If Darth Vader’s unmistakably iconic helmet is the visual imprint of the Star Wars brand, the Stormtrooper is a close second.  The black and white plasteel armor stirs something in the fans.  After Episode I left fans dispirited, one shot of black and white armored troopers boarding a Star Destroyer-type ship in the Attack of the Clones trailer instantly reinvigorated everyone.  Then we saw the movie.  Regardless, any form of the Storm/Clone Trooper speaks directly to us.  For the collector, it’s a visual language that says “buy lots and lots of this guy.”

For the Sequel Trilogy, the First Order Stormtrooper is a sleek modernization of the Original Trilogy Stormtrooper.  It doesn’t look as good as the predecessor just as modern retro-styled muscle cars never look as good as the classic vehicle on which their styling is based.  You can never duplicate the magic of the original. As far as this figure, it’s a re-release of the 2015 Black Series figure. That 2015 body was also used for 2017’s Stormtrooper Executioner figure. That 2017 release featured a better proportioned helmet.  Unfortunately it wasn’t brought into this release, but that is the nature of repacks.  Any change defeats the purpose.  Being an army builder, the 2015 release was the only The Force Awakens -based Black Series figure that was somewhat hard to find, so a verbatim re-release still has merit.

Anyone reading this likely owns this figure already, so I don’t feel the need for an exhaustive overview.  The figure is somewhat bulky.  This is an amazing thing that happens when the source is an actual human being inside a physical costume instead of CGI armor over a computer generated wireframe.  So just as a Volvo is boxy but good, this figure is bulky but good, since it’s accurate to its on-screen counterpart.  That extra mass does slightly impede the articulation, however.  The elbows don’t even achieve a ninety degree bend.  This is somewhat mitigated by the ball jointed wrists.  Those wrists allow the figure to achieve a decent approximation of staring down the barrel of the F-11D blaster.  That’s a pretty big deal for me personally.  The SE-44C sidearm plugs into the leg of the figure providing pseudo-holster functionality.  This is a neat feature unless you’re trying to pose a bunch of these figures for photography and your “studio” is filled with the din of the accessories plinking off the floor. 

The ball jointed hips are exactly what we could hope for.  The allow for both a perfectly neutral pose, as well as a more aggressive combat pose.  The bulkiness rears its head here again, however.  The range of motion is somewhere compromised as a result.  Try as I might, I could not get the figure to kneel which is something I would like my trooper figures to achieve.  The head has the range of motion you’d expect from a ball and socket head.  The back of the “bucket” keeps the figure from looking up, but the head easily tilts down.  These limitations would normally make it hard for me to move the score off the standard 7 for a super-articulated figure, but the fact that you can achieve that “staring down the sights” pose and the fact that this figure just looks good, make this an easy 8 out of 10.