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

Original Review:  Chris - 12/18/2011 12:13 PM

I like it.  I like it a lot.  I was prepared to not like this figure thinking the purposely posed Episode 1 line figure would be the better representative of Darth Sidious from The Phantom Menace.  It’s not.  This figure looks better just standing there. The soft goods robe gives an appearance of dynamism while the flowing sleeves are somewhat allowed to follow the laws of gravity (unlike the Episode 1 figure).  There is even a fold stitched into the sleeves which is a nice and unexpected detail.  The sculpting of the head and hands is amazingly detailed.  Darth Sidious only appeared in human form in Episode 1 for one brief scene while he and Darth Maul discussed revealing themselves, so there is no action scene to compare this figure against.  However, the super articulation allows this figure to realize some fighting stances from your own imagination (or Revenge of the Sith). 

The only negative I find with the sculpt is the articulation of the ankles. The sculpt of the lower legs prevents the ankle joint from flexing upwards.  This means some stances take a bit of patience to achieve.  Unlike the Maul figure, I feel the plastic hood works on this figure perhaps because the lack of Zabrak horns allows the hood to fit more snugly to the head.  There are more positives then negatives in my opinion.  9 out of 10.

Updated Review:  Bret - 8/20/2018 07:05 AM

This was a weird figure to me.  I actually didn’t remember it at all.  I bought it at a time when my collecting took a back seat to other things going on in my life.  Namely, that I had no space to display my collection, and had to store it at a facility across state lines.  My actual acquisition routine didn’t change. I was still a completist, but every time I bought something, I’d open it, and almost immediately place it in a bin that I had in my apartment.  Then at the next available opportunity, I would transport to the storage room everything I had accumulated since my last trip.  As such, I rarely got to enjoy my acquisitions.  The situation was compounded by my famously acute case of CRS (Can’t Remember….uh…Stuff), because, for full disclosure, when it came time for me to look for this figure about 2 weeks ago, not only did I have no recollection of buying or owing it, but I seriously didn’t remember it even existing in the first place. 

Just to complete the story, I have since moved into a house, and brought all of my stuff out of storage.  My collection is now in my basement, but due to the fact that my basement is only partially finished, I have not taken out much of my collection for display.  Anyway, when I was looking through my bins for this figure to take pictures for this gallery and to do the review, I didn’t even think I owned it.  It seemed unlikely because I was a completist, but maybe I just forgot to buy it.  I finally did find it, and it was almost like a brand new figure to me.  I might as well have just purchased it as part of the return of TVC.  It was kind of fun, but also embarrassing.  But mostly fun.

I find this figure very odd, but as I’ve said a few times during our retrospective, it’s a testament to the glory of the old days of the 3.75” line when we could get a figure of a character that was on screen for about 15 seconds.  It’s not like it’s a background alien or anything, but as Chris mentioned, we only saw Darth Sidious in corporeal form in TPM for that one scene with Darth Maul.  So this figure is supposed to work for that.  However, it’s so much more, and for all intents an purposes, is basically an EU figure. 

With the full cloth robe and plastic hood (which does work well, as opposed to the poorer execution on the VC86 Darth Maul figure) he’s straight from that scene.  As Chris stated, the cloth robe is engineered about as well as any soft goods robe to date.  But the figure gets interesting when the hood and cloak are removed.  Here we see Darth Sidious in his office clothes, something not seen at any point in the films, except for maybe when his robe blows up like Marylin Monroe’s dress as he flops buffoon-style in his office due to the Force push he gets from his little green friend in ROTS.  I imagine this is meant to be Sidious in an EU situation, perhaps when he was hanging out with Darth Plaguis the Wise, a dude he liked to tell tragic tales about to anyone who might listen.  Or, maybe it’s just him after a long day, where he’s hung up his cloak in the closet, and he’s making himself some penne arrabiata before a relaxing evening of Maude reruns.

The figure itself is fully articulated, minus ball jointed hips.  He can be placed in some dynamic EU poses, flashing his saber for EU reasons.  He also comes with an unlit hilt, which attaches to a peg hole in his belt.  We know from ROTS that Sidious liked to hide his saber in his wrist, like Travis Bickle.  By the way, while looking at the Wiki page for Taxi Driver, the name of a guy that Bickle plans to kill is named Senator Palantine.  Neat, huh? 

One complaint I have echoes Chris’s review, in that the ankles are hampered from flexing up by the shin sculpt, which severely limits functionality and posability.  Besides that, this is an outstanding figure, with a youngish Palpatine portrait.  The ship may have sailed, but that face sculpt could have been used for a few versions of Senator/Chancellor Palpatine, 

This is a definitive figure for a character that only appears briefly, but it also has some alternative display options.  Chris gave it a 9, even though the review seems to lack the requisite enthusiasm for such a score,  But I support it.  9 it is.

This is a definitive version of Episode I Palpatine, while any potential improvements fail to really move the needle. The figure can be had for low to moderate costs on eBay.  Get one if you don’t have it already.