Original Review by Chris: 10/16/2010

This set is titled “Geonisis Arena Showdown.”  Apparently the showdown in this set is between the quiet dignity of R2-D2 and the waka waka slapstick of C-3PO.  Attack of the Clones might be the worst movie in the history of American cinema. Eh, screw “might”.  It IS the worst movie in the history of American cinema.  However, this set contains two pretty awesome toys.  We get a much needed upgrade to the Episode II C-3PO, a figure that had never been done to modern standards.  It has all the requisite points of articulation, although the arms lack the necessary range of motion to hold the blaster in both hands when in Battledroid mode.  I can’t fault the toy for this as it’s more a byproduct of the character’s design.  The swappable heads provide decent play value and the figure looks the part.

The R2-D2 is a great little figure.  It’s largely based on the VOTC mold with the removable third leg.  Following the lead of the R2 figure from the Resurgence of the Jedi Battlepack, this figure also forgoes the previously standard vac metalized dome for a much nicer and more accurate painted dome.  I was already happy with the play value of the figure due to the opening panel on the front which reveals a fold out gadget.  This is a nice upgrade to the easily lost plug-in gadgets on the VOTC figure.  The panel is also on a hinge, unlike the VOTC mold where you completely remove the panel.  When I realized there was another opening on the back of the mold which revealed the tow cable R2 used to drag Shecky Greene 3PO across the floor of the Genosis Arena, I was downright giddy. 

This set delivers definitive and new versions of Episode II C-3PO and R2-D2.  It’s a must own. 10 out of 10 Bantha Skulls.

Updated Review by Bret: 9/18/2020

It’s been 10 years since Chris wrote that review, and almost as long since he showed his face around these parts.  Whatever happened to that guy?  He probably hooked up with Robert Forester from Breaking Bad, got a new identity, and moved to New Hampshire.  I bet at least some of that is true.

Anyway, as Chris pointed out, this set is pretty awesome, and it looks like they might have saved the best for last.  This may be the highlight of all twelve 2-packs in both Geonosis Arena Showdown lines from Target, and that’s saying something because most of them are pretty great. 

C-3PO is fantastic, and is the best action figure version of him (from any film) to date.  The sculpt is dead on, and it’s super articulated.  The paint applications are a perfect blend of dull metal and dirt.  It easily blows away any of the nonsensical AOTC C-3PO’s that came before.  This should have been the mold used by Hasbro for all of the Threepio’s made since, but sadly, they went another route, also in 2010, with VC06.  This version is nearly perfect, although vac-metal would put it over the top.  To be fair, the dull finish probably suits AOTC C-3PO better than vac-metal, so maybe just for this instance, it’s actually as close to perfect as we can reasonably expect.  The head is removable, and comes with a swap-out battle droid head.  He also has a droid blaster, but as Chris pointed out, the nature of the protocol droid design (and conversion to 3.75” scale) probably precludes a two-handed weapon grip from being possible.

There is no battle droid body that comes with this set, which is fine, but that leaves us with having to use the inferior 2002 deluxe set to get a battle droid body with the C-3PO head.  This head is a new design, and will not easily plug into the neck of that battle droid body, or any that I am aware of.  So the one pitfall here is that you can get an amazing new standalone AOTC C-3PO and an amazing C-3PO w/ Battle Droid head, but you’re stuck using the crappy old battle droid w/ C-3PO head from 2002.

R2-D2 is also a revelation.  All the things Chris wrote about hold true.  The not-a-magnet dongle is attached to a string which winds home to the rear compartment when you turn the dome.  It hooks onto C-3PO’s head via the neck peg, and you can drag it across the arena to the headless body, and use the pop-out soldering iron doohickey in R2’s front to simulate re-attaching the head.  The hatches both close nicely, and leave you with a great looking basic R2.  The only thing that might make this better is if the dongle was actually a magnet, in much the same way that was included with the kind-of-terrible-now-but-interesting-for-2003 Saga R2-D2.  The feature wasn’t executed too well, but the magnet aspect was nice.  A companion magnet in C-3PO’s head, just like the one in the aforementioned Deluxe set from 2002, would also be cool.

Despite the nits and wishlist items for improvement, these are both outstanding figures that are unique to this set.  Do not sleep on this one.  It is a worthy addition to your collection, and a nice capstone to the 12 Geonosis Arena Showdown sets.