As has been discussed before, Hasbro did the absolute right thing with this figure.  They corrected Kenner’s mistake, instead of carrying it forward into the modern age.  In summary, Kenner made an action figure of Helder Spinoza (unnamed, of course), and put him on a card with an image of Pedar Solardo.  Rather than repeat that for TVC in the misplaced name of “accuracy”, and be beholden to the wackos in our silly community that want exact replicas of Kenner stuff, they gave us an excellent Spinoza figure, and packaged him with a new image of…Spinoza!  It’s worth noting that this image has obviously been photoshopped to a degree, because in the actual film still, the Bespin Guard that stands closer to the camera and to Spinoza’s left is holding his blaster across Spinoza’s face.  The correction is necessary and welcome.  Good stuff, Hasbro.  Please keep doing this.  It almost makes up for the nonsensical R2-D2 SENSORSCOPE! that you put out in the same wave.  Shame on you for that!

As mentioned in the previously linked article, a Pedar Solardo figure would be an easy release for Hasbro at this point.  It would require only a new headsculpt, which would satisfy a lot of collectors across the community.  Hasbro seems hellbent on making the most out of existing molds and sculpts, so getting more use out of the parts utilized for Spinoza and Edian would work well here.

As for this figure, it’s not great when compared to recent, newly-tooled releases in TVC.  The use of many old parts, while smart, definitely means that Spinoza is not as versatile and poseable as it could be.  But I think this is one of those times where the smart re-use of parts, along with some newly-tooled ones, does wonders and is probably the only reason we have this figure at all.  It doesn’t have rocker ankles, the new hips, nor the 90 plus degree knee range, but it definitely does the trick.

Hasbro opted for a couple of things here that may or may not be widely supported.  First and foremost, the cap is permanently sculpted to the head.  While a removable hat might provide some versatility, the previous Bespin guards were kind of ridiculous in this respect.  The hats didn’t fit either head sculpt that was offered, so they either were precariously balanced in a comical manner, or they just fell off (or worse, got lost).  So I’m fine with the decision here.  The other interesting item is that Hasbro ditched the baton and hip sheathe.  I’m also fine with this, in that (I believe) neither of these characters were part of the Han beat-down scene. You could always borrow that accessory from the previous releases, or just use those figures for that purpose.

The headsculpt is excellent, and pretty well matches the face of the actor.  Spinoza can be spotted in two scenes, although I only recreated one of them for the gallery BECAUSE I AM VERY BUSY!  Besides the rescue of Leia and Chewy, he’s also seen earlier when Lando first arrives on the platform to greet the arrival of the Falcon.  I chose to skip that scene here, because Bialar Selis is too prominent in that image, and now I’m sad we don’t have him.  But just like Pedar Solardo, we could!

I normally don’t include Kenner figures in my lineup shots, but they are here for a reason.  I owned these figures because they were among the dwindling few that had no modern analog.  I can finally toss The Kenner “Helder Spinoza” variant in the trash, where it belongs.  As for SGT Edian, I’ll cover that tragedy in the next review. 

Note that the 3rd and 4th figures were both from POTJ, but the one on the left (one of the worst figures in the Hasbro era) was released at almost the same time as the one on the right.  Other than it bizarrely having an open tunic, that one looks like it was sculpted by Rodin as compared to the David Duchovny nightmare.  As Chris mentioned to me, that was a POTF2-era figure that was released far too late, and immediately looked out of place upon release.

So I’m glad Hasbro gave us this figure, even though Walmart is the absolute worst.  I’ll give it an 8/10.  It takes a hit because of some of the outdated parts, but makes up ground just because of the nostalgia factor.  It’s not up to the standards of 2022, but I don’t mind at all.  Now we should hope Hasbro reuses this figure and gives us 4 new guards in a troop pack.