I’m officially over this sculpt.  I think I’ve said that before.  But that was officially unofficial.  This is official.

I’ve had a like/hate relationship with the VC45 mold over the past 10 years or so.  But that was until now.  At this point, it is morphing into flat out resentment.  I’m not going to go into too much detail about the sculpt itself and the history.  We’ve been down that road too many times.  So I’ll get straight into the review of this set.

It’s kind of terrible.  You obviously get 4 VC45-style figures.  They are what they are:  woefully out of date, and out of scale with the realistic human form.  This particular offering, at least with my sample, seems to contain some iffy examples of quality control.  In particular, one of them has a right leg that suffers from poor assembly.  It looks like the ankle peg isn’t set well into the hole, so the leg is too long, making it impossible to stand straight.  I think one of the other figures is similar, but not as bad.  The paint quality across the 4 figures is also a bit dubious.  Generally, I’m fairly forgiving in this area, but it just made the situation more annoying.

The strangest part of the set, aside from the garbage molds, is the fact that Hasbro opted to go with the lieutenant variant, which is a figure we already have.  Collectors have long wondered when the Commander (yellow) and Captain (red) variants would make their way into the line.  I can’t call this disappointing, since I’m not happy this set exists.  But it seems like the opportunity to present those figures into the line has passed (or has it?)

The best parts of the set are the face sculpts.  2 of the white clones come with the same head, which was previously seen on the VC240 501st Clone Trooper.  The third white clone has, as far as I can tell, a never-before-seen head sculpt, with a different expression and some flair to his hair style.  By far the most enjoyable sculpt is the lieutenant.  He’s got this snarling angry face, which is awesome.  He’s probably super annoyed that he’s so skinny. 

So here’s the real deal with this set:  Hasbro has recently announced that they are creating a new Clone Trooper sculpt for 2023.  This is a double-edged sword.  It means we can finally move on from this horrific buck, but it also means we’re probably going to get bombarded (again and again) with more repaints of clones.  However Hasbro chooses to use that sculpt (assuming they do both Phase I and II figures), we will likely see the Commander and Captain at some point. 

As a result of that announcement, as well as the fact that these figures are terrible, I decided to cancel one of the 2 sets I had pre-ordered.  I’m glad I did.  And it’s not the first time.  I also had cancelled 2 whole cases of the 501st figure because of this inferior sculpt.  So to some degree, I’m looking forward to the updated clone.

As it stands, I’m as frustrated with this set as is the battle-weary trooper in the last image above.  I give this a generous 6/10, and I hope it’s the last time we see this mold used.