My mother once said that if you can’t say something nice about a subject, don’t say anything at all.  So with that in mind:

Nah, strike that.  If I couldn’t say anything negative, you might as well sew my mouth shut.  Ask Mr. Nomadscout and he’ll tell you I even say negative things about the Patriots and they are the official Champions of Most Excellence.  If you think that title sounds made up, it’s not.  It’s an honor bestowed by the Hall of Awesome in Foxborough, Massachusetts.  It’s quite prestigious.  Conversely, I motion that we waive the mandatory five year waiting period for the Hall of Terrible, and enshrine this figure immediately.  The Hall of Terrible is located in Florham Park, New Jersey.  HAH.  Jets fans, you’ve been zinged!

Aside from the fact that the figure is super articulated and features a working saber hilt hook, I have nothing positive to say about it, and I’m not even going to start with the obvious.  Right out of the package, I had difficulty standing the figure. Every single pose I tried to achieve with this figure was a chore, and at my lowest point I was literally entertaining the thought of smashing the figure on the floor.  The difficultly in standing the figure comes from a constellation of factors, the biggest of which is the loathsome plastic robes.  I HATE PLASTIC ROBES.  I don’t care how pliable the materials are, they are still restricting, plus the weight pulls the figure over backwards.  A lot of innovations from the 6” scale, such as the aforementioned saber hook, have made their way into the 3.75” scale.  I pray that plastic robes do not infest the 3.75” world.  Function is equally as important as form in the world building scale, and plastic robes are too limiting.  I found myself constantly trying to coerce the robes into compliance for the more dynamic poses.  This is further exacerbated by the fact that the plastic on the ankle joints is very rubbery. 

Even though the figure qualifies as “super articulated”, it falls short of Jedi Level Articulation (JLA) due to the fact that it doesn’t have ball jointed wrists, and that is a shame.  The hands do not securely grip the saber hit. Furthermore the arms barely come together in the middle for two handed saber grips, but because of that less than secure grip, the hands come apart with the slightest movement (such as when you’re trying to fight the plastic robes to pose the legs). Ball jointed wrists would have provided that extra smidge of movement to allow for confident THWG’s (two-handed-weapon-grips).  One-handed saber poses work, but, back to the weak grip, the figure drops the saber easily.  This simply is not a fun figure to engage.

Of course since there is no super articulated companion piece, you might be able to argue that it’s not critical to display this figure in a dynamic pose (even though Luke’s Force projection displayed Matrix-like fighting skills).  You could argue you just need this figure to stand there on a Luke shelf, but that’s where the elephant in the room comes into play.  The misfire on the PhotoReal application makes this figure virtually unrecognizable as Luke Skywalker.  I personally feel like it resembles an adult Haley Joel Osment.  And I mean none of it works.  I assume the hair is supposed to represent the sandy blond appearance of a much younger Mark Hamill (for some reason).  The elder Luke on Crait was fully brunette.  But the end result represents nothing approximating sandy blond.  Instead it looks like figure suffered one of Carey Mahoney’s patented pranks from the Police Academy franchise.  Luke reached for his trusty bottle of Pert shampoo, but that dickens replaced the contents with some Behr Premium parchment yellow paint.  Oh, the hijinks. 

The variated color approach is even more detrimental on Luke’s beard, specifically the mustache.  It transitions pretty starkly from blonde at the top to dark brown at the bottom. This creates an unfortunate illusion.  It looks like Luke is pursing his lips to blow out a candle.  Or to put it another way, it’s reminiscent of the TAC Obi-Wan Kenobi when it’s not wearing the rebreather.  If the figure was brilliant to pose, I could forgive the comical paint apps on the head to a degree (especially since it’s likely to be corrected at some point).  If the PhotoReal made this figure a dead ringer for Mark Hamill, I could forgive the disappointing pose-ability.  But the one-two punch renders this figure completely uninspiring to the point that I don’t even feel like determining a score.  4, 5, 6.  I really don’t care, so I’ll just call it a four.  I haven’t been so motivated to just toss a figure in a box so I can start forgetting about it since I did just that with The Black Series Phase I Dagobah Luke Skywalker.