Imperial Officer [Version 2] - TAC - Saga Legends

Imperial officers work on board the Death Star, Star Destroyers and other vessels in the Galactic Empire's Starfleet. Their ranks range from the highest position of Moff down to the lowly rank of private. Their one unifying trait is a complete loyalty to the Empire they serve.

Sometimes Hasbro gets things right. And sometimes they don’t. And sometimes the things they don’t get right get re-released. Sigh. To be fair, this time it’s not their fault. Winner of the Fans’ Choice Saga Legends poll, all three Imperial Officer candidates from the Power Of The Jedi and Star Wars “Saga” [Phase I] lines have won this poll and now all get a second chance at retail thanks to collectors. It’s actually understandable why they won. Hasbro hasn’t produced too may background Imperial characters to date, and the two running changes form the Star Wars “Saga” [Phase I] line were very hard to locate at retail. So in all fairness, this was a good thing from a certain point of view. Generally speaking, running change variants are a great thing. None of us should complaining about that. And for the 30 (77-07) Saga Legends line, Hasbro has admirably put all three out in remixed case assortment. So, all is good from that perspective. But in our opinion, perhaps holding out a little longer with these characters and asking Hasbro for all-new sculpt (and accurate costumes for the characters) may have been the best way to go. Sadly that didn’t happen.

Imperial Officer, a figure that made its debut in the Power Of The Jedi line in 2001 gets three more chances total, each with two unique portraits from the final waves of the first phase of the Star Wars “Saga” line and the original aforementioned Power Of The Jedi version. All have received tweaks to their paint jobs. We’re all very familiar with this sculpt now. It borders around average, comes with a good generic pose, and you can have the figure either holding a gun at the ready, or hands rested behind his back, plus a few more poses. These sculpts certainly offer versatility. They offer a great range of movement for characters with little screen time in any Star Wars film. (We don’t think any of the included likeness were ever seen in the films.) Debates have raged on ad nauseam about who these characters actually are in the films. While there are clearly Imperial officers without any ranking badges in the Original Trilogy (but not so much specifically A New Hope), the officers seen without ranking badges are wearing a completely different styled outfit than what was sculpted on the action figure. These outfits are more utilitarian with pockets, and Hasbro has carved these very details in the figure. Even the ranking badge on Shann Childsen, the character shown in the packaging artwork of the POTJ Imperial Officer figure, was “erased” to imitate the appearance of the action figure better.

It has pretty much been established now that these action figures are not truly Imperial Officer action figures but Imperial technicians based on the characters seen in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi only. But the likenesses don’t match those characters too well either (only the outfits do). We’ll need more eagle-eyed fans to prove us wrong on that, but we have been unsuccessful finding any other characters in Episode IV that closely resemble the exact look of these action figures. Even with the characters in Return Of The Jedi, we can't see the outfits in their entirety, so maybe they aren't even good reference sources either. Regardless, it has become universally accepted without contradiction that sourcing them to A New Hope is actually incorrect. Whether these characters are the black uniformed techs as seen in The Empire Strikes Back or the Imperial Shuttle pilots in the opening scene of Return Of The Jedi than any other Imperial Officer in the rest of the Original Trilogy. Regardless of where you stand, hardcore collectors likely won’t be completely satisfied with these action figures because they don’t really represent what we deem an Imperial Commander thanks to the vintage Kenner line. But until hat happens, well, we’ll just have to wait.