Princess Leia - OTC - Basic (OTC #18)

The Rebel heroes Princess Leia, Han Solo and Chewbacca think they are safe in the company of Han's old friend Lando Calrissian, who is now Baron Administrator of Cloud City. They have no reason to expect trouble as they enter the dining room. But they discover that they have been betrayed to the Imperial forces, when they come face to face with the evil Darth Vader.

One version of Princess Leia that Hasbro made us wait an “eternity” for was Princess Leia in her Bespin gown. You see, we never really got a “real” action figure version of her. Sure, she was released as part of the Princess Leia Collection. But the conspiracy theorists in us believe that was a method to get girls into action figures. The Princess Leia action figures in that subset were overly painted with makeup and the soft-goods were frilly and screen inaccurate. The Bespin version of Princess Leia in this collection was given a very lacey gown that looked like something you decorate the arm rests on a couch with instead of an action figure. And the head sculpt and paint job were just terribly off that it was hard to consider this an acceptable modern version of the classic 1980 TESB Princess Leia Organa (Bespin Gown) figure. So six more years passed by us before we got a dedicated single-carded release of this specific character and was released in the very appropriate 2004 The Original Trilogy Collection as one of the few all-new figure from the line.

It is actually a bit difficult to judge this action figure because it really isn’t an action figure at all. With minimal articulation, you’re going to have to appreciate the generically named Princess Leia for its sculpt and paint job and not much else. The first noticeable update is that Hasbro has ensured the figure received the proper scale this time around. She is short around your Chewbacca figures and comparable to your Episode V Han Solo figures. That’s what you want to see at this point in the line. The figure has attractive features meaning she looks feminine (always good for female action figures) and her outfit, while really just a molded piece of plastic, is beautifully done and nicely painted. The ornate pattern on the back of her dress is beautifully etched in and painted. All of the colors, while we imagine are much more muted on the actual prop in the film, are brought to life in a slightly exaggerated manner. Princess Leia has a very feminine silhouette and her gown hugs her indentations and curves in all the right spots.

Princess Leia (why couldn’t this line give the action figure qualifying subtitles?) looks great, but you may be put off by her articulation. She has an extremely limited five points of articulation, all of which are swivel points. Her range of movement is rather unnatural looking. She comes with a blaster rifle that fits nicely in her tiny hands, but because of this limited articulation, it’s hard to make her hold the weapon without looking a little bit silly unless you have her holding it down and at ease. We’re not sure we can say that the head sculpt looks much like Carrie Fisher at all, but we do enjoy the work put into the head sculpt. Hasbro did a great job adding the details to her hair here. We doubt you’ll find much to complain about her aside from her lack of articulation. Just like the rest of the figures in The Original Trilogy Collection, Princess Leia comes with an action figure stand. Her feet are so small that the foot pegs they drilled into them are useless to firmly place her on the stand (without completely stretching them out). Admittedly, she is a perfect release for The Original Trilogy Collection line. But this isn’t the best we’ve seen of this figure in the basic figure line.