Toy Review Star Wars Vintage Collection Luke Skywalker (Hoth Outfit) By Hasbro

I haven’t reviewed a Star Wars figure in quite some time. There are a bunch of reasons for this.

First, there just aren’t that many new and different characters coming out.

Second, I already have a lot of them. Most of what I might want (that it seems likely that Hasbro will make, anyway). I suppose I could probably sit down and still make a list of a hundred or so characters that I would like to own, but I think I’ve got everybody that I could just name off the top of my head.

Third, they cost a lot more than they used to.

           Finally, for some reason I find it hard to write reviews about them. I don’t know what my problem is. I guess part of it is that Hasbro is pretty awesome at making these things. Unlike Mattel’s MOTUC or DC lines (or to be fair, Hasbro’s Marvel Legends), there just aren’t a whole lot of problems with Star Wars. The sculpts and paint jobs tend to range from good to amazing. This makes them sort of boring to review. The only consistent problem Hasbro has is when they use different colors for joints.

Also, it just occurred to me that Saturday is May 4^th, which (seemingly only in the past few years) has taken on significance as the anniversary of the release of A New Hope. Funny how these things happen sometimes. Be sure and check back tomorrow for something about Star Wars. I don’t know what yet.

I was flabbergasted to find this figure just hanging on the peg at Target. It was one of those moments where you have to inspect the thing very carefully to make sure it isn’t missing parts or maybe is a swap-out that some asshole returned to the store. But he was legit.

This Luke came out a while ago and is one of the few Star Wars figures that has come out recently that I considered a must-have. I’ve always been big-time into Hoth – ever since I was a kid – and have pretty much every essential Hoth-related item except for Luke. This is dumb because it could be argued that Luke in his snow gear is the most critical character to the opening of Empire. But for some reason he has always been a tough find. I can’t remember if this one’s entire wave was hard to find or if just a couple of figures were rare, but I had given up on getting one. With extremely rare exceptions I won’t pay more than about fifteen bucks for a 3 ¾” figure and it didn’t look like I was going to find Hoth Luke for less than that.

Hasbro still hasn’t released a good, new Wampa.

• Hasbro used different colored plastic for Luke’s elbows and ankles. It looks bad. Dammit, Hasbro.
• Luke’s pistol fits in his holster, but it doesn’t actually look quite right. It stays in there and all, but it hangs out a lot. It isn’t bad, but it doesn’t seem correct.
• I am very glad that Hasbro made the bottom of Luke’s coat out of a soft plastic rather than soft goods like they did Hoth Han. It looks so much better. I am almost always against soft goods at this scale.

5 out of 5

Hasbro did a great job with this figure. I think the only way we could get a better version is if they had included a battle-damaged head and a scarf thing that looked right when he was hanging upside-down.

-Phantom