Darth Vader - ROTS - Deluxe

After he is gravely wounded in a climactic duel, Anakin is rescued by the Emperor and becomes part man, part machine. The mechanical parts that now keep him alive also finalize his transformation to Darth Vader.

Alright. You probably know we aren’t too fond of action/play features in our Star Wars action figures. Where we will make an exception is with 2005’s ROTS Darth Vader Deluxe figure. Let us tell you right off the bat that it’s impossible to get more value than this for $9.99. Not only do you get a complete Darth Vader figure with removable parts, you also get the operating table where he was restored to life, though more machine now than man. The figure itself won’t hold up over time, but it’s intended to be interactive with its environment. Translation: you’ll want and need both figure and environment to make this set work in your displays and collection. This set isn’t perfect. The table it much too tall and whatever surgical droids you choose to display this set with are going to feel dwarfed by the table. However, if you don’t display the actual table at a ninety degree angle, you’ll find that other figures and Darth Vader interact much more easily that way. One of the most pivotal scenes in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith, turning Anakin Skywalker’s burned body into the black-suited Darth Vader is something the entire Star Wars community wanted to see onscreen. And it happened in gory detail. Now we have a toy that recreates this, albeit in a much tamer way. Still, all of the details are in place and this will absolutely go down as one of Hasbro’s most interesting toys.

The Darth Vader figure itself has the capability to look just like the Darth Vader character we have known since the late seventies, or as the burned body of Anakin Skywalker. Darth Vader comes with removable boots and underneath are the metal pegs that have been given to him as prosthetics to allow him to walk again. He also comes with a removable left forearm and a removable right glove. Underneath the gloved forearm is a cybernetic one. The detail isn’t great, but you’ll understand what it’s meant to be. Darth Vader also comes with a removable helmet (which is nicely sculpted by the way) and a removable chest box. The area underneath the chest box has some cool silver detail in it. We like the option of this being removable and helps to add more to this whole “FrakenVader” sequence in the film. Darth Vader’s head sculpt underneath the helmet is fair. At times we feel it looks like a baked bean than anything else, but we imagine it was hard to sculpt when the focus of this whole set was rebuilding Darth Vader. The figure comes with admirable articulation. He comes with a swivel head, a swivel waist, two swivel shoulders, and two swivel hips. You can technically add more articulation points if you include the removable parts as points of articulation also. We did, so we get a total count of ten total points of articulation. As far as accessories are concerned, Darth Vader comes with a removable molded cape and a lightsaber.

The Darth Vader Deluxe figure set is interactive beyond figure and environmental piece too. Hasbro graciously tooled the bottom right (its right, not your right) to accompany the display stand of 2005’s ROTS Vader’s Medical Droid (III 37) figure. Now we just need the 2-1B and FX-6 figures and our collections will be complete. (Editor’s Note: Hasbro finally produced 2008’s TAC 2-1B (Medical Droid) (08 06) and 2008’s TLC FX-6 (BD 28) figures to accompany this set. They also re-released this set and many of those figures in 2010’s LC Birth Of Darth Vader Battle Packs set.) You can clearly see how well Hasbro thought-out this set and how it would impact the rest of your collection. The operating table is able to swivel and lock into place. It really doesn’t have an action features beyond that but what else does an operating table need. The details on the legs of the table are most impressive. We’re just so impressed with how far Hasbro goes to make toys as screen accurate as possible. You know the table to too high. This is definitely a setback. But we suppose that for now out of scale is better than not having it at all. We would hope that Hasbro would scaled down an actual environmental piece without play features and perhaps make it even closer to the prop we saw in the film. Despite our wishes, we still feel that the Darth Vader Deluxe figure set is a highlight in the Revenge Of The Sith Deluxe figure line. This is the way to do “action features” in our opinion.