The Set

These Vintage Collection 3-packs are called “Special Action Figure Sets” as a callback to the similar product in the vintage Kenner line up.  Despite the naming, most of the ones released under the Vintage Collection banner have been decidedly pedestrian.  Some have even included POTF2 figures.  YUCK!  This set, however, is truly special.  If you are adverse to fan boy gushing, back out now.  We’ll pretend we didn’t even see you come in. 

I want to address the head sculpts up front since they have been a point of early contention among the fans.  While the hair color on the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker is too far to the blond side of the spectrum, I find all three head sculpts to be evocative of Luke Skywalker, and the PhotoReal paint applications make me want to punch my existing Luke Skywalker figures in the face.  They look ridiculous compared to the new figures.  With respect to the hair color on the Jedi Knight Luke, I would prefer Hasbro err on the side of blond as opposed to some of the chestnut brown versions that have been released.  This may be a personal bias due to the vintage Kenner figure having dark yellow hair.

The last overall subject to address is the packaging.  As with last year’s Dr. Aphra set, Hasbro used a “chromium” appearance on the front, back, and sides of the package to include the silver race tracks.  This is similar to the “chromium” chase covers on comics in the nineties.  It definitely gives the packaging a premium appearance, but I feel that it undermines the high contrast beauty of the vintage Kenner design, particularly with the race tracks.  It is good to add uniqueness to these convention exclusives, however.

Luke Skywalker (Stormtrooper Disguise)

Once again, you are very familiar with the base figure which dates its ancestry all the way back to 2004’s VOTC Stormtrooper, but it is most closely related to the updates in 2010’s VC41 - Stormtrooper, specifically the ball jointed hips.  This Luke Stormtrooper also utilizes the vastly superior removable helmet that was first seen with the recent VC143 - Han Solo (Stormtrooper).  Unfortunately this tooling reuse means that the hateful, brutally rigid, and restrictively posed hands are present.

So that’s the same, but there’s some new to this figure.  First and foremost, it’s been retooled to be shorter.  It appears this was achieved via the torso.  It works to make Luke shorter than Han, but does leave the figure with proportions that are a little wonky since the waist falls at the exact same height on both the Han and Luke Stormtrooper disguise figures.  The other new thing is the belt.  It features the comlink that Luke uses to tell 3PO to tell R2 to shut down the all the garbage smashers on the detention level in a high stakes game of “telephone.”  This feature also appeared on the TK-421 figure included in the Imperial Scanning Crew set.  Unlike that TK-421, the comlink does not appear to be removable.  Either that or my sample is stuck in place with paint.  I didn’t want to force it and break my figure as I did with one of the other ones in this set.  A second change is that the grenade on the back of the belt is gone.  Instead, the grappling hook that Luke uses when he’s playing Death Star Escape is represented.  That’s a neat and specific nod.

The final and, in my opinion, biggest change is a new and much better working holster.  The old holster on the VOTC based Stormtoopers was difficult to use and required a cross draw holstering.  This one functions much better and facilitates a normal (and more natural) draw.  Hmmmm…a holster is one of the two things that the awesome Rogue One based VC140 - Stormtrooper needs to become OT accurate, and Hasbro just tooled a new Stormtrooper holster.  Hmmmm.  Hey Hasbro,

Due to the limitations mentioned above with the dated arm sculpt, this figure earns an 8 out of 10.

Luke Skywalker (X-Wing Pilot)

This is the only all new figure in the set.  The last time that an X-Wing Luke figure was released was in 2006 as part of the Vintage - The Saga Collection (VTSC) subset.  Even though that 2006 figure had plenty of room for improvement, Luke’s minimal time in the X-Wing jumpsuit throughout the trilogy didn’t have an update as a huge priority for me.  So despite the fact that this is the only all new figure, it’s also the one that excites me the least (with the reminder that it’s relative).  I’m thrilled to have this figure now, I’m just more thrilled to have the other two.  Perhaps the biggest problem with the previous release was that Hasbro was still working their way through ball joint articulation.  The knees on the 2006 figure have minimal range of motion.  The articulation on this updated figure is supreme in terms of the number of points of articulation, the types of joints, and the range of motion.  Additionally, the sculpt is finer, for lack of a better word.  The flight straps are much thinner and less conspicuous, but that comes with a downside.  I snapped mine while posing the figure.  Thankfully, this is the one figure from the set that is already confirmed to be coming as a single carded release down the road, so I’ll be able to get a replacement. 

The most obvious upgrade comes with the new head sculpt with PhotoReal paint apps. The old version looks ridiculous in comparison with the pointy chin and minimal paint applications.  The PhotoReal paint applications make the figures so lifelike and expressive that I almost wonder if it’s actually a good thing.  They look so much better than the previous figures with traditional paint applications that the old figures might start to stick out negatively in your display in a similar way that poorly scaled POTF2 figures do now.  Please note that I said “almost” wonder.  Hasbro should always keep advancing the realism on figures.  It’s a good thing.  And, no, Hasbro, this was not a call for you to re-release every old figure with PhotoReal.  We’ll deal with the incongruity in our displays. 

In addition to the head sculpt, the helmet is new and larger.  I feel it looks much more realistic.  Usually we complain about removable helmets being too big, but in this case the larger helmet absolutely works.  I struggle to find a negative with this figure, so I score it a 10 out of 10.

Luke Skywalker (Jedi Knight)

This is the figure in the set that I was most eager to get.  This is the first modern Jabba’s Palace Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker figure to have screen accurate wardrobe both in terms of the types of garments and color.  Previous releases of Jabba’s Palace Luke figures include the correct outer garment, a cloak, but they were incorrectly colored as black.  Luke’s cloak is now properly colored as dark brown on this figure.  The VC87 - Lightsaber Construction Luke Skywalker included a more accurate brown outer garment, but it was the wrong style.  Instead of a cloak, it included a robe.  A ridiculously oversized robe at that.  With this figure, Hasbro finally got everything right.  I haven’t been this thrilled with owning a figure since perhaps that first Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker in 1983.  It’s my favorite character wearing my favorite costume and it’s dead nuts accurate.

Additionally, HASBRO HAS FINALLY SOLVED THE SOFT GOODS HOOD ISSUE.  Soft goods hoods have been plaguing figures in all scales because when miniaturized, the material simple does not hang the way it does in reality.  Some 1:6 figure have partially solved the issue by including a shaping wire.  Here, Hasbro solved the issue in much better fashion by simply stitching the hood down to the body of the cloak.  It does a fantastic approximation of lifelike draping.  So now that Hasbro has cracked this nut, I need to take a little side track and channel Neal Page from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles:

Hasbro, I want a new Emperor figure and I want it right…stinking…noooooow.

Neal didn’t say “stinking” though.  In addition to another new and improved head sculpt, Hasbro made two other notable changes to the base Lightsaber Construction figure.  The first and most massive of these two improvement is that the wrists have been slightly retooled to recess the joint better in the lower arm.  This provide drastically better aesthetics.  The second change is that the sand paint app to the boots is gone.  It looked nothing like sand, and it actually was reminiscent of something unpleasant we northerners have to deal with.  It looked like the dried road salt that accumulates on our shoes every winter, so this is definitely addition by subtraction.

Finally, while the PhotoReal does make the figure much more lifelike and expressive, I think there is an intentional “pre-posing” to the paint apps.  The figure is looking off to its right.  I don’t think this is a mistake on my sample because the eyes are positioned correctly.  Only the iris and pupil are off to the right.  I believe the entire PhotoReal application is applied at once.  So if this were a case of misapplication, the entire eye would be out of position.  Furthermore every sample I have seen is looking off to the right.  While this is a very realistic expression, I find it a little limiting, and for that reason I give this, my favorite figure out of the set, a 9 out of 10.  Update:  Commenter julythrunov pointed out in the comments that his sample of the Jedi Luke IS NOT looking to the right, so it is not an intentional design. 

HASBRO PLEASE GET THIS FIGURE OUT AS A SINGLE CARDED RELEASE ON THE VINTAGE KENNER “JEDI KNIGHT” CARD IMMEDIATELY.  I WANT TO BUY LOTS.  The only other time that the vintage Kenner Jedi Knight card has been issued in the modern Vintage Collection was when it was erroneously used for the Endor Capture figure.  Releasing the correct figure on that card is certainly justified.