Continuing our effort to fill out our reviews, here’s a look at something we missed from the Shadows of the Dark Side era.  2010-2012 was a weird time for the line.  While we had the glory of The Vintage Collection returning 3.75” to its roots, it was supplemented with the simultaneous running of the SOTDS line.  This line was mostly geared towards animated styled figures from The Clone Wars.  But it also had vehicles which were typically styled in a way that suited the realistic line.  In addition, there were realistically styled movie figures that were either repacked in the “Legends” sub line, or were debut figures/characters in some alternate expression.  Such is the case with many of the figure multipacks that were offered during this time.

Toys R Us and Hasbro’s partnership was such that we often got some tremendous world-building items that would otherwise be unlikely to see the light of day.  Such was the case with 2011’s pair of Battle Over Endor 4-packs.  We had reviewed Set 1 of 2 a few years ago, so it’s about time we do the same with Set 2 of 2.  When I looked back at that review of Set 1 of 2, Chris gave a pretty positive take it.  I realized that it was 2021, which was before the big leap that TVC took in 2023.  It was around then that all the best modern stuff coalesced into becoming (mostly) standard on all figures such as PhotoReal, ball-jointed wrists, rocker ankles, and knees and elbows that flex past 90 degrees.  (That last one is still frustratingly shy of being standard.)  This also included the newest barbell hip technology, a step which seems to have done its best to render all previous figures annoyingly substandard.

There’s no way, we’d give those figures the same ratings today, so lets see how Set 2 of 2 looks under today’s standards.

Major Mianda

First of all, Hasbro struck out badly in making this character.  Major Mianda, while a deep backgrounder with no lines and no story in major media, was nevertheless retconned to be a specific Imperial that can be briefly spotted in Return of the Jedi.  In the opening scene, Moff Jerjerrod nervously walks between some officers and troops that are lined up in formation to greet Darth Vader onboard the Death Star II.  On his left (our right) there is a line of black-clad officers.  The fourth individual Jerjerrod walks past has been identified as Major Mianda: 

In the shot above, you can also see R2-Q5 clearly in the background.  I have no idea why this particular Imperial was given a backstory, but I’ll take a guess that it’s due to his proximity in the frame with R2-Q5, and was therefore picked by Decipher for their card game to be Major Mianda.  While his backstory establishes that he was a TIE Pilot, this is the one and only time we can identify him on screen.  We don’t get a great look at his face, but there’s enough visual evidence to tell us what he is not - which of course is most obviously compounded by the fact that ROTJ was from 1983.  This is to say, he’s not a clone.  Nevertheless, Hasbro cheaped out wildly, and gave us a 100% repack of an existing TIE Pilot figure which dates back to an Evolutions set from 2009’s The Legacy Collection [Red].  This TIE Pilot was given a young clone head, which is a major screen-inaccuracy (for a very minor character). 

Aside from that nonsense, the figure itself was decent for its time, but in no way, shape, or form, is acceptable today.  As a significant and beloved OT troop builder, the TIE Pilot is in dire need of a modernized update.  I’d still put a complete overhaul of the Biker Scout above it on the priority list, but the TIE Pilot is a close second.  This one has the standard points of articulation you’d expect from the era, but all of it is woefully inadequate today.  The joints are bulbous and poorly sculpted, the range of motion is lame, and that lack of modern hips and ankles make the figure almost unposeable, except for sitting - which, granted, is important.  The stance is problematic due to the legs being so close together, so you might have trouble performing any action pose, even with the dreaded “kickstand” leg.

The helmet is attached to the chest box, so the whole thing removes together.  I’m not sure if this is established in canon to be this way, but I feel the helmet should be separate.  While the head is ball-jointed, the helmet/hose combo limits its range of motion.

It is notable that unlike previous releases of the Evolutions TIE Fighter mold, Major Mianda comes with the Blastech E-11 blaster rifle instead of the “Dr. Evazan” blaster.

So the figure is badly in need of an update, and the entire clone concept is executed improperly.  This figure is bad, and Hasbro should feel bad.  5/10.

Palso Thern (Blue Seven)

This is a deep backgrounder among deep backgrounders.  While I don’t believe we see Palso Thern in the cockpit of a B-Wing during the battle, he can be seen attending the Home One Briefing:

This of course just reminds me how cool a Home One displayset would be, since we already have a ton of figures for it.  Also Thern is another figure that could use an update, but at least the original sculpt has stood up better over time than the TIE Pilot.  While it suffers from the same shortcomings of articulation and sculpt, it’s just a better executed figure, and doesn’t look as far out of place.  Out of the package, the hoses are reveresed.  The left side hose (two “L” connectors) is connected to the right side of the figure in the package.  Easy enough to fix, but I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO!

The sculpt of the B-Wing pilot is pretty decent, at least as far as detailing and layering.  He looks good standing in the background.  But spending more than 2 seconds looking at it shows how far Hasbro has come recently.  Unless a new A-Wing or B-Wing is in the works, I’m not sure how much sense it makes to redo this buck, but I wouldn’t cry about it if this happened (despite my “Debut First” leanings).

Thern comes with a blaster that fits in his hand pretty well, but, of course, has no holster in which to be stored.  I guess rebel pilots just kept their blasters in their starfighter glove compartments.  The weakest part of the figure is the helmet, which can look nice, but isn’t well-sculpted to fit his head.  It was made to fit another human head (Keyan Farlander’s), and was not adapted for Thern’s melon.

For the record, my sample has an unfortunate lean to it.  I don’t know if this was the case out of the package almost 15 years ago, or if it happened over time from being in storage.

It’s a decent looking figure, but the B-Wing and A-Wing pilots could both use updates.  6/10.

Grizz Frix (Red Five)

Grizz Frix was a fan favorite for a while before he was immortalized in 3.75” form in 2011.  His popularity could have had as much to do with him representing a bit of diversity among the human ranks in the Rebel Alliance as it did the fact that he used the callsign Red Five (at least outside of the film).  Grizz had a line of dialogue right before his X-Wing was damaged by being within close proximity to the explosion of a star destroyer shield generator, and then in turn was destroyed in flight.

He made his action figure debut in this set, using the buck of the VTSC Luke Skywalker (X-Wing Pilot), which was pretty good at the time.  Unlike Major Miranda, Hasbro did give him a proper all new portrait, and repainted the existing helmet sculpt for screen accuracy to the character.  This buck is very much beyond help at this point, especially with a new X-Wing pilot mold having debuted with Luke from the 2019 Jedi Destiny 3-pack.  Even the 2019 attempt is now falling short, as it lacks the modern hips and rocker ankles that we need in our army building pilot figures.

As it is, once again, Grizz suffers from the same stuff of being over 15 years old.  The joints are bulbous and weird, the range of motion is weak, and posability is greatly hampered by the lack of new hips and ankles.  He’s also got a weird and very wide stance, which is off putting.  Finally, while he comes with a pistol, he not only has nowhere to store it, he can barely hold it.  The portrait is okay (by 2011 standards), and the helmet does have a nice paint job.  He does his job, which is to sit in an X-Wing cockpit.  Of course, he doesn’t have an X-Wing, unless he borrows Luke’s, which I guess is actually okay since he is Red Five after all. 

It’s great that we got this guy.  We love pilots, and it’s important we get some priority assigned to characters with speaking lines.  The sculpt has been surpassed by a wide margin, but further updates need to be made to the newest X-Wing bulk before Hasbro goes too crazy on repaints.  6/10.

R2-T7

Along with Major Miranda, Hasbro seemingly botched this one.  Whether they took a shortcut for the sake of cost and expediency, or they just didn’t have good intel from LFL, it would seem that this is not Grizz Frix’s astromech.  It’s not exactly definitive, but if you watch Frix’s cockpit scene, you can just make out a slice of his astromech’s dome behind him.  Based on the shape of what we can make out, it doesn’t appear that he’s got a navigator with a dome-shaped head.  It’s most likely an R5 unit, or possibly an R4 unit.  Take a look:

Doesn’t look like Hasbro’s figure at all. Not only the wrong shape, but the wrong coloring.  I guess an extra astromech never really hurt anyone, unless you’ve got extreme OCD.  But this shouldn’t be assigned to Mr. Frix.

R2-T7 is based on the 2006 R2-D2 that was a part of the kitschy Early Bird kit, which in turn is the same as the 2004 VOTC figure, but with the front panel glued on.  It’s got wheels on its feet, a removable middle foot, and an articulated periscope that moves up and down when you turn the dome.  It’s nothing revolutionary.  It was a bit tired by 2011, and it’s certainly been rendered moot by today’s standards.  Nevertheless, it’s cool to have a debut character - even if it’s made up.

6/10.

The Set

This set was a great addition to the line in 2011.  Getting debut deep backgrounders wasn’t so rare until the Dark Times.  Worldbuilding was all the rage back then.  While we have some wonderful world-building items today (Cantina and the Tonnikas being the most recent) as set like this would seem to be unlikely today.  While we did get the recent X-Wing pilots army builder 4-pack, those figures tend to be unnamed, and using the same base sculpt.  Getting a 4 pack of completely unique figures is exceedingly rare.  An example would be of the surprisingly good Shriek-Hawk set. 

I would give the set, for what it represents, a 7/10.  However, the set as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Each included figure scores lower as an individual offering.  Still, none of the 8 debut characters that were included in these 2 TRU exclusive sets have been revisited in the almost 15 years since, so this is your only chance to get them to fill out your ranks.