Editor’s Note:  This review has been updated with our second look at TVC…

Original Review:  Chris - 8/23/2012 4:11 AM

This is the mold that took swivel joints and punched them square in the mouth.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve been feeling clone fatigue for a little while.  Wait.  Didn’t I just say that?  Oh yeah, I just wrote that for the Shock Trooper review.  One wave.  Two clones.

So I don’t feel this figure needs a huge review.  This is identical to the VC45 Clone Trooper.  That one was all white.  This one has blue accents on the armor designating a lieutenant.  How can there be ranks amongst genetic replicas?

So I must have been grumpy like Obi-Wan watching really horrible CGI fruit float across the screen when I reviewed this figure the last time.  I gave it 8 out of 10.  Then it really grew on me and I went on of an army building kick with it.  Unlike the Shock Trooper, the helmet is not disproportionately large on the Phase I variety.  The only knock is that the legs seem a bit slender.  9 out of 10.

Updated Review:  Bret - 10/03/2018 07:05 AM

I…I just can’t get behind this clone sculpt.  Chris liked it from the start, and his reviews of this figure and the VC45 Clone Trooper indicate he grew to like it even more.  As I stated in my review of the 501st Clone Trooper, I dislike the proportions of the limbs, which are too skinny for my tastes, and look out of place with all the previous clone figures offered by Hasbro. 

Unlike that 501st figure, this Phase 1 Clone goes has a helmet that isn’t nearly as weirdly sculpted and sized.  The head sculpt without the helmet appears to be the younger non-Temuera Morrison clone, played by Bodie Taylor.  It’s not bad, but I’d prefer the older version.  Since clones took their helmets off in AOTC, TCW, and ROTS, it’s perfectly cromulent that there’s this headsculpt on the figure, but at this point in the long history of the line, it should be standard to have two alternate heads, rather than a terribly sized and rubbery bucket to go over the face.

Besides the thin arms and legs, I also don’t like the hip articulation.  Hasbro can do (and has done) much better with this.  I really had some difficulty posing the various clones that use this sculpt, even simply to stand in a neutral pose.  In fact, that was usually harder than doing an action pose.  It was quite frustrating at times to take shots of this figure, and it was the same for the 501st and the upcoming (for a revisit) Shocktrooper.  Usually it’s fun to pose the figures for these images, but in this case, it was extremely frustrating.

As I had mentioned in my comments section under Chris’s review of the VC45 Clone (the first to use this sculpt), I felt it was a rare instance of us having very different viewpoints when grading this figure.  I just don’t like the figure, and I was not interested in buying it in any significant number (I have one of each paint scheme, with only a spare VC45), and certainly wasn’t going to replace my aging, but still solid, clone army.  While there are some valid improvements over previous clones, there just isn’t enough here for me to recommend this as the definitive clone trooper.  I think that was Hasbro’s plan when they designed it, and they had clearly done so with the intent of it being repainted enough times to replace both your Phase 1 and Phase 2 figure armies.  No Hasbro, I will not!  I will stick to my veteran clones, and allow only a handful of these rookie replacements to fill out their ranks.  I will defer to Chris on his rating of a 9, as I feel my view is in the minority.  I would give it a 7, at best, and only because the Phase 1 helmet is pretty good.  I wouldn’t be so kind to the Phase 2 clones.  I cannot call this the definitive clone sculpt.  Hasbro has more work to do before it achieves that goal, and can safely repaint away.  In the meantime, it looks like it can’t figure out if it wants to be realistic or animated styling.

I see no need for Hasbro to look at Clones any time soon.  Sure, if they can get a better proportioned body with articulation that is more satisfyingly engineered, and swappable portraits instead of removable helmet, I’d be on board.  But that’s down the line.  There is still clone fatigue to spare.  The only caveat to that would be that with The Clone Wars returning, there may be a revival in clone interest.  If so, that would likely apply to the Phase 2 version, but since it’s the same body sculpt, it applies here as well.  On Ebay, carded samples of this figure, along with the alternately carded Lost Line look, aren’t cheap, but they aren’t setting fire to the community either.  We’ll see what characters TCW has to offer before we recommend more figures. (But I’d love an ARC Echo and Fives, though,)