Star Wars
Clone Wars
Clone Trooper, ARC TROOPER, ANAKIN SKYWALKER AND GENERAL GRIEVOUS
3 3/4” FIGURES FROM HASBRO BASED “AS SEEN ON CARTOON NETWORK”
Welcome to a new feature at Yodasnews.com! This is our second edition of First Look, which will try to bring you pictures and reviews of items that we feel will be of special interest to collectors. This review introduces the new wave of animated figures from the Clone Wars cartoon series. We have a load of pictures for you of this new line. Let’s start with the carded figures.
Raise your hand if you assumed these would be a Target exclusive again. I was astounded when I found them at Walmart this morning. First impressions. These look great on the card again. Two variations of the clone trooper: blue stripe and yellow. Anakin comes with a red, Ventress light saber!
Starting with Anakin. Even though I personally would have liked to see more variety of characters before seeing him repeated, this Anakin rocks. It looks just like the cartoon. Details like the wet-look hair and the Ventress saber make the piece.
The ARC Trooper is an excellent addition to this set. He has an excellent sculpt, from details like the range finder on his helmet to the two finger signal on his right hand so you can recreate key ARC scenes from the cartoon. The ARC has two blaster pistols. Impressive. Most Impressive. Not only can he hold both (Nothing like a gunslinger in white armor), he can also store both in working holsters. The signal arm looks completely natural holding a blaster, but when you holster the weapon he looks even more natural with that arm raised to guide his troops across the battlefield.
General Grievous is also a great sculpt. As I said before, I thought he would have more articulation—and he should, but it is still an excellent figure. Great Sculpt and the paint job is swell. I was quite pleased to find that in addition to the two light sabers he carries ignited, there are two hilts fastened (part of the sculpt) to his belt. It is positively wonderful that all four hilts are unique light sabers.
Hasbro set a high standard for articulation on the first waves of these figures: approximately that of a snail. This wave doesn’t stray from that precedent. When I saw the preview pics of these figures, I held out hope that General Grievous would have fully articulated shoulders like some other new Star Wars figures, especially the VOTC. Bottom line is there is only head and shoulder articulation in these figures, even with the General.
Unfortunately, because of the sculpt/articulation, there is really only one pose for the general of the droids. The advantage of his sculpt, for display purposes is that he stands fine on his own. Good thing, too, because he looks too big to fit on the standard Star Wars Clone Wars base included.
The worst single thing about any of these is the head on General Grievous. I don’t know if this will be a universal problem, or if it is just mine, but his head joint is really loose and when I tried to turn his head, it fell off. It goes on just as easily, so this won’t be a problem for collectors or dio builders, but it could be a major concern if I decide to get one for my 2 and 4 year-olds.
One surprise, for me—if they were on the last set, I didn’t see them—were the sketch frames of each character in the background on the back of the card, behind the full color representation of the character.
I figured I would add a few more loose shots for your viewing pleasure. First, the battle that we all hope will happen in the cartoons and/or in the movie:
Lastly, the whole set together:
Click here for Issue #1, Star Wars Jedi Force Luke's X-Wing E-Bay Special Edition