Original Review:  Chris - 7/26/2012 4:05 AM

Didn’t Hasbro say they weren’t going to do figures from The Force Unleashed 2?  Here’s the first figure (to the best of my knowledge) from The Force Unleashed 2.  This is one of the great Hasbro “two fers” in the basic line.  You can recreate two Starkiller costumes from popular sequel video game.  That alone earns this figure major bonus points.  In the unlikely event that a child receives this figure, it will offer a ton of play value.  The figure itself is very well done.  I particularly like the brooding downward tilt the head can achieve. 

The hands are sculpted to better facilitate the reverse saber grip which is a nice touch.  The articulation is the current standard, but not remarkable.  Ball jointed hips would have taken this figure to the next level.  The leg stance tends to be a bit too narrow when trying to take advantage of the ball jointed knees and ankles.  The sculpt is very nice and appears highly accurate to the digital model of the character.  The narrowness of the leg stance is the only thing I can really criticize.  9 out of 10.  Good thing the craptastic Grand Moff Tarkin is upcoming otherwise my curve on this wave would be totally off.

Updated Review:  Bret - 9/15/2018 07:05 AM

The Force Unleashed 2 might have been a pretty good game.  I remember liking it just fine.  But then I watched some videos of the game in order to come up with some ideas for the gallery, and I realized I never played this.  So I guess I don’t really remember playing this game.  I did like the first game well enough, and Hasbro put a lot of effort into making plenty of characters and toys to support it.  It’s also the reason I got an Xbox 360, my first console since the Super Nintendo.  But it seems this was the only figure that Hasbro produced based on the sequel, so I didn’t really have much to go on in order to make my “diorama” shots in the gallery.  I could have repurposed some figures from the original, but it just didn’t feel right.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

I thought LucasArts did a nice job of creating this new character that was so important leading up to the events of the OT.  Galen Marek was given the name “Starkiller” by his master, Darth Vader, an homage to the early drafts of Star Wars.  However, the Starkiller name, and the entire The Force Unleashed series, was relegated to Legends under the Disney banner, which then “rebranded” Starkiller as the name of the First Order’s Bigger Jaws superweapon.  Of interest, Galen Marek/Starkiller is voiced by Sam Witwer, whose likeness was digitized for the character.  Later, Witwer voiced Darth Maul in The Clone Wars, Rebels, and then in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

The figure is pretty fantastic, as Chris stated.  He’s a super-articulated two-fer, with outstanding sculpt, excellent paint applications, a headsculpt with a great likeness to the video game version of Witwer, and comes with a ton of accessories.  It’s one of the great values in the TVC line. 

My complaints are the lack of ball jointed hips, which should have been added to this figure.  Such articulation would give the figure the range of motion appropriate for such a dynamic and powerful character.  I also think fans that normally dislike the aesthetics of such hip articulation might not mind as much for a figure based on a video game rather than live action.  The accessories allow for a ton of display options.  The figure can wield the two lightsabers in a variety of fighting stiles.  The portrait is well matched to the source material, and as Chris mentioned, has that brooding look that was so much a part of the character. 

Oh, I’m also not really a fan of the fact that this was the character chosen to be VC100.  I feel that’s a bit of an honor that should have gone to a more classic character, like Kitster and/or Wald.  Otherwise, this is the definitive version of The Force Unleashed 2 Galen Marek.  We’ll go with the original 9 out of 10.

This figure was pretty popular, and is no doubt the definitive version of the character.  Despite the fact that the figure was re-released in Phase 2 of The Black Series (albeit with poor paint applications), carded TVC samples for this figure command a moderately high premium on eBay.  As good as the figure is, and as expensive as it may be on the secondary market, I would not recommend to Hasbro that they go back to this source any time soon.  While the Old Republic era may someday be resurrected into canon, since no current canon has conflicted with those stories, it is pretty much impossible for the Force Unleashed storyline to be brought back due to conflicts with the new canon.  As such, Hasbro should let this one lie, and fans who really want this figure can get a loose or TBS version for much cheaper.

Updated Review:  Bret - 8/17/2019 07:05 AM

Editor’s Note:  This figure is being re-published as Bantha Skull has been conducting a retrospective of all the figures released in support of The Force Unleashed video game.

Hasbro released many Galen Marek figures.  Now that we’ve reviewed them all during our retrospective of The Force Unleashed, we can better appreciate this figure.  It makes 7 different Galen Marek figures, but the first to be released as a single carded figure in the main line.  More importantly, it is the only figure released by Hasbro that is sourced to the sequel game, appropriately named The Force Unleashed II.  The figure was later re-released in The (horrible) Black Series 3.75” line, as TBS2 - #05 Starkiller (Galen Marek), but with a crappy face.  Or something like that.

Updated Review:  Bret - 5/29/2023 07:05 AM

Here we are in 2023.  Things have changed fast.  Starkiller certainly has a lot going for him, and Hasbro had pulled out all the stops when first released in 2012.  “All the stops” was good enough to maintain the original 9/10 rating as recently as 2018 when we re-reviewed this figure.  But can it keep that rating today?

Here’s the good part:  The figure looks great.  It’s got a lot of sharp sculpting and paint applications.  The headsculpt is excellent.  So good, that even with 2012 technology, the figure was painted well enough that the upgrade to PhotoReal isn’t as big of a leap forward as you would think.  Yes, it’s better now, but it was good before.  For this release, even the basic paint apps are bit crisper, especially around the hairline (at least on my samples).  The accessories are outstanding, giving you the opportunity to mix and match, to create different looks from the game.  He’s got a total of 10 accessories, so he’d cost $89 in today’s dollars. 

Starkiller has all the top-notch articulation expected of a 2012 figure.  And therein lies the main problem with the figure.  (There are others, which I’ll get to.)  This is a dynamic character, deserving of the best available articulation.  Hasbro succeeded in 2012, and it was good enough through the early part of TVC 2.0.  But today, it just doesn’t cut it.  Starkiller lacks the barbell head/neck, the barbell hips/thigh swivel, ball jointed wrists, swivel waist, and rocker ankles.  But even then, the existing articulation is frustrating.  The range of motion of the head is limited (almost no up and down), the knees don’t bend to 90 degrees, and the feet have zero ability to flex forward.  All of this makes posing the figure pretty frustrating.

A few other complaints:  This is now the 3rd issue of this figure, following the initial release in the 2012 TVC line, and then again in the Black Series 3.75” line.  So it’s nothing new, and I’m surprised people are still interested enough.  Another drawback is that the figure exists in isolation.  As mentioned in the original review, this is the only figure that was sourced to The Force Unleashed II. Hasbro made a ton of items from the first game, but only this guy from the second.  And finally, as mentioned in the earlier review, it’s a dumb choice for the milestone VC100.  Then again, Hasbro made the unforgivable decision to launch TVC with Dengar as VC01, so at that point, milestones be damned.  For whatever reason, Hasbro decided to do a course correction on that, and gave us The Emperor for VC200.

I am going to lower this figure to a 7, which is our baseline for modern figures.  Due to the low level of articulation for a dynamic character such as this, it should probably be a 6, but the otherwise outstanding sculpt and paint, plus the large number of accessories, convinces me to give it the 7/10.  And for you card buffs, I think (I could be wrong) that this is the only way to get an offerless cardback, as the original has the Darth Maul sticker on it.

But the really awesome news is that while digging through one my bins to find the 2012 release of this figure for comparison shots, I found the giant blaster to the Build-A-Droid Dark Trooper that I had been missing!  Yay!  So there’s that.