Darth Vader - SW [DV/ROTS] - 12-Inch Figures

Darth Vader is a powerful Sith Lord dedicated to crushing the Jedi and seizing control of the galaxy.

You know something? When you’ve been with Hasbro since 1995 when the neo-classic Star Wars action figure line came to be, and you see them in 2013 releasing products like the 12-Inch Darth Vader figure, it makes you a little bit angry. How in the world have increased tooling, manufacturing and distribution costs brought the Star Wars line to its knees? Super-articulation for a kids’ line is unheard of now. 12-Inch figures that had been once loaded with articulation and layers of real fabric clothing are now hollow plastic pitiful excuses for an action figure. In fact, they’ve been nicknamed “shampoo bottles” by critical collectors from across the globe. The Darth Vader 12-Inch figure has been chosen as our final review of 2013 for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we wanted to include this scale somewhere with the 2013 calendar year. Next thing we knew the end of the year was here. Secondly, this 12-Inch Darth Vader figure sums up in a way how we have felt about the Star Wars brand, in general, this year. The only saving grace was both scales of The Black Series lines, which in many regards failed in a few ways as well. But this Darth Vader 12-Inch figures is a summation of what exactly is wrong with the line today, and why Star Wars collecting is heading down a path it should not.

Now that the 3.75” basic figure line “for kids” now comes with a mere five points of articulation, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise to collectors that the newly revamped 12-Inch figure line has also suffered a reduction in movement as well. While Hasbro did add swivel wrist movement, Darth Vader still only comes with a swivel head, two swivel shoulders, and two swivel hips. The lightsaber is permanently affixed to his right hand, and he comes with a removable red lightsaber blade which can easily to plug into the hilt to give you some versatility. The sad thing is that swivel shoulders give you very little movement. The good news is that the swivel wrists do help to allow you to pose the lightsaber in some optional ways. So all is not lost in that light. Darth Vader also comes with a terribly cut soft-goods cape. It’s essentially a felt triangle that is permanently attached to the figure. With a little patience, you can attain a rather believable drape with it, but it looks cheap, and no consideration was made to make it look aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Darth Vader has been cast in a very cheap plastic that is much too shiny for his own good. It’s a shame that this is the state of 12-inch figures now.

When fully displayed, at first glance Darth Vader may not look that bad to you. But we can assure you that unfortunate sacrifices have been made to keep this figure within Hasbro’s tooling budget and subsequent MSRP of less than $10. And for all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what you’re getting here. Despite this, we still find it hard to swallow. It’s quite perplexing how this 12-Inch Darth Vader figure can be created and priced to be within the same MSRP range as a super-articulated The Black Series 3.75” figure. Wouldn’t it behoove them to cancel junk like this immediately and apply it to more super-articulated action figures of premium quality? We’re not sure what is happening to the Star Wars brand, but the quality of these toys is beyond sub-par. We would at this point just rather see a few high-quality items get released than this garbage. There isn’t much more we can say about the newly reinvented 12-Inch figures line. It’s disappointing, to say the least, and we feel like we will never get back the ten dollars we wasted on it. If you are into this line, then more power to you, but we have to comment that we find it depressing that the Star Wars line has become this. We’ll leave it at that.