Yesterday’s review covered VC213, ARC Trooper Captain, an update to the beloved VC54 ARC Trooper Commander.  As we all know, the figure is really Captain Fordo, lacking only the proper name on the card art and pill.  Other than making it a bit more animated in coloring, and removing the Phase 2 accessories that made it one of the best of all time, it is still a pretty sweet figure, even if it got knocked down a few pegs on the Banthaskull scale.  This time, we take a look at a repaint of that figure, the ARC Trooper, which give collectors the opportunity to upgrade their Muunilist 10 collection (or create one, if they weren’t able to do so in the past).  As you can see by the comparison pic in the gallery above, Hasbro released several different versions and repaints of this character over the years, but other than the proportions (which is an important issue), this figure is far superior to those.  Aesthetically, it fits perfectly with the red ARC Captain (“Not Fordo”). 

Trying to pin down exactly who made up the Muunilist 10 is essentially an exercise in futility.  It’s easier to patch together Chalmun’s Cantina, even though the filming took place on two very different sets in countries an ocean apart.  As I’m sure you’re aware, the Cantina makes no sense, and it’s nearly impossible to make screen accurate blueprints of the place.  The Muunilist 10 aren’t always 10.  Sometimes you get 9, sometimes 11.  Sometimes, the clones are blue ARCs, sometimes they are plain white joes.  Fordo is always in charge, but after that it’s a crapshoot.  In the final pic of the gallery here, I tried to be faithful to the memorable shot of the group disembarking from the shark transport, but took some liberties so as to be sure to include the cip-quad gunner and the Z-6 rotary gunner, which aren’t in this particular shot in the cartoon.

So how about the figure?  The basics were already covered yesterday with VC213.  This time he’s blue, obviously.  He’s got markings that are more in line with the cartoon than with live action.  The articulation is very good, if not quite up to modern JLA standards.  The face is updated with PhotoReal (and is identical to the ARC Captain’s headsculpt).

With VC213, the main problem was the lack of the original accessories from VC54.  Certainly this figure wouldn’t come with those accessories.  However, Hasbro had opportunities to make the figure more screen accurate, especially when they eschewed the new 501st ARC mold and went for the original.  First of all, the blue ARC Troopers did not have the double holsters like Fordo.  They just had a belt.  They didn’t carry the modified DC-17 hand blaster side arms like Fordo.  Instead, they were equipped with a varied array of heavy weaponry.  Some carried typical clone DC-15A rifles, but others opted for the WESTAR-M5, the PLX-1 Missile Launcher, the Z-6 Rotary cannon, or the Reciprocating Quad Blaster.  Sadly, Hasbro didn’t include any of these weapons, even though most (all?) of them exist in the tooling repertoire already.  Finally, the blue troopers did not have the extra ammo pouch attached to their pauldron, as did Fordo. 

Obviously Hasbro was going for something simple and straightforward for this repaint wave that was exclusive to Walmart.  As such, they cut corners as far as accuracy is concerned, even with regard to the cartoon appearance.  It’s a fun figure, and having enough of them to recreate some version of the Muunilist 10 is pretty neat.  Nevertheless, the inaccuracies on top of the repeated gripes with the figure already discussed, drop this one down to a 7, instead of “Fordo’s” 8.  Still a “must own”, despite the grade.  Get one.  Or 8.  Or 10.