Sith Training Darth Maul - TSC - Basic (SAGA 053)

You know something? There are really some action figures in Hasbro’s long and lustrous career that have been total debacles. You would think that once they realize just how terrible the figure is or the lack of critical and fan reception, that they might sweep the disaster under the carpet for it to never been seen again. But sometime quite the opposite happens instead. Take for instance Sith Training Darth Maul. Released when action features were all the rage (something we’ll frankly never understand), during the 2002 Star Wars “Saga” line, the figure was certainly hot for its time but never really achieved anything spectacular when compared to other very well made action figures of the same era. But for reasons unknown, Hasbro elected to dust off this little nightmare and release it as in part one of the Repack & Repaint waves of the soon to be canceled The Saga Collection. Essentially a figure you could refer to as a “complete waste,” we have no bones about being harsh to this figure. Actually, we’re slightly mad it was rereleased!

With so many other great versions of Darth Maul available, it’s literally puzzling why they would choose this figure to be released. It has severely limited articulation, a horrible stance, awkward balance, just an OK paint job and a nightmarish action figure. That horrid action figure is literally rollers (via your thumb) to make Darth Maul’s arms flail around like some ragdoll. Even an Episode I rerelease would have been a better candidate for this wave. We find it utterly peculiar that Hasbro can spend money designing an action feature that fits into the figure, yet will claim that they don’t have the tooling budget to incorporate all of the articulation we’d rather have. Thankfully, a lot of that is changing and The Saga Collection has proved that the approach of the basic figures is changing, but that still doesn’t make it OK to release such an inferior figure as this Darth Maul is in the basic figure line for a second time.

There is a slight deco difference on the head from the 2002 figure, but for all intents and purposes, this figure is really just a repack of 2002’s SW Darth Maul (Sith Training) (’02 #42) figure. Even the red outlines on his outfit irritate us. This isn’t the Darth Maul we got to know in The Phantom Menace and we encourage your collections not getting to know the action figure. Despite the figure being a total waste, we do have to give credit where credit is due. Sith Training Darth Maul comes with a cool metal hilt for his lightsaber. And both blades are removable so you have some versatility here. The Sith Probe Droid on the clear stand is also a nice touch and will likely make other collectors very happy. But it eludes us why Hasbro didn’t just repack the 2005 ROTS The Sith Evolutions Darth Maul figure and repaint it to look like the “Sith Training” version. That would have been ideal and the figure would have been super-articulated. We’ll need to keep encouraging Hasbro to keep the candidates for Repack & Repaint waves a little more interesting. This figure doesn’t cut it.