Luke Skywalker - TBS [P2] - Six Inch Figures (#03)

Luke goes to the second Death Star to confront his father, Darth Vader. Despite giving into his anger, Luke refuses to destroy his father and rejects Emperor Palpatine's attempts to turn Luke to the Dark Side.

"I'll never turn to the dark side."

Well, the figure that we thought we were going to dislike the most ended up being our most favorite from The Black Series 6” wave 5 (or wave 1 if you count the line look reset as a new jumping off point). Wave 5 should have been the helm of the revised The Black Series line look. But now we’re concerned that it may be partly responsible for another clog in reference to distribution. Hopefully we’re way off with that assessment. We don’t want this line to fail. But there are just simple updates that Hasbro needs to do to make these figures go from “meh” to “wow” and they’re just not doing it. Even Luke Skywalker, who happens to be our favorite from this wave, just needed one or two little tweaks and he would have been flawless in our eyes. Yet Hasbro overlooked the fact that for years they ALWAYS initially give Luke Skywalker a much too dark brown hair color only to revise it down the road. We don’t know if this will happen, but The Black Series [Phase II] Luke Skywalker has the wrong hair color. His hair needs to be a lighter/dirty blonde color. Also, his eyes look like Bambi because of the paint job. Tighter paint operations and little more time planning them out would have resulted in a nearly flawless incarnation of Luke Skywalker in his Death Star II appearance from Return Of The Jedi.

There is also another way to approach judging this figure. What is up with the lack of accessories? This is a $19.99 (or higher) action figure. Where is the removable soft-goods vest and cummerbund? Where is the soft-goods Jedi cloak? Where is the removable flesh colored or battle-damaged hand? Where is the femur from the rancor pit? And while we’re at it, where is the Endor poncho and Rebel Commando helmet? We would have rather paid $29.99 and had received all of these accessories then to get what we did for $19.99 and with a relatively imperfect paint operation on the portrait. We’re not jaded and we’re not angry. We just don’t understand why if this is the premium collectors’ line that we are getting so many half-baked attempts of figures that seem anything but finalized and instead rushed and can’t be mass produced quickly enough. By now you must think we abhor Luke Skywalker but we honestly do not. We’re disappointed in his lack of accessories and the lack of commitment to The Black Series as a COLLECTORS’ property. Luke Skywalker, aside from some paint operations issues, is a fantastically fine release and again, he is one of our personal favorites to date.

You know about how Hasbro could have improved the head sculpt. It’s a shame because the shape and hair truly resemble Mark Hamill. But you have to look past the eyes and hair to see it and we shouldn’t have to do that for $19.99. In a smart move, Hasbro didn’t include double hinge-jointed elbows and instead included ball-joints there. This is such a wonderful thing. Because of this enhancement, Luke is able to wield his lightsaber any which way you want and he looks natural doing this. The articulation throughout Luke Skywalker is perfect and he can be posed in a limitless array of positions thanks to the premium articulation. We even had very little difficulty making him stand on one foot while holding his lightsaber. He can kneel, sit (that should make someone REALLY happy), crouch and attain some really dramatic poses. The figure is quite impressive as you can see. Aside from the lack of accessories and more work needed on the paint operations in the head sculpt, this could truly be one of the best figures in The Black Series line. Hasbro has got to figure out how to tighten up the deco on their figures. We see signs of improvement, but there is still some room for needed improvement. We’re hopeful, just impatient. But getting good looking figures shouldn’t require patience.