Rancor And Luke Skywalker - POTF2 [FF/TKC] - Creatures

HEIGHT: Over 5 Meters
HOMEWORLD: Unknown
CHARACTERISTICS: Ferocious, Carnivorous, Powerful

Within Jabba the Hutt's desert palace on Tatooine, there is a special pit that houses a rancor. Over five meters in height, this reptilian-like creature has long, exaggerated arms, dangerous fangs and huge claws – truly a fearsome sight. The crime lord uses the rancor as a means of eliminating enemies and failed employees. Its pit is located beneath Jabba's court, providing an excellent view for the crime lord and his associates as victims struggle helplessly to defend themselves. That all changes when Luke Skywalker is dropped into the loathsome pit. Armed with only a large bone leftover from one of the rancor's previous victims, the Jedi Knight conquers the horrible beast.

1998 was an amped up year for The Power Of The Force “2” line. Kenner began adding a very cool pack-in premium with the awesome selection of basic figures (the Freeze Frame Action Slide) and they also got a little more adventurous by adding and introducing new creatures and unique vehicles into the line as well. They also focused their attentions towards a pretty nice selection of Creature sets for collectors. For many, this was perhaps the best part of all the 1998 array of products. They released the first time ever Bantha And Tusken Raider set to thunderous applause, and then they updated the classic Rancor with the addition of the Rancor And Luke Skywalker set. The Rancor And Luke Skywalker set was interesting and its release felt right, but it didn’t really feel like it took the vintage release to a whole new level. For one reason of another, the modern Rancor also didn’t feel proportionate to the onscreen creature. And many collectors didn’t feel that the articulation wasn’t progressive enough for a modern release. In fact, the vintage Rancor came with more movement. Still, the release of the Rancor And Luke Skywalker set was fun to see and most collectors bought this set up anyway, regardless of its imperfections.

The Rancor sculpt doesn’t seem to possess the correct posture. With limited articulation, it is difficult to position the Rancor in poses that are screen accurate. It isn’t impossible, but this should be easier than it is. The figure’s center of gravity is frankly nightmarish. Because one foot is posed in front of the other, the Rancor always wants to fall and has difficulty attaining any type of “action” pose. Plus, the arms don’t reach to the “ground” so you can’t use them to anchor the Rancor unless you have it completely bent over nearly facing the ground. But in all honesty, if you are successful with the poses you situate, you’ll find that the Rancor does look pretty awesome. We just feel it shouldn't be this difficult to pose a modern toy. The lack of ball-jointed shoulders is a huge drawback. In the film, the Rancor’s “greatest” feature is its arms. There is limited movement with them for this release. Thankfully, Kenner added swivel wrists which is a huge bonus for collectors. Sadly, the Rancor has no head movement, jaw movement or body movement. This creature is as basic as it gets. If Kenner decided to go this route, they should have focused their energies on the figure’s balance, because we find its inability to stand unassisted a huge letdown.

Where the Rancor DOESN’T fail in in its paint operations. Kenner went above and beyond painting the figure very beautifully. There are some small imperfections on our sample. Right out of the package we noticed some chips of paint, most notably on one of the teeth and the nails on the feet and hands. This of course is a minor disappointment as paint operations are everything on these toys. Overall however, the Rancor just has too many limitations for us to get excited here. As a pack-in bonus here, Kenner added a “Unique Battle-Worn Jedi Luke” figure. Luke Skywalker is not half bad. He has been posed in a way that makes him look like he is rearing back a bit at the overwhelming presence of the rancor. From that angle he has been well done. While Luke seems to borrow parts from past figures, we have found that he actually shares no other parts with other releases. This can be considered an all-new release. He also has received speckling on his clothing to look like the dirt from the Rancor pit. It is hard to see in person, but when you look at an enlarged version of the figure in our photo gallery, you can make out the speckling quite well. He also comes with a femur of a past victim of the Rancor. A decent release, albeit far from perfection, Rancor And Luke Skywalker may not be a key release in your collection.