Padmé Amidala - TCW [R] - Basic (CW35)

Padmé becomes a hostage aboard the Malevolence, the deadly Separatist ship commanded by General Grievous. The courageous senator escapes her captors and contacts nearby Republic forces. She and C-3PO avoid battle droids to rendezvous with her rescuers, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Padmé has been a popular commodity in the Star Wars collecting universe ever since her first action figure. She is getting a lot of billing in all the basic figure lines. Depending upon your point of view, you'll likely agree that some version of her are very good and some are very poor. The new The Clone Wars Amidala falls under the latter category – she is a perfect example of sculpting excellence and a brilliant addition to the line. Every aspect of her frame has been replicated to near perfection. She is curvy and feminine and she has meat on her bones where she needs it. Very pretty and attractive, Padmé Amidala is a character that Hasbro seems to get right every time in The Clone Wars line, but seem to hit or miss in the realistic line. We find this frustrating and disappointing because if they could only extrapolate on their design successes and pass it down to the movie-based line, they could create some magic in the basic figure line. While we don't mean to endlessly whine about this, we want to make it clear that it is one of our biggest wishes for Hasbro to give this much attention to the next movie version of Padmé Amidala. That being said, we bet that many of you will be drooling over this new version of Padmé because she is one of the standout figures in the entire line. Hasbro is showing that they can nail the likenesses and delicate body types of the female characters from The Clone Wars television show. These figures look amazing!

Padmé has an incredible likeness to her appearance in the television series. Her face make-up is done very nicely (especially her eyes and lips) and she has lots of different colors on her head to show streaks in the hair and texture of her braids. She has two tufts of hair that fall on each side of her temples and it is an extra touch that stands out on the figure. The details do not stop there, however. Her outfit is replicated very well and the merlot-colored jacket and fingerless gloves contrast well against her mostly tan jumpsuit. Her dark brown belt has a functioning holster and her silver Naboo-inspired gun fits well inside and is of a great design too. Her reddish brown boots rise to right below her knees and they are chunky and stylish and completely in proportion to the rest of her frame. Speaking of her frame, she is entirely delicate and lean and it makes us mad to consider how Hasbro terribly botched 2009's LC Queen Amidala (BD08) figure with hands that looked like they were ailing or riddled with elephantisis but they can create beautifully sculpted and arms and digits on The Clone Wars figures. Not to take away from this figure's glory, we just get a little irritated when the movie-inspired figures get slighted like that. Sporting 18 points of articulation, she lacks ankle joints that would have made her super-articulated, but trust us when we say that she definitely has more than enough.

Padmé comes with a large launching harpoon blaster. We honestly can't even remember if these weapons are in the television series or in The Clone Wars film (or not), but they are starting to become overbearing at this point. There is really no reason why Ms. Amidala needs to come with a weapon of this size. It is too large and while we suspect you will be able to pose her with it (we had major difficulty), it is more work that it is worth. And if it is Hasbro's intention or desire to scale back on the amount of plastic being included with the basic figures, then this would have been an ideal situation to make the cut. This is not meant to be stated as a negative about this figure. Obviously it is just a extra accessory, but some figures should not comes with weapons of this magnitude (your opinions may vary). But we do want to iterate our clear and succinct rave about this awesome action figure. This Padmé Amidala action figure is definitely the best one so far and it is without a doubt one of the ten best The Clone Wars action figures the line has ever seen. We hope more versions of her are on tap for the line because Hasbro definitely knows how to do this character very well. And if you disagree with that, we would have to question if any figure will make you happy at this point. Female characters are Hasbro's strength and they excel incredibly with them. You already know our feelings on Luminara Unduli (CW30) and now Padmé. And then of course there's Aayla Secura (CW40) that is just too cool for words also!