Darth Maul - SW [Y/AOTC] - Movie Heroes (MH07)

Darth Maul duels Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Theed Royal Palace on Naboo. The evil Sith apprentice slashes at his two Jedi opponents with his double-bladed Lightsaber as the three duel from the hangar bay to the generator complex.

The 2012 Movie Heroes line got stuck in a time warp in many ways. We were not only reliving Episode I, we were also reliving the reduced articulation, the chronically repetitive character selection and weak action features of the figures we saw at retail from over a decade ago. There is no denying that some of the sculpts have been significantly improved despite the reduced articulation, but they’re also bringing very old sculpts into the line with these new figures and it’s really making the line appear it is headed in a reverse direction. The same disaster has followed suit in the 2013 Star Wars [Yoda/Attack Of The Clones] line. Just like its previous iteration, Movie Heroes is overall a mess and it’s been pretty clear that Hasbro is attempting to remain noncommittal about for whom the Movie Heroes line is actually intended. Clearly as collectors are concerned, it’s fair to gauge that the 2012 Star Wars [The Phantom Menace 3D] line was for both kids and collectors, but for the 2013 lineup, it feels that collectors have been completely excluded from the Movie Heroes line. They’re even repackaging the same figures that peg-warmed in the 2012 lineup into this lineup. Not all of the selection are like this, but overall it doesn’t feel wise.

Take for instance Darth Maul. Many collectors felt that they could have dismissed him altogether in the 2012 line when he was released as the Darth Maul (MH15) figure. This same exact figure is now part of the 2012 Movie Heroes line and we’re not so sure why. Darth Maul is of course a hugely popular Star Wars character. But is this exact version of him going to sell again when we all bought him the first time? We don’t think so. Plus, he is riddled with an annoying action feature. Darth Maul is one loose mess of a figure and his action feature is worse. (You press his legs together to make his arms move while holding his double-bladed lightsaber. What’s tragic about this action figure is that Darth Maul is well-proportioned and doesn’t have that terrible of a head sculpt. So why go through the agony of paying for new tooling only to ruin it with these action features? What’s worse, Darth Maul’s forearms are the loosest joints we have ever come across. Unless you plan to pose him at the ready with his lightsaber at all times, his forearms are going to spin in unnatural positions and harm the figure’s overall aesthetics. There are so many wonderful Darth Maul action figures that could have been released instead. Why this one?

We have commented on the head sculpt. It isn’t the greatest likeness we’ve seen for Darth Maul, but it has the potential to rival both the portrait on the one from 2005’s ROTS The Sith Evolutions version and even 2009’s LC Darth Maul (BD05) figure. A revised paint job would really make it shine. But no matter how “good” the head sculpt is, it probably won’t save this figure from being overlooked by a huge portion of collectors. There is just too much wasted opportunity here. Whether it’s because we just can’t accept that Movie Heroes is truly the first kid-focused line or it’s because we want to like all of the all-new sculpts that Hasbro designs in this day and age because they are so few and far between anymore, we do know that the Movie Heroes line is far from being up to snuff. Many are having trouble reconciling the line. We wish we could offer a reason to pick up this figure, but we can’t. It’s just not worth the time or energy and it’s certainly not worth almost ten of your hard earned dollars. This is especially true since this figure was just released a year ago and ended up not selling as briskly as we had hoped. Whatever your own feelings are on this figure, we just think it’s better to stay away from it.