Jedi Legacy, The - TLC - Evolutions

Journey through the evolution of the Jedi Knights! The Jedi carry on through the many challenges to their survival, teaching the order’s noble ideals and powerful skills to each succeeding generation. Qui-Gon Jinn’s decision to bring young Anakin Skywalker to Coruscant forever changes the fate of the Jedi. Bultar Swan wields her lightsaber courageously during the Clone Wars, and years later, Luke Skywalker helps end the crushing rule of the evil Empire.

In early 2008 during the 30 (77-07) line, Hasbro initially worried fans of Evolutions. They started them off with three sets of repacks. Thankfully a second wave of four all-new three-packs was tagging closely behind and collectors became very excited once again. The new sets included some of the bets figures Hasbro had ever produced. Thankfully, they repackaged all four of them into the new The Legacy Collection line look to give them their deserved time of store shelves. Providing a nice even mix of “old” and “new” across three separate waves, Hasbro issued the new The Legacy Collection Evolutions sets on the product launch date, giving both old and new collectors ample opportunity to grab them all. The Legacy Collection Evolutions line now offers a mix of both old and new multipacks that include both the wave 2 Evolutions sets from the 30 (77-07) line (now repackaged) as well as four new sets with different themes and focuses. What more could fans want than a three-pack of Jedi spanning various sources of the Star Wars universe? The Jedi Legacy features some of the most popular Jedi ever in the Star Wars universe and all look rather remarkable. As straight repacks they don’t bring anything new to the line, but the new packaging is sure to entice fans that must have it all. The Jedi Legacy offers us a super-articulated (albeit pale) version of Qui-Gon Jinn, an Expanded Universe take on Luke Skywalker and then the beautiful Prequel Trilogy version of Bultar Swan in her short but famous role in the Battle of Geonosis. She is also now gaining notoriety in the Expanded Universe comics too. All three action figures have a great deal to offer collectors and we believe that this Evolutions set has given us some of the best head sculpts in a long time. Instead of focusing on the transition of one characters, sets like The Jedi Legacy focuses instead on the progressing eras within the Star Wars timeline. We sort of prefer this direction much more than the “evolution” of a single character.

Qui-Gon Jinn is amazingly scaled and super-articulated. Coming with a sloppy soft-goods Jedi cloak, we have to admit that he looks much better without it. His sculpt is amazing, but he suffers from an imperfect paint job which in the end makes him look much too pale (for both skin and clothing color). His head has been painted nicely, but something went wrong with the eyes and he has a “deer in headlights” expression. This is a shame because the figure would be much improved if Hasbro spent a little more time getting this detail right. Qui-Gon has a beautiful combination of molded plastic and soft-hoods in his lower skirt and he has very broad shoulders and this is another detail that is very screen accurate to Liam Neeson’s character. Qui-Gon unfortunately comes with a very dated Episode I era lightsaber. But at least it can be held with ease in his modern hands! He has amazing playability and can be posed in an infinite amount of configurations thanks to expert engineering and seamless movement. He’s also the only Jedi in this set to come with a soft-goods outer robe. He should hold up well over time. Bultar Swan is probably the highlight of this set for us. While she doesn’t have the same popularity as Qui-Gon Jinn, Hasbro created an impressive interpretation of her in the Evolutions set. It truly looks like the onscreen character. Aside from slightly poor paint applications on the face and hair, Bultar Swan is perhaps one of the best designed Jedi Knights from the Geonosis Arena sequence seen in Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones. The head sculpt is brilliant and her skin color is flawless. On top of an unbelievably authentic likeness, her Jedi clothing is also perfect in every way. She is done so well we think that she should have been offered as a basic figure. Hopefully one day this will happen.

We initially thought that the Luke Skywalker (New Jedi Order) action figure looked a little bit bizarre in the face. Upon careful inspection, we are actually quite impressed with how accurate the likeness actually is. There is definitely something misshapen with his head (perhaps a bit too wide) but overall he scores high marks from us. There is something in his expression that is very “Mark Hamill-ish” and we think Hasbro captured a face they needed to for this action figure. His Jedi outfit is a little bit colorful in comparison to most other Jedi we have seen both in the films and comics. But this unfamiliarity we witness with this figures makes him stand out in a good way. He fits well into the line and it’s a refreshing take on a character we have grown to love and adore through so many enjoyable Star Wars years. A little bit short, Luke Skywalker should make quite a few fans of the Expanded Universe very happy. As an Evolutions set that gives collectors three all-new figures, there is certainly plenty of value here for all. There are no repaints, no repacks and no retools here at all. This is 100% pure new and unadulterated tooling. Collectors should count themselves fortunate here. Hasbro has evidently spent a lot in tooling costs and the result has paid off big time. On a different note, Hasbro has really skipped out on the extra accessories for the action figures. When the Evolutions line first started in 2005, the big selling point was that the figures were loaded with accessories (which they indeed were). Hasbro seems to have focused any available tolling funds on great action figures and this is more than acceptable to us. We just hope these all-new sets keep coming. The Evolutions line is a great way to get three new and highly articulated figures that share a theme together into the marketplace. If this set is any indication of just what Hasbro can do, then we should be in for a plethora of great products!