Deluxe Anakin Skywalker

Height: 10cm (Anakin); 10.5 cm (Darth Vader)

Articulation: 7 points total - Swivel shoulders, elbows, hips, and waist.

Accessories: Anakin's cloak; blue light sabre; red light sabre; Darth Vader pieces (helmet and cape, torso piece, two forearms, robe tails, leg armor)

Colors: Molded brown, black, fleshtone, clear blue, clear red. Painted dark brown, light brown, grey, silver, red, green, black, copper, reddish-brown.

Release Data: Released in North America on April 2nd, 2005 at an MSRP of US$9.99. This item is still in production as of April 22nd, 2005.

Gallery: 11 images.

Author: ExVee

First, to proceed with this review, you must learn a major spoiler for Revenge of the Sith. In this movie, Anakin will become Darth Vader. I know, difficult to believe but it's completely true.

Of course, in reality this is pretty much the most highly anticipated moment of the prequel triolgy, with the expectations of fans built up so much over the years that the actual event is bound to be a let down. But have no fear, now you can kind of recreate Anakin's transformation at home to suit your own silly visions of what it should be.

As I noted in my review of Shaak Ti, I never bought Star Wars figures in the past, so I own no other version of Darth Vader. And in keeping with my typical disinterest, I wasn't even aware this figure existed, so when I saw it after finding Shaak Ti, I was rather drawn to the vaguely clever idea behind the figure. Figures of this type are far from uncommon, but Episode III is the first time such a figure can be used to portray both Anakin Skywalker and his Dark Side evolution, Darth Vader. While there are certainly limitations presented by the format, the concept is certainly good. As for how it translates into execution...

The Figure, part one - Anakin

The horrifying likeness of Anakin's face is marked with two scars. Or, they're supposed to be scars. I actually find them to look like strange growths, with the much pinker skin tone used for them, and how they're significantly raised from the face. Perhaps Anakin got a little close to a ship's reactor and is now sporting horrible radiation spawned mutation!

Anakin's hair is weird. It has a base brown color, and then splotches of lighter brown all over. I assume it's supposed to be highlights, but I figure he's really just had some mud poured on his head by some intern Jedi, since that seems to fit more with how the colors are arranged.

Neck articulation is non-existant, as a compromise for the transformation.

Anakin's torso is a little oddly shaped, being pretty much a straight line from his collar to his waist. Also a transformation compromise, but a more glaring one than a lack of neck articulation. You could potentially excuse it as the tunic being a bit loose, but that still doesn't work much. The tunic itself is molded decently. Obviously they couldn't go too wild with wrinkles or anything, but it does manage to look like the few layers of fabric that it's supposed to be, and it's all painted in flat colors, to minimize the shiny clothing effect.

The arms are basic typical Star Wars - all swivels. The shoulders swivel quite averagely, and the left arm has the sort of swivel elbow used with Shaak Ti. Oddly, the left fist is molded at such an angle that it seems like it should be holding a light sabre or similar device, but the fist is closed. Quite strange. The right arm has the elbow at a fixed bend, with a swivel that only turns the forearm. The right hand is open, to hold the blue light sabre, but the thumb is molded bent, totally unlike how iot should be to hold something like that. As this is Anakin's prosthetic forearm, it's wrapped in a tight black glow with a few silver details on the straps.

The waist is tight, and because of the shape of the torso, you can't turn it far without looking anatomically impossible. Normally I'd say that in a case like this is might as well have been left out altogether, but with the lack of neck it's the only way to even try to let him look to either side. From the belt down is a soft plastic piece that wraps around the figure. Once lined up correctly, it matches the flow of the tunic details on the torso, but it seems slightly too small, so there's an unavoidable gap where the piece is supposed to meet and close.

The legs are boring. With only hip joints, there's no functional articulation at all. Moving the hips any distance just causes the lower half of the tunic to try to fall off. Plus, when using Anakin's cloak, it's effectively impossible to make the figure balance. If the hip joints had been omitted, the legs could have been molded into a position to make the figure balance while using Anakin's main accessory.

besides the expected fabric lines, the legs don't have a whole lot of detailing. The pants are made to look baggy, with just a few folds and wrinkles around the knees. The boots are close fitting and go all the way to the bottom edge of the knees. The front half of the boots is molded to look armored, while the back has a slightly more basic leathery look in the way it's molded.

The Figure part two - Darth Vader

Of course, Vader is less a separate figure than a series of accessories to be attached to Anakin. To turn Anakin into Vader, remove both forearms and replace with the Vader-gloved forearms. Clip the chest piece over Anakin's torso, with the clip part down, and then replace Anakin's "skirt" with Vader's. Note that vader's joins in back. Press the leg armor over the boots, and finally press Anakin's springy head down to clip Vader's cape and helmet on.

First, this is by no means a perfect transformation. Much of Anakin's brown clothing is visible. But it's actually quite strategic - most of the visible brown is in places where it's still largely obscured, or in shadow, so that it's minimally obvious. I must say that they did quite well planning how to compensate for being unable to cover everything.

Second, as with Anakin's cloak, Vader's cape is too heavy, and it throws any pretense of balance out immediately. You either have to prop the figure against something, or steal the base from some other figure. More comment on a base later.

In this conversion, no new articulation is added. Actually, the cape reduces the articulation of the shoulders, but Vader can wield the red light sabre just fine, so it's of little importance.

Now really, if there's one thing Hasbro should be able to do right after all these years, it's sculpt a perfect likeness of Darth Vader's helmet, right? Well, as it happens, that's exactly what they've done. Proportions, angles, lines, it's all exactly what it should be. There's nothing quite like having an expectation perfectly fulfilled, is there?

Actually, everything is sculpted very well. Though the cape is sized conveniently for the figure, it appears large and flowing with the placement of the folds. The switches and indicators on Vader's chest box and belt are all molded nicely, and even the square segements on Vader's sleeves and gloves are there.

There's only one major flaw that could have been avoided in my mind. The chest piece is curved on the top edge, obviously to fit against the armor collar of Vader's cape, but this doesn't work. Neither the cape piece nor the chest piece can move to meet the other. Interestingly, this seemed to be a problem in the prototype stage as well, since the package photos show the same problem. I'm not really sure why nobody stopped to fix this. All it would be is adding a tiny bit of plastic to one side or the other. That or make Anakin's tunic darker so there's not such an obvious brown band across his chest.

Paint and Deco

While the sculpt is quite good for Vader, and pretty much for Anakin, I do have some minor issues with the paint, mostly on Vader's side. it's really all with the little switches and indicators. The molding is great, but these tiny details are so unevenly painted, it looks either worn, or just sloppy, and neither is acceptable in this case. That's about it, amazingly.

Sculpt gets 8/10, but mostly for Vader.

Articulation gets 6/10

Paint gets 7/10

Accessories

-Cloak

From the front it doesn't look like much. This is a brown cloak that fits over Anakin's head. It's heavy for what it is, being made of soft plastic, and so the figure can't really stand up while wearing it. Now, I said it didn't look like much from the front. That is apparently because all of the sculpted detail is on the back. Wrinkles galore. The whole thing is sculpted as if being blown in the wind. There's also a hood molded into the back of the cloak, and quite nicely. It looks quite accurate to a large hood hanging down the back. As visually impressive as this is, I'd be much more impressed if it didn't make the figure fall over.

-Light sabres

At first glance, these appear to be the same sabre, just done in different colors, but they're actually different sculpts. Just goes to show how Hasbro fears the Star Wars fan, as there'd bean unending amount of hate mail from rabid fanboys frothing at the mouth if both sabres weren't totally accurate. These are sadly single piece. removeable blades would have been great, possibly even allowing for both forms of the figure to store their weapons. As it is, these fit at least adequately in either right hand, and pose no worry of falling out. You might be careful when choosing your figure, as mine came with a bent red sabre.

Since Vader is being treated as a separate form of the figure, the parts are being omitted here. See Figure Part Two for the comments on the Vader gear.

Closing Remarks

Y'know, I understand that a large bit of the $10 pricetag is probably in the Vader wardrobe's plastic, but considering that vader can't stand, and Anakin can;t without a stand, would it really have been such a big deal to include *something*? Even a simple smallish plastic disc would have been fine. Just make it so the figure can be displayed properly!

Aside from that, this is probably the best you could ever hope for in a figure that depicts both Anakin and Darth Vader. I'm not sure if I'd recommend this as a first Vader figure, but if you're only casually interested and just want basic representations of both characters, this isn't a bad choice. Just be prepared to either borrow another figure's stand, or find something to lean the figure against. Deluxe Anakin gets a solid Good.

-ExVeeBrawn, 04/22/2005