Wedge Antilles - TVC - Basic (VC28)

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Wedge Antilles is bit of an anomaly in the Star Wars basic figure line. For a background Rebel who survives through three Original Trilogy Star Wars films (of which this figure is based on his third appearance), he certainly didn’t get the proper respect he absolutely deserved as far as a place in the basic figure line is concerned. This doesn’t mean that Hasbro completely ignored him, but he was more of an afterthought than a proud addition it seemed. He’s popped up here and there throughout the years (even once as an exclusive), but mostly as a pack-in figure. And perhaps the best version of him not including this The Vintage Collection version is the one that came in 2009’s LC Wedge Antilles’ X-wing Starfighter TARGET exclusive. You think we’d be happy that he finally got a coveted place in the basic figure line. But we’re not. In a sudden last minute move, Hasbro decided to yank him from wave 3 of The Vintage Collection that came out in November 2010 because they wanted to finally do right by him and give him a all-new head sculpt and a few other refreshers. (There original plans were to simply repackage the figure from the 2009 Legacy Collection TARGET exclusive set. And since hindsight is always 20/20, that may have been the best route to go, because the whole drama surrounding him was anything but smooth.) So, despite good intentions, Wedge Antilles was to see even more problems.

After Wedge Antilles was pulled from wave 3 of The Vintage Collection, Hasbro only managed to squeeze him into ONE case assortment, the infamous “revision 11” assortment. Needless to say, that one case didn’t even nearly come close to filling demand. What made matters even worse is that this case could only be found online. And then individual samples commanding ridiculous secondary aftermarket prices which infuriated fans. (Editor’s Note: Hasbro has assured us that Wedge Antilles as well as the Gamorrean Guard have finally been worked in as carry-forward figures.) Poor Hasbro. All they really tried to do was make us happy, but it all went terribly awry and ended causing more distress than it should have. And the high levels of angst this issue caused is somewhat ironic since Wedge Antilles is essentially just an old action figure with a new head. There’s not much more brought to the table here. Hasbro actually did a small switch with the lower legs. This puts the ammunition belt on the figure’s left leg instead. But all of the parts are the same. We did notice some very, very slight discoloration in Wedge’s parts. For example, parts of the legs aren’t the exact shade of orange as the midsection. Please don’t misunderstand this point. It’s barely noticeable and you have to look for it. But overall, this is a topnotch figure.

The new and improved portrait for Wedge Antilles is pretty good. While we do love this update, we’re not entirely seeing why Hasbro needed to “waste” the time and energy to develop all-new tooling because the available portraits would have seemingly sufficed. You may be of a different opinion here and that’s great. But again we ask, would you rather have had Wedge with the rest of wave 3 when it came out or have continued difficulty trying to secure him for your collection? Wedge Antilles has nicely moving articulation points. They’re not loose, but they’re also not impossible to manipulate. The removable helmet fits a little to tightly for our liking, but it does fit like a glove. (And it’s a little difficult to take off of his head as the head pops off for us when we try it.) The helmet is painted very sharply and there are many details flawlessly applied. Besides appearing slightly too short, Wedge Antilles may remain the definitive version for a while. That’s fine by us and besides we’d like to see a snowspeeder pilot version next anyway. Variation hunters beware. Wedge comes on two unique card backs. One has updated graphics including the correctly carded Revenge Of The Sith Yoda and the historical reference has been updated and changed to a scene from Episode VI. There’s a lot of notes to take when you’re talking about Wedge Antilles!