Next up in the first wave of TLJ 5POA figures is the First Order Stormtrooper.  These reviews tend to be short, as is our enthusiasm for the 5POA line.  But hey, at least it’s not 6”!

The sculpt looks good at first glance, and is actually nearly identical to the TFA version - that is until you compare the helmets.  For some reason, this new version has a vertically squashed helmet, which I don’t like.  Not sure why Hasbro didn’t just go with the same figure, but the helmet difference is a bit jarring when the two are side by side.  Like the previous sculpt, the trooper has a little socket on his right hip which acts as a holster.

A real drawback here is the action-oriented stance.  It’s more subtle, but it reminds me of the Attack of the Clones (Saga) line, where the figures were extremely pre-posed.  This might defeat any possibility of it being a true army builder.  The paint is a bit sloppy, which is too bad for a simply articulated figure.

There are two improvements over the TFA version.  The first is that he comes with a second weapon, a normal-sized pistol as opposed to a giant build-a-weapon part.  The second is that he has the chip which activates sounds via Force Link.

Unfortunately, this character screams to have super-articulation.  It can pass for a cheap alternative to shelling out nearly twice the price for the Black Series super-articulated version when displaying multiple troopers together.

I’d be hard-pressed to give a 5POA figure much higher than a rating of 5.  Because of the Force Link and second weapon, it could have achieved a respectable 6.  However, the non-neutral stance, weird helmet shape, and sloppy paint kick it down to a 4.