General Veers - TSC - Basic (SAGA 007)

Although we had received an AT-AT Commander as a pack-in figure with The Power Of The Force Imperial AT-AT vehicle, it wasn’t until 2006 that Hasbro identified this character specifically as General Veers. And to be quite honest with you, the figure’s release in The Saga Collection was reason enough to hold out identifying him as such. While the figure is far from perfect, Hasbro incredibly captured Veer’s likeness almost perfectly from the shape of the face to the sneer in his lips. Understanding first that Veers includes a portrait that has been painted to be flesh tone and not cast in plastic of this color, Hasbro really did an impressive job. As a result, General Veers stands out as one of the highlights of The Saga Collection. As the years move forward, it's likely he will not gracefully age accordingly, but for now this is a great action figure and will serve its purpose very well. We just wonder why Hasbro decides to include some of the articulation they do.

For example, General Veers has angle cut swivel elbows. While this works like a charm for tying his hands behind his back at attention for Darth Vader (or someone else important), this type of articulation is more of a nuisance than anything else. The sharp degrees that the angles of these joints are cut allow for very awkward movement of the figure and due to the inherent nature of these joints, the forearms pop off of the figure rather easily. General Veers is also encumbered by swivel joint shoulders. As you can imagine, Veers becomes very robotic as far as his articulation is concerned and this is a shame because it really had potential. Veers has a very nice silhouette (although some have claimed this figure’s frame is too large – we partially agree) and great proportions to the onscreen character. We’re overall very impressed with how well Hasbro translated this character into plastic. Still, it's very hard to fault this sculpt, which is one of Hasbro's best to date.

Some collectors despise the aesthetics of snap on armor. We have to agree (but maybe not as harshly). While General Veers looks pretty cool as an AT-AT Commander, we think this figure looks the best as a regular Imperial Officer. His cap is not removable which is really a shame, but the AT-AT Commander helmet (with attached goggles) and the chest armor both come off very easily. But he looks incredible as an Imperial officer and that's how we'll display him. General Veers comes with the standard Imperial issue blaster and that’s all. It’s all he really needs since he is fighting the Rebel Alliance with a huge Imperial AT-AT walker! And his gun fits, albeit awkwardly, in his functioning holster. Hasbro got his ranking badge correct and we are happy about that. The coloring of the armor looks off from what is seen in the film just a little bit, but we understand how things can easily get lost in translation. General Veers does look great despite some of his faults and we believe that better versions of him will come. It’s just a matter of when that happens. If not, this is still one fine action figure.