Clone Trooper (501st Legion) - TVC - Basic (VC60)

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It’s time to face the music. Let’s be honest, the 501st Legion is one the most popular, if not the most popular, clone battalions in the entire Star Wars saga. Sadly, Hasbro has found a way top screw it up in the basic figure line. Whether it’s an incorrectly shaped color flash on the helmet or stripes that do not match the color of the rest of the blue on the armor, we just can’t seem to get a “perfect” one for our collection. Granted, 2007’s TSC Commander Appo (SAGA 064) was probably the closest we ever came to a perfect decorated 501st Legion clone trooper, but even that one fell short because the vertical hyperbolic pattern on its chest didn’t go all the way to the top of the chest armor. Boy we can be picky collectors can’t we? Well, Hasbro has stepped up to the plate finally to give us a rather brilliantly painted Clone Trooper (501st Legion) action figure, but you can bet that collectors will be finding something else much more egregious to cry about with this figure. (And they have every right to cry about it.) Hasbro ruined what would otherwise be our definitive 501st Legion Clone Trooper is an ill-fitted helmet that is much too big for the clone’s head as well as the rest of its body.

What makes this frustrating is that Hasbro went the cheap route by dusting off the previously utilized soft and rubbery plastic removable helmet that we have seen since the Evolutions line back in 2005. Instead of developing an all-new smaller helmet, they relegated themselves to using the 2005 model and the results are less than impressive. The Clone Trooper (501st Legion) figure actually looks ridiculous. How this past quality control baffles us. It’s very upsetting to see something miss the mark because of laziness. You may be wondering why we’re clamoring on and on about this. But we take to heart when a figure comes so close to perfection but falls short due to Hasbro’s short cuts. We would have even preferred to see Hasbro use the removable helmet from 2005’s ROTS Tactical Ops Trooper (III 65) (the original 501st Legion Clone Trooper basic figure) and recast it so it would match the rest of The Vintage Collection version. (That particular helmet is in a smaller scale and more proportionate to the figure’s revised size.) What’s even more surprising perhaps is that Hasbro developed an all-new helmet for the phase I clone, so why did it slip by them to update a proportionate phase II helmet? We still say it’s unacceptable laziness.

This all being said, we still are fond of this figure. The application of the blue color flashes is just awesome. For the first time in years, Hasbro has included broken strokes of color to represent the harsh environment that a battle can create. There is apparent damage markings especially in the chest area and the parallel lines running down his legs. It really looks impressive. The blue color used looks like the exact shade seen in Episode III. For a while it seemed that we were getting a different color blue for every last 501st Legion Trooper that Hasbro released. It looks like we will have some uniformity when all is said and done. What’s especially important to us is the inclusion of ball-jointed wrists and hips. We are so amazed how much these points of articulation enhance the figure. The last time we received ball-jointed hips on the 501st Legion was with 2005’s ROTS Tactical Ops Trooper (III 65). But now we have the upper body articulation to match the awesome lower body articulation we’ve known for years. The Clone Trooper (501st Legion) figure obviously isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely a step above what we currently have been given. We just hope Hasbro finds a way to revise the helmet in mid production. Because if they can, we will have one amazing phase II clone body template for our collections.