Thank you to Hasbro and Litzky PR for providing this free sample.

As is known the world over, Paploo is the Ewok who steals a Speeder Bike from outside the rear entrance to the shield generator.  Three of the four Bike Scouts standing guard give chase.  Only the idiot who let his speeder get stolen by a teddy bear remains, giving the heroes favorable odds.  After performing a Superman plank off the handle bars and then barrel-rolling the speeder, Paploo momentarily rights the bike just in time to perform a Pitfall Harry rope swing to safety.  His time on screen is brief, but he’s easily the most memorable of the secondary Ewoks thanks to his screaming and haphazard escape on the stolen Speeder Bike.

This figure is being released as part of two campaigns.  Hasbro is currently celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Lucasfilm as is indicated by the logo in the upper left hand corner of the front of the card.  There is also a Lucasfilm timeline on the back of the card.  The other campaign is the “Finish the 96” project to bring all of the original 96 Kenner figures into the Vintage Collection.  Paploo satisfies the latter as one of the last two figures released in the Kenner line under the Return of the Jedi banner before transitioning to the Power of the Force line-look.  That vintage Kenner card famously featured a photo of Romba, which has been duplicated here because of reasons.  Apparently, we, as a community, want every blessed aspect of the figures to be as screen-accurate as possible, correcting all mistakes made in the vintage line, but want Hasbro to retain each and every mistake that was made on the cards themselves.  We’ve lost our dang minds. [Editor’s note:  I couldn’t agree more with Chris on the point of this madness.]

This is the third release of a Paploo figure in the modern line.  The first was in Power of the Jedi as a pack-in figure for the AT-ST & Speeder Bike set (seen HERE on Jedi Temple Archives).  The second was in the BD18 - Ewoks two-pack from The Legacy Collection.  You will notice that both of those releases have Paploo wearing a toothy grimace.  This is accurate to the source:

Unfortunately for this release, Hasbro opted to repaint the VC104 - Lumat figure.  This gives Paploo much closer relative scaling to the Vintage Collection Wicket figure.  It also elevates the articulation over the Legacy Collection release.  It’s difficult to give meaningful articulation to small figures, but that Lumat/Logray base sculpt coaxes as much as can be expected from the form factor. The downside is that the toothy grimace is lost.  Instead, it looks like Paploo is perpetually blowing out his birthday candles.  So this upgrade is a case of two steps forward and one step back.  There’s also another familiar complaint.  When the arms are raised upwards, the cowl gets pushed up and off the figure’s head.

We gave the Lumat figure, on which this release is based, a nine score.  Because of the loss of accuracy in the head sculpt, and the cowl issue, this Paploo gets an 8 out of 10.  It’s close, but needs a new head sculpt to truly be considered definitive.  That is likely to never happen.

A couple of notes about the card:  One, these Walmart LFL 50th cards don’t seem as glossy as the standard Vintage Collection cards. They almost have a satin finish.  Two, the card stock may be slightly thinner than standard Vintage Collection cards, but I can’t say for sure.  It feels that way, but I may also be insane.