Scout Trooper (Star Wars Battlefront) - OTC - Basic (Exclusive)

The scout trooper patrols the forests of Endor on his speeder bike, alert for signs of trouble. His mission is to guard the generator that protects the second Death Star battle station. Chaos erupts as he encounters Rebel Alliance soldiers, who plan to destroy the generator in their quest to free the galaxy from the evil Empire. The scout trooper raises his blaster rifle to stop the Rebels before they can escape... and the battle begins! The scout trooper is just one of the key characters you can become in Star Wars Battlefront, the intense, open-ended, multiplayer action game. Choose an allegiance and pick a soldier from one of four different armies, then battle it out on legendary planets with a variety of weapons and vehicles – all from the Star Wars universe! Storm into a galaxy at war, and may the Force be with you!

There are some moves that Hasbro makes that will leave you scratching your head for years. They introduced the Star Wars collecting community to the very first Star Wars: Battlefront video game figure in 2004. While not technically in The Original Trilogy Collection line look, it was released in its own one-off (and very unique) packaging to fit in better with the video game market. You would think that since Hasbro is appealing to a younger demographic that they would have developed the Scout Trooper (Star Wars Battlefront) figure to be more functional for that audience. If you don’t know by now, Hasbro permanently glued both weapons to the action figure. The irony here is that switching out weapons is a huge part of the Star Wars: Battlefront gaming experience, and you just cannot make that part of the “game” with the action figure. Why they permanently adhered these weapons to the figure is something we’ll probably never be able to comprehend. It was a huge mistake.

The glued weapons do however make this version of the Scout Trooper very unique. First released in the Power Of The Jedi line in 2000 and again with a clean paint job in 2001, then released as part of The Original Trilogy Collection in 2004, the same Scout Trooper sculpt is once again is reused for this exclusive release. Don’t get us wrong. It’s a great sculpt and worthy of repetitive use, but the permanent weaponry is such a dramatic setback that most collectors will find frustrating and very aggravating. As a display piece it works, but how much versatility does a “statue” add to your basic figure collection? If you want to look at the positives of this release, there are signs that Hasbro tightened up some of the paint operations. This flavor of the Scout Trooper appears to have cleaner lines and an overall brighter look. Interestingly, the portions of the action figure where the weapons are attached are messy and spotty thanks to that nasty glue used to lock them in place forever.

Collectors are becoming increasingly more interested in the part of the Expanded Universe that are covering the video games and hoping that Hasbro will continue to make action figures based on these events in the saga. But they need to wipe a new clean slate and reconsider how they approach these figures in 3.75” scale going forward. While we appreciate that ground has been broken once again to bring us video game action figures (the last ones we received were from 1998’s POTF2 line), the Scout Trooper doesn’t give too much hope that they will be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. Hasbro obviously will not be exhausting a full all-new tooling budget to create characters from the video games. Expect these to be repaints and repacks for the most part. This is fine, but Hasbro need to utilize the best sculpts they have in house and not diminish the quality by permanently adhering the accessories to them. Come on Hasbro, you can do much better.