If you’re the type of person who loses small accessories such as Hrchek Kal Fas’ blaster, you might want to sit this one out, champ. Two of R2-D2’s dome panels are removable so that you can install the periscope (sensor scope if you’re a child of the 80’s) and the external sensor (other sensor scope if you’re a child of the 80’s).  After those panels are removed a couple times, gravity alone will loose them from their position.  I almost lost one under my couch.  This is all because Hasbro packed a lot of “play” into the 6” scale Black Series R2-D2. 

In addition to the aforementioned dome accessories, a panel on the figure’s torso can be opened to reveal the mechanical grasping arm for retrieving ill-gotten gains from diminutive Jedi Masters.  On the opposite side another panel can be opened to reveal the universal computer interface arm.  Each panel has a little pin inside the door that is meant to actuate the hidden arm.  On my sample. the grasping arm managed to get behind that pin.  Not only did this prevent the arm from coming forward, but it also prevented the panel from closing.  I was able to restore the natural order of the mechanism, but it seems like there’s the potential for breakage here.  The pin also doesn’t urge the arms forward enough to be grasped.  I had to use gravity and tap the back of the figure to extract them.  Once out, they appear a tad to thin compared to the rest of the figure.  You can also swap out the panels on the legs to attach the rockets, but I prefer to pretend the droid foundry chase never happened (nor the oil slick Super Battle Droid slapstick in Revenge of the Sith).  So he has rockets.  We’ll leave it at that. 

The R2-D2 figure also comes with Luke’s unlit lightsaber hilt from Episode VI.  I can’t for the life of me figure out how the figure interacts with this accessory.  It does not plug into the peg holes under the two removable panels.  I tried searching for another removable piece on the dome, but all I managed to do was chip some paint.  I have a feeling I’m going to be embarrassed on this one like I was with the Vintage Collection C-3PO when I didn’t discover all the features of that figure while photographing it.  Late breaking news:  I just managed to remove the third panel to find where the saber plugs in.  Updated pics later. 

The third leg is raised and lowered by turning the dome, a feature first introduced on the R4-G9 figure from the Revenge of the Sith preview wave.  While it was neat then, I prefer astromechs that have the third leg raised and lowered manually.  The twisting dome mechanism takes the display control out of your hands.  Basically dome position and the position of the leg are directly tied unless the third leg is all the way up or all the way down.  In the case of this figure, I think the leg looks too exposed when it’s all the way down. I prefer the leg half way down on this figure, but that means I’m forced to have R2 watching his six (i.e. he’s looking backwards). 

The hand painted samples of this figure that Hasbro used for promotion showed it with an overall dirty wash.  This wash helped to accent the lines and grooves of the various panels and added a degree of richness to the sculpt.  That wash is not present on the production version save for the outside of the feet.  This gives R2 too clean and sterile of a look and mutes the details of the sculpt.  It’s a shame this was cut.

Overall, Hasbro seemed to pack a lot into the figure to justify the $20 price tag.  Some of it works like the periscope and external sensor.  Some fall flat like the way the third leg raises and lowers and the opening panels.  Overall it seems to fall a tad short of justifying the price. Since this is an adult collector line, Hasbro would probably have been better served keeping the added paint applications in the budget and not the play features that won’t impress their intended audience.  7 out of 10.

7/10 Bantha Skulls