Princess Leia - TLC - Basic (BD 41)

On the hospital ship Redemption, Leia watches over Luke as he is treated for the injuries from his lightsaber duel with Darth Vader. Leia, in turn, is comforted by Luke as her thoughts turn to rescuing the carbonite-frozen Han from Jabba the Hutt.

Princess Leia (with the unofficial subtitle of “Medical Frigate”) is a most expected reuse of the 2004 VOTC Princess Leia Organa figure. We were all thrilled to see Leia don her white gown again at the end of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, but we realized that she looked a little different than her appearance in the first Star Wars film. Hasbro also took into account these differences and created a fairly good “new” figure with somewhat clever execution. Although this figure may leave the collector feeling like it's a tad too old and borrowed, Hasbro has done enough to upgrade it making it feel new again. But don’t expect this figure to wow you too much. Leia is inspired from the popular ending scene at the cliffhanger in Episode V, and although she didn’t get much screen time, it was enough to get a good look at her outfit. Hasbro made up for its blatant repetition of reusing old parts by sculpting a better-than-average new head for this figure, but besides the head, the arms are retooled. And that’s it, a new Princess Leia action figure. The head sculpt is good to excellent, and it is superb what the sculptors can do to make our Leia figures look more and more like, um, Leia. It is truly the saving grace of this figure since the other parts aren’t the best designs we have seen from Hasbro. We congratulate Hasbro on making a very feminine and pretty version of Leia. As stated earlier, all the other parts are recycled from the VOTC figure (and with a bit different soft-goods material usage and placement). The white soft-goods material is a little too shiny, but the way it hangs is better than average. It seems that a slightly better cut of the fabric would have aided in a better drape on the figure. Despite its slight clothing woes, Princess Leia sports decent of articulation and comes with an “off-screen” blaster rifle. While a respectably articulated figure, she doesn't need too many more joints.

Her character in this scene was quite stagnant and not much more movement is needed for this purpose. As mentioned earlier, the new head for Leia is indeed excellent, but we would like to clarify how it may have been improved. Although beautifully crafted, it is a little too wide and a bit out of scale when compared to her other action figure incarnations. And it is not a glaring over-sized head, but enough of an oddity that we just merely noticed. The most important thing to note about the head sculpt is her hairstyle. It was unique for the film, and Hasbro captured its style very well (nearly flawless in fact). The strands of hair that fall on the side of her face are perfect, and from what we can see in the film, the make-up on her face is right on target. The biggest issue we find for Leia action figures is the way the production version ‘eyes’ come out (especially when compared to prototype images and we think this tends to make or break them. With so many good sculpts out there of Leia now, the most impressive are ones were Hasbro gives her rounder (doe) eyes instead of the more almond shaped eyes that this specific action figure has. So, while it’s not perfect, it isn't a disaster by any means, and we like it quite a bit! Also of note, the plastic used to make this figure has been cast in a bleach-white plastic, and its purity matches the spirit of the character quite well. Simply put, the costume presents the figure well, and Leia is a very nice addition to the line. For a Leia figure to be in scale, the frame must be thin and delicate and while we are happy that Hasbro notes these details in their action figure sculpts, sometimes Leia’s limbs can suffer from looking a little bit lanky. Again, this is not a big issue with the figure, but there are some slight issues that only the most discriminating eye will capture.

The bulkiness of her robes work against the delicateness of the limbs in a very distracting way. The only way to avert this is with complete soft-goods, but many collectors do not like them. (We think you are crazy.)There are also some issues with the aesthetics of the torso section and the way it blends with the soft-goods. To us, it never seemed perfect (plastic molded clothing where the second half continues with soft-goods), and it again has been brought to the table here as well. It is too dramatic of a texture change, and we think that costumes should be all plastic or all soft-goods, not a mixture of the two (until Hasbro can master this science better). This figure ranks as "good enough" for us, but we don't expect you to be thoroughly impressed with her. She is good, and other than some of the issues we mentioned, not too much else is wrong with her. But you may be wishing for a more definitive version of her. Well, this figure is not definitive. But it isn’t bad either. Princess Leia comes shipped with U-3PO’s right leg. You can, however, find this part in another figure. We would like to state that it is nice to see that Hasbro is looking at their “vintage” figures for the basis to create new or never before made versions of characters. They were great figures and the perfect vehicles for which to design additional scene specific characters. For the Luke Skywalker figure in this wave Hasbro utilized the VOTC Luke Skywalker figure and for the Princess Leia figure, they used the VOTC Princess Leia Organa figure (as mentioned earlier). The “vintage” figures were very popular and it’s great to get reinvented versions of them in 2009 (and beyond we hope). If Hasbro needs to retool figures in an effort to continually bring us new product, then this is certainly the way to do it.