Character Profile
Species
Human
Status
Commander in the Grand Army of the Republic
Weapon of Choice
Lightsaber
Characteristic
Named "Ghost Hand" by the Nelvaanians
Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi are sent to the planet Nelvaan to find General Grievous. While there, Anakin is sent on a quest by a village shaman. In a cave decorated with primitive drawings, Anakin sees powerful visions of his future. To carry the memory of this experience with him, he has the drawings tattooed on his body.
There are certainly quite a few scenes of presentiment involving Jedi and caves throughout the vast Star Wars universe. But besides the most popular one of Luke’s failure at the cave on Dagoah, the scene of Anakin on Nelvaan with a horrifying vision of his future has to rank pretty high up there too. When Anakin was covered with bruise-leech crawlers, a distinctive geometric pattern covered his chest and right arm as well as his right eye and right side of his back. It was a painful mark, but as with any bruise they eventually go away. (This is the reason we don’t see these markings when Anakin has his shirt off in Revenge Of The Sith.) As he looks at the Nelvaanian pictograms on the wall of the cave, he hallucinates and sees them begin to move. And as this story comes to life before his eyes, he notices one of the characters is a dark figure attacking the innocent people around it. A hero then enters the “story” and defeats the dark and evil force with a large mechanical arm. He becomes popular with the villagers in this story and suddenly the hero is unable to control his own power and turns his good into bad. The hero’s arm becomes part of the darkness it originally fought off and begins attacking the innocence of the village. The former hero cannot gain enough power and increases in size and continues to kill and destroy. Out of almost nowhere, the arm leads to the face of Anakin Skywalker which in turn becomes the helmet of Darth Vader. The scene was enough to chill your spine and has remained one of the most relevant storylines in the entire Star Wars universe. The symbolism of his mechanical hand that first appears to help others is actually the force used to wreak havoc upon the galaxy. The metaphor will give you goose pimples. And this all happened in an animated short in Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars.
As a result, it only made sense that Hasbro would add this version of Anakin Skywalker into the lineup of the 30 (77-07) line. And the results are quite spectacular. Many fans refer to the bruise-leech crawler markings as tattoos, but they aren’t even despite what the figure's description says; it's inaccurate. This is a general fallacy that has remained rather strong in the collecting community which is unfortunate because many have used it as an argument that the Clone Wars are non-canon to the films. But the marks on Anakin’s body are essentially very bad hickeys and nothing more. Anakin Skywalker has a perfect 12 points of articulation. But thanks to Hasbro’s expert design, ankle joints are not necessary because we are hard pressed to think of a better Anakin Skywalker action figure with a perfect stance and even better center of gravity. You couldn’t knock this figure over accidentally if you tried and we think the inclusion of ankle joints would have really upset the aesthetic of his boots. And this boots are sublimely perfect as is too. Hasbro did a spectacular job on the paint job of this figure. From the hair on his head to the weathering and stress in the leather on his boots, this is one finely painted action figure specimen. As a bonus, you can recreate “Nelvaan Anakin” from two separate chapters in Volume 2 of the Clone Wars. They included both the hand prior to and right after his injury at the Techno uni0n facility when he reached into the energy shield to shatter the power crystal using the Force. So we you get one full prosthetic attachment and one that is ripped to shred and both look fantastic. Another nice bonus to this figure that was really unnecessary was the inclusion of a separate mold belt around his waist. It is on there pretty tightly, so we aren’t entirely sure why Hasbro didn’t just make the cod section one piece, but it is definitely a nice touch.
There are so many other details that Hasbro has meticulously executed as well. For example, the silver dots used to represent his belt buckle and snaps are 100% flawlessly painted in place. We are talking about dots the size of a grain of salt (or smaller). We apologize if you’re confused on why this impresses us so much, but it's just remarkable to us. Anakin obviously isn’t wearing a shirt yet Hasbro has doe a great job of making the ball-joints in the shoulders and elbows look pretty good. His body is lean and fit and it appears as if he has been doing a good job keeping his body in shape as evidenced by the musculature in his chest, abs and back. He comes with his standard blue bladed lightsaber and it can be held in both his human hand as well as his cybernetic hand perfectly. This is summarily an action figure that has it where it counts the most and it’s absolutely one of Hasbro’s finest creations to date. This figure was a fantastic seller and it was even carried forward into 2008 and came with an action figure stand instead of a coin. Even that version sold very quickly and extremely well. The Clone Wars has given us some pretty dramatic takes on some of our most favorite heroes and villains. But when there is a great back story to a certain outfit or look of the character, it makes it all the more special. Anakin Skywalker and his trials on Nelvaan was truly an eye opening tale that shed a whole new light on his character. And as a tragic hero, it is quite sad that Anakin did so much good for so many others yet couldn’t control his fear of loss which led to his ultimate demise. But Hasbro has certainly done a great deal of good to us by making this awesome action figure. And the question is do you have yours in your collection yet?
Collector Notes
Anakin Skywalker
Status: Anakin Skywalker is an all-new figure.
Articulation Count: 11
Articulation Details: ball-socket head, 2 ball-jointed shoulders, 2 ball-jointed elbows, swivel right forearm, swivel waist, 2 swivel hips, 2 ball-jointed knees
Accessory Count: 2
Accessory Details: interchangeable damaged cybernetic right arm, lightsaber
Date Stamp: 2007
Assortment Number: 87335/87500
UPC: 653569218531
Retail: $6.99
Market Value: Click here to check the latest prices based on listings.