Good, but disappointing.  There, now you can skip reading this review and move on to something more fun, like folding your laundry, or cleaning the grout in your shower.  Consider yourself lucky, because this review is quite long.  For those of you that don’t fold laundry or take showers, then feel free to keep reading.

I thought it was a super cool callback in The Mandalorian when Dark Troopers were pulled from the Legends Netherworld of one of my favorite video games, Dark Forces.  Yes, I know that officially, Dark Troopers appeared in some Disney-era online games, so they were already canon.  But I didn’t play those games, and neither should you have, nerd!  For me this was the first time I’d seen these troopers since I faced them as Kyle Katarn back in the day.  Their appearance in The Mandalorian was impressive, as they demonstrated their sufficient toughness when one nearly single-handedly demolished Din Djarin.  And the thought of the heroes facing a platoon of them should have given the viewer pause that they might not all survive the encounter.  Of course none of this was particularly challenging to a certain Jedi (Coming Soon, Kids!).  Actually, now that I think of it, the Dark Troopers didn’t defeat anyone.  In the end, they performed one child abduction and then dented a blast door.  So Luke robbed us of seeing these guys perform to their potential.  Oh well.

Upon the announcement of the figure, I was both pleased and disappointed.  It was good news that Hasbro was was making it for TVC, but the $28 Deluxe price tag was tough to handle, and seemed somewhat prohibitive for an army builder.  Nevertheless, the figure looked great, and included the “charging station” that was on board Moff Gideon’s cruiser.  News got a little better at some point after pre-orders were launched.  The item was discounted by several of the major online sites (I can’t remember which one did it first, but I assume several others followed in order to price-match).  With the price dropped down to $20, I decided to jump in and get several more, even though it was still expensive. 

Once the figures arrived to my home, I excitedly opened up the first one, and was simultaneously impressed and disappointed.  The figure, like the promo images, looked great, but it seemed to lack size and heft.  However, I’ve been able to do some reconciling. 

First of all, my expectation of the size of the character is definitely impacted by previous figures that were released by Hasbro based on Dark Forces appearances.  The first figure was from 1998, and it’s quite a bit larger than other figures in the line, even the original Hasbro “He-Man”-style releases.  Later, in 2009, Hasbro released an updated build-a-droid version, and it’s one of the largest figures in the 3.75” line.  Wookieepedia has the “Legends” Dark Trooper Phase III as being being a whopping 9’-3” in height, which actually makes the 1998 figure woefully underscaled.  With those figures in my collection for decades, this TVC version seems like a Lego mini-fig. 

Second, if you rewatch the scenes from “The Rescue,” there are almost no clear shots of the Dark Trooper standing next to a human character.  Even during his deathmatch fight, Din Djarin is almost never on his feet, as he is manhandled or on his back/knees the entire time, up until he jams the Beskar spear through the droid’s neck.  The only reasonable shot is when Din locked the blast doors, and sees the platoon of troopers through the window, but the perspective of the shot makes him look significantly shorter, relatively to the troopers, than he probably is.  Another check of Wookieepedia shows that the canon Dark Trooper is 6’-3”, which is really just like an above average person, not the behemoth that was the Legends version.

So while the “facts” seem to show that the Dark Trooper isn’t really that large of a character, the visuals and camera angles of the episode would make one think it’s enormous.  But it is not.  So I guess the figure isn’t inaccurate in that respect, and my expectations were misplaced.

Having reconciled the size, I could move on to other aspects of the figure.  It looks amazing, and quite screen accurate in sculpt.  The red eyes are supplemented by an old-fashioned window in the back of the head that allows light to make the eyes appear to glow.  The articulation is excellent, and is the droid equivalent of human super-articulation.  All the joints are about as dynamic as a droid will allow, including rocker ankles and ball jointed hips and wrists.  The figure interacts well with the large blaster, which can also be stowed on a notch on the right hip (in a style like the First Order stormtroopers). 
 
The figure has an outstanding shiny black coat of paint, with a few silver details (aside from the translucent eyes). Interestingly, this “standard” figure has a few less paint apps than the near-simultaneously released “battle damaged” version from the Rescue Set (review coming soon). 

One of the more disappointing aspects of the figure is that it just isn’t “fun” to pose.  Based on how the figure looks and feels in hand, I would have thought it was much more posable, but I found that the joints were a little difficult to engage to get it to stand upright.  The shot I took of the squad of troopers marching to the bridge doors wasn’t particularly easy to set up.  The figures were not easily matched into identical standing poses, which droids should do.  I found the ankles to be a little off, and in some samples, the hips were difficult to maneuver to get the droid to stand perfectly upright.

The accessories are nice.  Besides the aforementioned blaster, the trooper comes with swappable hands, so they can either hold the blaster, or punch doors.  The feet have, I believe, the first example of two peg holes in each.  One is the traditional peg hole to attach to other toys or stands, but the other is for the included jet fire attachments, so that you can recreate flight. 

But the real reason this is a deluxe figure is the included charging station.  The station is a 3 part booth.  Be warned, that some (not all) of my samples seemed to have very slight differences in the sculpting of each side piece, so that one fit the notches in the back perfectly, but the other was difficult.  Your mileage may vary on this, or maybe I’m missing why the pieces are different.  But if you’re joining multiple stations together, one side piece will work well, the other will frustrate you. 

Once the 3 pieces are assembled, be sure to pop in the 2 hoses, and you’ve completed the station.  I was assuming that the hoses attached to the figure in some way, but they just kind of hug the waist of the trooper, without actually connecting.  If you set up several of these stations, it makes for a really cool display.  I’m excited about the upcoming Luke figure, to help round out this entire sequence from the season 2 finale.

This is a nice figure set.  If you can overlook the price (or if you were able to take advantage of the discount), and if you can reconcile the smaller-than-expected size, then you’ve got yourself a solid addition to your collection.  I’m somewhat frustrated by issues I had with posability, and it lacked a certain “fun” factor that precludes it from top marks.  I’m giving it an 8/10.  It’s cool, but a still, just a little disappointing.