After yesterday’s review of BD41 Princess Leia, it’s only fitting that we take a closer look at BD38 Luke Skywalker.  While Lando was busy wearing Han’s clothes, Luke was getting his hand replaced by 2-1B.  Obviously medicine got much more advanced since Anakin got his own mechanical arm.  That thing was just a metal skeleton, and Anakin hid it under a big glove/gauntlet.  Here, Luke is getting a new hand that has tissue and skin to look exactly like the real thing.  In fact I just realized that the reason he doesn’t have the synthetic skin on his hand by the time we see him in TFA is because it was burned off when his academy was sacked by Kylo Ren.  At least I think that’s what’s going on.  He just never bothered getting it fixed since he was self-exiled on Ahch-To.

The Legacy Collection wasn’t always big into figure parenthetical subtitles, but this should definitely have been named something like “Luke Skywalker (Medical Frigate).”  For longtime members of the community, even “Luke Skywalker (Medical Rope)” would have been preferable, and perhaps would have vaulted this figure into the Mt. Rushmore of greatest carded figures ever.  Nevertheless, we get just plain “Luke Skywalker.”  It’s a guy in a bathrobe, so maybe it doesn’t deserve a name that’s any more grandiose.  This is yet another figure that represents the glory of the 3.75” line, even if it’s not the greatest action figure of all time.

This figure is an early example of premium super-articulation.  He’s got all the joints that were basically top of the line in 2008, and add a ball jointed torso (like the stormtrooper figures) and a rare-for-the-time set of ball jointed hips.  It’s an odd choice to soup up this particular figure.  It’s about the least action-oriented hero outfit in the entire saga, and yet Hasbro basically went all out. Yet, the hip joints aren’t really executed all that well.  The “rest” position gives Luke a rather narrow stance, and at least in my sample, the hip joints seem to “click” into 2 or 3 positions, so you don’t really get a wide range of posing options.  He’s either standing at awkward attention, or he’s doing a gymnastic split.  Any other attempt at posing the legs causes them to “snap” back into one of the 2 or 3 “click” positions. 

As for the rest of the figure, The sculpt is somewhat wonky, as “nude” figures tend to be.  The waist or, more accurately, the torso joint does serve a bit of a purpose as it allows you to get a more realistic reclining position, which of course is basically what this figure was made for. But the swivel forearms and ball jointed elbows and shoulders are hard to disguise when the figure is bare.  Most likely, you’ll be covering Luke in the included bath robe, since that’s what he’s wearing during the entire scene.  The face sculpt is a bit odd, but not awful.  Not sure if PhotoReal would make it much better, or if the underlying sculpt would need a redo.

The big “feature” of the figure is the open flap on the right forearm, which exposes the gears of Luke’s new prosthetic hand.  The little flaps of course don’t close up, but when you roll down the sleeves (as Luke does in the film), the part is completely covered, so it doesn’t detract from the figure.  Luke’s right hand is clenched into a close fist, so he is unable to hold either of the included accessories.  I always thought the little silver tool was the one that was used to test the hand, but after a short exchange in the comments section of the BD41 Princess Leia figure, with Disqus user Sam, I thought that maybe this was actually the communicator that Luke used to speak with Lando and Chewie.  I’m not sure what it is meant to be, but I guess it could be either.  Luke can barely hold it in his left hand.  But there’s another very strange accessory.  Luke also comes with his lightsaber.  There’s a lot wrong with this.  First of all, Luke lost his lightsaber prior to this scene.  You know, the one where he got his hand cut off and is the direct reason why he’s in a bathrobe for this scene in the first place.  The lightsaber was lost forever, until Maz Kanata flew by in her jetpack, grabbed it before it tumbled to the surface of the planet (if there was a surface), and then kept it in a box in her castle.  It’s inclusion means you can have Luke duel either in a bathrobe, or half naked with the forearm flaps flung open.  It’s all very strange.  Anyway, there’s no real purpose to the lightsaber except Hasbro probably thought it would make the figure more appealing on the pegs.

This figure excels at being a minor costume change for Luke at the ending scene of The Empire Strikes Back.  But Hasbro tried to do a lot more with it, and most of this doesn’t seem to succeed.  Overall, I’m glad they made it.  Along with Smuggler Lando, Leia, Chewie, and all the droids, this figure pretty much completes the last character visuals of ESB, so it’s actually an important release.  Perhaps someday, we’ll revisit all of these in an exciting edition of “Scene It!”  This figure gets an underwhelming 6 for execution, but again, I’m happy with it just existing, and it goes great in a setup with the aforementioned figures.

Build-A-Droid 

Luke Skywalker (Medical Robe) contains the head for U-3PO, who was on board the Tantive IV as it was attacked by Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer.  Source:  A New Hope.