Clone Pilot - TSC - The Episode III Heroes & Villains Collection (6 of 12)

Clone trooper pilots are specially trained for the skills needed to fly attack and troop ships. As part of the Grand Army of the Republic, the clone pilots engage the Separatist forces across the galaxy.

Fact: If there is a regular clone made, you can bet that there’ll be a “shadow” version of it at some point down the line in the Hasbro Star Wars toy line. And sometimes the “shadow” versions will arrive before the “regular” versions. If you’re unsure of exactly what we’re referring to here, Hasbro decided to repaint a few of their very popular clones released in the Revenge Of The Sith line and release them in later waves to help collectors army build and bring some diversity into our collections. The 2005 ROTS Clone Pilot (III 34) figure wasn’t entirely a movie-accurate character either, but now Hasbro has painted him all black and to be quite honest with you he looks a lot more like a TIE Fighter Pilot than a Clone Pilot. Perhaps that was the intentions of Hasbro. They’re always attempting to connect the dots and foster the marriage of OT with the PT to make things new and exciting for collectors. They know it’s the Original Trilogy that sucks long term collectors in this hobby. While we do actually love the nod to the Original Trilogy, we have to say it was unfortunately wasted on a fairly inferior sculpt and collectors of all ages will need to see this updated at some point because this version just doesn’t cut it.

Swivel shoulders and swivel elbows are a nightmare for any Star Wars action figure, but especially an army builder like a clone. As you can imagine, the Clone Pilot [Shadow] figure suffers from a lack of usable articulation. The swivel elbows in particular snap off of the figure on a whim and the swivel shoulders prove useless when trying to pose him with a blaster or even manipulate the large cannon he comes with in the packaging. Aside from the figure’s rather glaring faults, we do have to admit that the newly revised paint scheme does wonders for the figure’s sculpt and we love what we’re seeing here. But to deny how frustrating it is that this gorgeous (yet very simple) new paint job has been wasted on a bad sculpt is not something we can do. It’s a shame that Hasbro didn’t wait for a better sculpt to make a running change. Then again, many collectors just want a different pilot to stick in their ARC-170 Fighters most likely, so they’re likely to forgive a figure that comes with the included articulation points. We are very stuck on this figure’s articulation in case you haven’t notice, so please forgive our obsession in this discussion. Now Hasbro has decided to repack this figure in 2006's The Saga Collection's The Episode III Heroes & Villains Collection.

It has been rumored and suggested that this figure is a Shadow Squadron Clone Pilot based on Utapau (to complement the TARGET exclusive Utapau Shadow Trooper). That is quite possible, although it’s hard to tell for sure since the Clone Pilot [Shadow] figure is wearing a very standard flight uniform without any discernable markings. (Editor’s Note: Hasbro released 2009’s LC Imperial Pilot Legacy Evolutions set which contained an update to this figure. However, it was labeled as a V-wing Pilot on the packaging and this caused some controversy within the collecting community since it was believed that the Clone Pilot (Republic Gunship) figure in that set was the actual Clone Pilot (V-wing Starfighter) figure. In other words, collectors thought Hasbro switched their names accidentally.) We are all for the continuous repainting of excellent Clone Trooper sculpts so that Hasbro can bring us easy yet cool new clones into our collections. But since we’re getting more and more demanding with our articulation, perhaps Hasbro should just wait to do repaints on certain clone types until they have a definitive base sculpt to utilize for these purposes. We're not sure if this particular Clone PIlot was an optimal choice to add in the greatest hits line of figures, but they must have some numbers to show that it is needed at retail again.