In our recent VC217 Aayla Secura review, I was whining about how the Clone Wars animated styled coloring was a decision that I loathed, although with Aayla, it seemed to work out okay.  I might say the same with Luminara.  It’s…different…than her film appearances, but not jarringly so.  I’m okay with this figure’s color choices as well.  However, unlike with Aayla, the base figure is very weak.  Now that it has entered Tver Vintage Collection, it is probably in the running for one of the worst in the line so far.  I’m all about Hasbro issuing smart repaints and leveraging retail partnerships to fund exclusives.  But I have a very hard time with the re-issuing of a sculpt in 2022 that was a near-disaster when it was first released in 2013.  It really has no place in TVC, and I’ll explain in a bit.

As with the other Clone Wars figures in this Walmart wave, Luminara is simply a repaint of an existing sculpt.  In this case, the existing sculpt is from the Black Series (Phase 1) in 2013.  It was originally intended to be released in the aborted Legacy Collection Droid Factory line, which was never greenlit as a main line look at retail (although some figures were released via Amazon/Toys R Us and The Nonsense Store (“Calendars” or something like that). 

That figure was a disappointment when it came out, was a bigger disappointment when we re-reviewed it just a couple of years ago, and is yet an even bigger disappointment today.  This is because it was an inferior sculpt with several significant issues even when first released, and time has not been kind.

Hasbro did make a few minor tweaks that are positive for this Clone Wars-inspired release.  They did a nice job with the coloring of the figure overall.  There wasn’t anything wrong with the AOTC colors on the original figure, but the differences with this one are worth a look if you’re on the fence about this figure.  Perhaps most notably, the tabard that adorns the front of the lower body is painted to reflect the way it looks in the cartoon.  It’s a bolder color, but if you take a close look, you can see that Hasbro ignored the sculpted texture in order to accomplish this.  On the original figure, the paint is applied in concert with the texture pattern of the tabard.  On this figure, the simpler design pattern is painted regardless of the sculpted contours of the tabard.

The face is improved greatly with the PhotoReal technology.  Luminara is a beautiful looking figure, and is improved markedly in this area.  One side effect, which may be a negative to some collectors, is that the diamond-shaped chin tattoos are now a pattern that is more in line with the cartoon, rather than the film.  This is a notable difference between the two releases.  It may not bother many collectors, however.

Another slight improvement is with the soft goods robes.  I was extremely displeased with the fact that the Black Series release had Luminara wearing two shmatas for robes.  The skirt and the cape were both made of a flimsy, rag-like material that was badly frayed, and was not befitting of a Jedi, even a modest one.  This version seems to have slightly better materials, or at least the cut is cleaner.  There is still a bit of fraying, especially around the hood, but it’s definitely better than the original.  Another plus is that the robes are cut shorter at the base.  The original had quite a bit of extra material at the feet, which made posing difficult (or rather, MORE difficult, than it already was).

And that brings me to the 2 fatal flaws of the figure, which due to it being a repaint, were not corrected with this new release.  The articulation is substandard.  It wasn’t great in 2013, and it’s borderline laughable now, especially for a Jedi.  We like to say that Jedi deserve the most premium articulation available (JLA, or Jedi Level Articulation), in order to achieve the most dynamic of fighting poses.  This figure has swivel wrists, waist, hips, and ankles. 

But even the basic articulation that is sculpted into the figure is rendered almost entirely moot by the maddening removable headdress, which is sculpted in plastic and pops off as soon as you attempt to move the arms to almost any position other than at Luminara’s sides.  Combined with some balance issues with the figure, Luminara might as well be a statue.  And as such, she basically serves as nothing more than being a relaxed-pose alternative to her wildly dynamic pre-posed 2002 figure (which I actually kind of dig, by the way).

Hasbro gave us a repaint of a figure that was already substandard 9 years ago when it debuted.  Oh yeah, it also lacks an unlit saber hilt.  Boo!  Anyway, the minor improvements to the face paint and robes aren’t enough to elevate the figure above the grade of 5/10 that I gave it back in 2018.