Stormtrooper - SW [DV/ROTS] - Saga Legends (SL11)

Stormtroopers track down Rebel infiltrators in the Death Star. Dutiful enforcers of the evil Empire's will, the Stormtroopers search the battle station for Luke, Han and Chewbacca, who are on a mission to rescue Princess Leia.

You probably know just from the press images alone that the Stormtrooper from the new Saga Legends line is the pick of the litter. Even those who are loathing five points of articulation are quickly finding that this Stormtrooper action figure has merit and can stand on its own. If five points of articulation is not your bag, and it’s not for many collectors, this action figure will be an easy pass for you, but even early in its shelf life it has become the new chase figure. This of course is tragic as everyone wants hoards of Stormtrooper action figures with good sculpts in his collection. What bodes even worse for these collectors is that Hasbro still hasn’t learned from their horrible case assortments (based on erroneous forecasting data) that some figures need to be packed more than one per case. The Saga Legends Stormtrooper is case in point why there is a need for figures to be packaged two and three times in a single case ratio. With unintentional homage being paid to the vintage Kenner line (or maybe it is indeed intentional – who knows anymore), Hasbro has crafted what we’ll deem as a decent sculpt of the classic Star Wars character, but it isn’t perfect by any means. Let’s analyze the facts.

Stormtrooper comes with five points of articulation, one more point than the 1978 vintage Kenner figure had. A swivel head, two swivel shoulders and two swivel hips make up this figure’s articulation. The figure is rigid, essentially unable to be posed in any real meaningful way, and really will just serve as background fodder in a diorama in your collection. And that may be all you wish for this figure to provide for you. Aesthetically the figure isn’t correct. The helmet is too rounded, he is missing the important abdomen details and his shoulder armor “blades” sit too high than they should. If you can look past what we consider to be the figure’s faults, then you’ll likely be very happy with this release. And if we’re honest, it is absolutely the best figure in the second wave of Saga Legends. Some have claimed that this is the nicest modern Stormtrooper action figure that Hasbro has produced, but we wholeheartedly disagree with those sentiments. One thing we can tell you is that we don’t completely swallow Hasbro’s (and other collectors’) positions about the need of a budget line of action figures. Other licensees like LEGO for example haven’t reduced their prices on the products they make. They create stuff that appeals to all ages of the public. Hasbro must follow suit. Otherwise they’re carving out an entire buying subset of fans (the collectors).

Because of this, Hasbro has unwittingly divided the collecting community with its Star Wars brand, and from what we hear, they’ve done the same thing with their other licenses as well. Collectors are nearly at each others throats. Some are for the reduced articulation and other are totally against it. But one thing is for sure. Hasbro knows how to stroke the vintage funny bone in collectors that makes them fall for the simplest of things. We have tried to be open-minded about the new Saga Legends and Mission Series lines, but we just cannot reconcile what Hasbro is doing. The sculpts are terrible, but the paint operations are horrific. And those that are growing fond of this line are looking past the terrible deco which totally flabbergasts us. The Stormtrooper may not look that, but that’s because it’s mostly white anyway with just a few black details (and even less blue details on the helmet). But if you look carefully, you’ll even find that Hasbro forgot a few important details on this particular Stormtrooper sculpt too. Let us make it clear. While we are not head over heels for reduced articulation, we can get behind the Saga Legends line if and only if Hasbro can improve the paint jobs. But until that happens, we may silently side with the hecklers until the quality improves.