C-3PO (Electronic Talking) - EI - 12 Inch Figures

Beginning life as Anakin Skywalker's home-built droid, C-3PO was an unfinished bundle of wires and metal before becoming the well-known, polished protocol droid. Threepio's specialized etiquette-programming and fluency in over six million forms of communication make him a highly advanced droid and brilliant creation for a young Tatooine slave boy.

Hasbro changed things up with some of the 12-Inch Figures they produced for the Episode I line. And they went “all out” when it came to C-3PO. With a new look and feel, C-3PO’s character in The Phantom Menace opens up the door for more play opportunity. And they took full advantage of this by producing the C-3PO (Electronic Talking) 12-Inch Figure. For double-the-price of a standard 12-Inch Figure, the C-3PO (Electronic Talking) 12-Inch figure brings lights, sounds and a whole bunch of dialogue to the figure and it will be a hit with kids and collectors alike. Hasbro also worked articulation into C-3PO (Electronic Talking). But the articulation also makes up half of the play features here as well. With a stunning sculpt and a fantastic paint job, it’s a shame that Hasbro didn’t put this much effort into the 3.75” EI C-3PO figure. The latter is great too, but seeing everything at a large scale brings home the point that more detail makes this character looks as great as possible. Let’s take a look at the figure’s functionality.

If you power C-3PO up, the figure speaks. After you fully assemble him, he says, "I am C-3PO – human-cyborg relations. How might I serve you?” Then when you insert faceplate, C-3PO's eyes light up. While his eyes light up, he says, "My parts are showing. Oh, my goodness!" It doesn’t end there. Once you detach his faceplate, C-3PO then says, "Somethings not right because now I can't see!" How perfect is this line of dialogue with the play features? There are more features too. If you insert C-3PO's right arm, C-3PO says "Oh yes. That's very good." Likewise, when you detach his right arm, C-3PO says, "Kindly return my arm at once." You can also insert the left arm, and he says, "Oh thank you! My arm feels much better now!" And then if you detach the left arm – C-3PO says, "Oh my! Kindly put that back." Also, if C-3PO is not played with for a, while, he will say, "Come back at once, you haven't finished with me yet!" A nice feature here is that C-3PO has an auto shutoff (which runs after 30 seconds) to prevent battery drain.

That’s about all C-3PO does for talking. But there are more play features here. If you insert the included welding tool into his stomach to activate a button, the figure has a light that turns on concurrently with a welding sound. The sound effects will play for as long as the button is pushed. C-3PO (Electronic Talking) doesn’t have the greatest stability, but he does stand upright without assistance. The articulation in the knees and ankles don’t want to stay put, and they twist the figure around making him a bit unstable sometimes. But aside from that issue, C-3PO (Electronic Talking) is a great looking action figure. The paint operations are gorgeous. He has red, blue, yellow, and orange wires. And a steel-gray frame is underneath them. Hasbro spent a great deal of time to make this C-3PO (Electronic Talking) 12-Inch Figure an incredible release. But we’re not so sure if the $39.99 MSRP will ring true with collectors of this scale or not. That’s a lot of money for a 12-Inch Figure, no matter how much is included.