L3-37 - SW [S] - Basic

L3-37 is the case in point why 5POA doesn’t work for some action figures. And she’s also an example of where Hasbro should spend some extra tooling dollars to give the figure the functional articulation it needs. We’ll get to that more in a moment. L3-37 is a controversial character in more ways than one. Some took her over the top activism for droid’s rights perhaps in the wrong light, but Disney introduced the character during a time when the political climate was (and is) like a tornado in the middle of a hurricane. If you think about it, yelling “droids’ rights” is about as funny as one-liners come. These characters function without any innate morality – aside from the morality programmed into them by other humans – so they’re barely a shell or extrapolation of mankind or womankind. Instead, they function for the sole purpose of the mission at hand. But L3-37 took that to a whole new level in Solo: A Star Wars Story. She was feisty. She was missional. And she was annoying…. to some. For many, L3-37 is a character that Star Wars fans could do without because she didn't resonate well with many. We’re mostly indifferent about her. But she was good for a couple of zingers of dialogue in the film, as well as providing some plot as to how the Millennium Falcon came to be what it was. And then there was the controversy of her relationship with Lando Calrissian. But we’ll leave that alone here. How does the action figure fare? It’s not the worst action figure we’ve seen from Hasbro, but a droid needs more point of articulation than this. And because of the lack of articulation, L3-37 suffers.

L3-37 comes with six points of articulation. Most of her movement is in the head. She comes with a ball-socket head in addition to a ball-socket neck. You’d think that this would provide a wide range of movement for her head sculpt. But it doesn’t offer a whole lot. The rest of her is swivel articulation. These points include swivel shoulders and swivel hips. She is in desperate need of hinge-jointed elbows and knees, and Hasbro didn’t make the right choice by excluding them here. How much more would it have costed them to add these extra points which would have made her nearly definitive in the 3.75” scale range? Other than sitting and bending over, L3-37 doesn’t offer too much believable and useful movement. On the other hand, L3-37 comes with a simple but nice paint job. Hasbro accented her cream-colored body with mostly dark evergreen and silver colors. She has a triangularly-shaped insignia at the top of her head, and Hasbro applied it very nicely. Oddly, L3-37 has wires hanging down in her cod section. It looks a little uncomfortable and bizarre, but we’ll leave it at that. Like a couple of other characters from Solo: A Star Wars Story, L3-37 has a strong “The Clone Wars” vibe about her. Her design is pleasing to the eye and was it not for some of her outlandish reactions and lines from Solo: A Star Wars Story, she might have gone over better with fans. Not all of her painted details are completely accurate, but L3-37 does possess a strong likeness to the character in the film.

L3-37 also comes without any accessories, so the value of the figure is quite disappointing from this perspective. Hasbro could have taken anything she held or interacted with in the film and added to the action figure. But instead, she comes with nothing at all. We’d even take another cape of Lando’s from his closet in the Millennium Falcon if it meant getting another accessory here. L3-37 is essentially a what-you-see-is-what-you-get action figure, and we find those types of action figures particularly boring. When Hasbro approaches these elementary action figures, they should do something special for them so that it feels like the consumer is getting some value. As with all Force Link 2.0 action figures, L3-37 speaks dialogue from Solo: A Star Wars Story and comes with a host of sound effects. As you’re aware, Force Link 2.0 may go down in history as one of the worst pack-in premiums Hasbro has ever included with their action figures. The first Force Link was pure joy. But incorporating the need for devices and downloading software proved to be one of the most enraging and useless decisions made to date. L3-37 isn’t the most exciting action figure produced by Hasbro. But she does have a nice sculpt, a decent paint job, and checks off a box on your list for 3.75” characters from Solo: A Star Wars Story. It may make you wince to think of her as Lando’s Chewbacca, but if we’re honest, she fills that role rather well, even if it is from a slapstick perspective.