach the dome from the plastic base, this is what you get.  You’ll probably want to detach it from the base, because it looks like someone spilled some wet cake batter on the floor. It has rounded contours, making it nearly impossible to stand any figures on it.  It seems to serve only as a place to anchor the table, which is just a blue square top, in the middle of the base, invisible when covered by the dome.  Presumably this is meant to be the kitchen table where Owen angrily tells Luke to forget something he just told him 5 seconds before.  There are no chairs, no meal accessories, and no decorations or anything.  You just get the blobby base, with a plain blue table.  Awesome!  Obviously Hasbro wasn’t looking to appeal to kids with this set, but at the same time they seemed to forget what collectors would be interested in.

Included in the set are 3 repacked/repainted figures. You get 2 repacks of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru (minus the blue milk accessory).  These passed for acceptable figures back in the 90’s, but to repack them in an exclusive collector-driven set (for $50!) was a terrible thing to do to humanity.  11 years later, and we are still looking for proper ANH Owen and Beru figures.  This was a chance to at least give collectors a decent upgrade.  Instead, it was just infuriating.  The figures’ only value today is that they are still the sole existing ANH versions of Luke’s aunt and uncle, so you’ll pretty much need them until something better comes along by the year 2525, if man were still alive.  To add further insult, the “best” figure, at least by contemporary standards, is the utterly craptastic sandtrooper repaint/kitbash/whatever that may date back to as early as the VOTC stormtrooper from 2004.  Honestly, I don’t care.  Hasbro has failed us on stormtroopers and sand troopers since day one.  Hopefully they’re on their way to correcting this with the new Rogue One trooper coming this year in TVC.  We’ll see how that goes.

These 3 figures were basically terrible, if not downright insulting, but Hasbro included a couple of items that have some value, while not being particularly awesome.  There’s a moisture vaporator, which is a repaint (or perhaps more accurately, an un-paint) of the accessory that came with the TAC 30-18 Luke Skywalker figure.  Nothing wrong with more vaporators, but when you have the two versions side-by-side, this one is a bit of a disappointment.  The other item is Hasbro’s first attempt at a womprat.  It’s most famous because Luke liked to bragg about his disdain for them to anyone who would listen, regaling his bored audience with tales of wonton extermination of these majestic beasts.  What must be based on comic artwork as a source, we have a womprat “sculpture” that has no articulation.  It’s neat that we have it, but Hasbro went cheap on this, just like almost everything else in the set.

Overall, the dome (minus the stupid base) is the best part of the set, along with the vaporator and the womprat.  None of these pieces are without problems, but they’re much better then the horrible figures that were included.  This is a bad set, but if you have it, you can use some of the parts to get a decent result, but it’s still pretty bad.  I’ll give this set a 4.  Whatever value is offered in the included pieces, is lost from the exorbitant retail price.

I would love to see Hasbro revise the Lars Homestead sometime soon, and give this iconic Star Wars location its proper respect in the line.