I hate this figure.  But I’m not sure who to blame for its existence:  Hasbro or weird O96 zealots.  It’s clear that Hasbro has been trying to please that faction within our community that is looking to complete a subset of modern versions of the original 96 figures from Kenner. 

It’s probably the one thing upon which everyone within the collecting community agrees:  We are so fractured in what specific things we want to collect, that our message to Hasbro is often confused, if downright unintelligible, and is anything but united.  Even within the group of O96 collectors, the wants are varied.  Do they want exact reproductions of the original cardbacks, complete with naming errors?  Do they want low fidelity imagery?  Do they want pictures of the wrong characters?  And that’s just packaging.  What about the figures?  Should they be faithful to the originals, including incorrect colors and wrong accessories? 

Personally, I believe TVC (or whatever phase the 3.75” might be at the moment) is the evolution of what Kenner would be producing today.  I am not interested in reproductions of mistakes, whether due to human error or limitations on the technologies available at the time.  That’s going backwards.  Just like 5POA.  Just like Retro.  Kind of like Colonel Jessup, I have neither the time, nor the inclination, to be bothered with anything other than moving forward.

Somehow, Hasbro’s response to our garbled message is, “We hear you!”  So they determine that we’ll take anything that is intended to check the O96 box, even if everyone’s definition of what satisfies that box differs wildly.  As such, Hasbro has routinely given us subpar repaints or minor retools of inferior pre-existing OT figures, and slapping them on a card with dubious accuracy to reality (but possibly close to reproducing the original packaging), and calling it a day.  To this, I would prefer we just scrap the nonsense.  Figure out some feasible way to eventually give us the minuscule number of figures and toys that Kenner made but have never been done by Hasbro (like Sim Aloo, Pedar Solardo, or the Rebel Transport ship) and move on to better things. 

But I know that many others out there are desperately looking for O96.  I wish I could say, “more power to them”, but that means less of what I want.  So this is the type of thing we get.  VC234 is a bad figure.  I’d call it a “swing and a miss”, but I don’t think Hasbro tried very hard, so they didn’t even swing.  It’s more like a failed bunt attempt. 

VC234 is a recycled figure from VC25, so it’s about 12 years old.  That mold has been used a couple of times recently, for example in the Droids cartoon repaint from Target.  This version of R2 should have been retired long ago, especially with the advent of the sculpt that debuted in the Solo line, and was later brought into TVC as VC149.  Now obviously that version would have needed a retooled dome to accommodate the, uh, “SENSORSCOPE!”, so clearly Hasbro went the cheap route just to please the O96 crowd.  Well, I hope they’re happy, because I’m not.

The sculpt is not even the worst part.  You already are probably well acquainted with the crappy front panel that doesn’t stay closed and the middle leg/dome combo that prevents R2 from certain poses.  In the effort to keep costs down, the existing VC25 mold comes with the extendable “eye” or periscope, which was seen twice in the OT, as far as I can remember.  Once in ESB on Dagobah when R2 is trying to see his way out of the bog he fell into, and the other was in ROTJ when he looks above the surface of the sand after jumping off the exploding sail barge.  (For the record, I tried to take my first outdoor shot of the droids in the sand to capture that moment, but I failed miserably.) The image on the cardback, as well as the package disclaimer, show the “sensorscope”, which is the mini-radar that R2 uses just outside the main doors at Echo Base while he scans for the missing Luke.  So I’m not sure how this satisfies anyone at all.  It’s a bad figure, with the wrong accessory, slapped on a cardback with an image that doesn’t match the figure.  Everybody loses!

One of the worst figures in TVC 2.0, so far.  I’ll reluctantly give this entire effort a 5.  And I feel that’s generous.