VC175 - Luke Skywalker (Jedi Knight) is one of my cherished figures.  In fact, I listed it as my favorite figure for 2020 despite it being a slight retool of 2012’s VC87 - Luke Skywalker (Lightsaber Construction).  So Hasbro took the upper body and pelvis of my favorite figure from 2020, and added all new legs with my beloved rocker ankles.  It’s a guaranteed win, right?  Not so fast.  So what happened?

First, we’ve come a long way since 2020 and even longer since 2012 which is the origin of some of this figure’s tooling.  Two types of articulation, one of which we take for granted today, are immediately noticed as missing.  The first is the barbell construction neck joint.  Since the upper torso dates to a time when the world thought that Joe Flacco was an elite quarterback, the neck is the old ball and socket construction.  On screen, Luke tucks his chin while combatting the Dark Troopers and also when looking down at Grogu once on the bridge of the light cruiser.  That extra bit of range of motion would have made capturing those moments possible.  The second missing type of articulation is a barbell jointed torso.  We’re stuck with the swivel waist from 2012.  This is problematic when the legs are in dynamic dueling poses.  It results in the upper body leaning back instead of forward for an attack, and there is no way to correct that.

I really hope the discussion on torso articulation hasn’t become binary where the only options are the jarring mid-torso cut or swivel waists.  We used to get the barbell torso construction where the seam fell right at the waist, so it was aesthetically passable.  This didn’t offer supreme range of motion, but it was just enough to allow the figure to lean forward.  I hope we land back on that type of construction especially for Jedi characters where it’s needed for many sword fighting poses.  Of course, this posing concern might have been partially mitigated if this Light Cruiser Luke featured the new barbell construction hips, but by retaining the 2012 pelvis, the hips needed to be married with the old ball joints.  I’m going to be honest, I’m not happy with any of the dynamic poses that I could achieve.  That all look somewhat unnatural and contorted.  Part of this is because, for some reason, the rocker ankles don’t work tremendously well.  I’m not sure why that is.  You would think this would work consistently from figure to figure, but that’s not always the case.  The rockers on VC245 - Obi-Wan Kenobi (Wandering Jedi) work like a dream.  Here, not so much.

With the upper body, the biggest single problem, by a wide margin, is the rubbery hands.  The hold on the saber hilt is quite loose, and it doesn’t take much for the figure to lose it’s grip.  This was a challenge on posing because I typically use the leverage of the saber to articulate the hinged wrists, but the grasp would break long before the hinge did. Also, the arms would have better range of motion if they were newly sculpted today, but again, decade old tooling was used.  Update:  The arms are in fact new, but do not have the “deep cut” that we’re accustomed today which provides better range of motion.  The net result of the rubbery hands and less than modern range of motion is that some desired two-handed-grip poses are all but impossible.  So, instead of investing in new tooling, Hasbro used dated molding to deliver a less than spectacular version of a core character.  Now I know what you might be thinking given my recent outbursts here:

But I’m not going to flip out.  This figure is meant to capture a moment.  An epic, yet ultimately fleeting moment.  I will never forget this satisfying, and emotional course correction to the character of Luke Skywalker courtesy of messieurs Favreau and Filoni.  I cried.  Literally.  And then like seeing Elaine’s little kicks dance spliced into a bootlegged movie, I cried again.  But it is ultimately just one scene in one episode of The Mandalorian.  I wouldn’t want Hasbro investing new tooling dollars in such a figure if other measures can be taken.  It’s not like it’s HAN &@#$ING SOLO FROM THE BATTLE OF &@#$ING ENDOR, which was the culmination of an entire trilogy that is a global cultural phenomenon.  That Han Solo should get the new tooling love.  Not this somewhat specific Luke.

With decent softgoods, incredible Photo Real paint applications, and a great head sculpt, this figure looks good enough to recreate the emotional season 2 finale of The Mandalorian.  I would give it an 8, but the rubbery hands compel me to lower it to a 7 out of 10.