R5-D4 - TBS [P4] - Six Inch Figures (TM33)

A battered astromech droid, R5-D4 has had a long operational span bouncing around various owners on Tatooine for decades. Now, he resides in Docking Bay 3-5 of Mos Eisley Spaceport in Peli Motto's employ.

Most of us knew it wouldn’t be long before Hasbro converted the all-new R2-D2 tooling into other astromech droids. And here we are, with R5-D4 from The Mandalorian. Not much separates the Disney Star Wars R5-D4 from the Original Trilogy R5-D4. And that’s a great thing. So, unless you’re hung up on the packaging sporting The Mandalorian logo, this release of “Skippy” will suffice for all of your Star Wars saga needs for this character. The new astromech droid tooling seems to be a mixed bag for many collectors. We love the new design, even if it contains a prominent “off-screen” feature like the extending dome and utility tool storage. We admittedly like these figures. To make R5-D4, Hasbro tooled an all-new dome attachment that features the specific details of an R5 unit. We still get the two opening front panels, and the red arms swing open as you desire. We get some repeated all-new utility tools that give R5-D4 uniqueness and specialness. The paint operations are superb on R5-D4, and thankfully, Hasbro ensured that they painted the three vertical back panels red. They caught this crucial detail on The Vintage Collection version and ensured they captured that here, too. There are no more removable side panels on the legs. These blue sections are bolder and more prominent, and it does the tooling a world of good by reducing the number of removable parts. Likewise, one dome panel is removable to insert the bad motivator accessory included here. It’s tiny! We also get five other utility attachments. The basic articulation system of the original R2-D2 figure is intact here. We get a swivel dome, two swivel main legs, three hinge-jointed feet, and a slide-out third leg. Coincidentally, no rolling wheels are on the bottom of any feet. We prefer this approach more as the wheels were accurate but a nuisance when displaying the droid on a shelf or display. But a new feature is the slide-up dome, which houses a display area for R5-D4’s attachments. Another simple detail that we also appreciate here is the color of the body. As mentioned, the first version of R2-D2 came with a ghastly bright white body. Hasbro smartly used a “bone” or “eggshell” off-white color here, and it captures the aesthetics of the on-screen character. Each tool plugs into one of the body’s six holes as you prefer, and the functionality is excellent. We get a lot of interchangeability, and we love how Hasbro captured most of the droid’s tools from the Star Wars saga. We especially love the functionality of the two articulated front arms (the ones horizontally in red). As stated, Hasbro decided to source this R5-D4 figure to the character from The Mandalorian, but we don’t know how you’d be able to tell outside of the packaging. We think Hasbro did a marvelous job upgrading the tooling for The Black Series astromech droids. These look fantastic.