Red Squadron (R2-D2/R5-D8/R2-X2) - TBS [P3] - Six Inch Figures (Exclusive)

R2-D2: A resourceful astromech droid, R2-D2 showed great bravery in rescuing hismasters and their friends from many perils. A skilled starship mechanic and fighter pilot's assistant, he served Luke Skywalker during the Battle of Yavin alongside Red Squadron.

R5-D8: A red astromech droid used by Jek Tono Porkins – Red Six – during the Battle of Yavin, R5-D8 saw time on both Y-wing and X-wing starfighters during his service to the Alliance.

R2-X2: Astromech droids are a series of versatile utility robots generally used for the maintenance and repair of starships and related technology. R2-X2 was Red 10 Theron Nett's droid and served in the Battle of Yavin.

It often feels like the more years that pass in Star Wars collecting that collectors tire of astromech droids (in any scale). This is something we haven’t understood yet. Astromech droids bring the most color and diversity into the Star Wars action figure line. Sure, they utilize previously existing sculpts, but the options are seemingly endless, and they do great good for dioramas and display scenes. However, the consensus appears to be moving away from favoring them to almost loathing them. Perhaps when it comes to The Black Series 6” line, there is a good reason why collectors are disinterested. Hasbro goofed on 2013’s TBS [P1] R2-D2 (#04) figure by making him much too short (small). And instead of correcting this giant misstep, they decided to repaint and retool this sculpt to bring us more under-scaled action figures. The best outlook for this is to accept “it is what it is” because at this point Hasbro isn’t changing anything. And at least the droids look “to scale” with each other, even if they are dwarfed by the rest of the action figures in The Black Series 6” line. The Red Squadron (R2-D2/R5-D8/R2-X2) set is simply a repaint of the Toys R Us exclusive R2-A3/R5-K6/R2-F2 set released a while back. But it appears that Hasbro is intent on providing collectors with the full astromech droid army that participated in the Battle of Yavin. And frankly, we cannot fault them for that. The droids in this latest set aren’t perfect. We think Hasbro took a few unfortunate shortcuts here, but they do come across as an admirable effort. But will an “admirable effort” be enough to get collectors of this line to bite, especially when the set has an MSRP of $59.99?

Forgetting that these astromech droid sculpts are terribly out of scale, we can now add three more distinct droids specific to the Battle of Yavin into our collection. There are some problems, however, so let’s address them right away. In the film, Theron Nett’s astromech droid, R2-X2, has a white dome, NOT a silver one. But Hasbro overlooked this hugely important detail and we find that to be problematic. In our opinion, this reference check and deco basics. We’re very disappointed Hasbro screwed this up. Despite this faux pas, Hasbro did a great job at matching the droid’s dark green color. And they added some off-screen dirt and battle-damage to the figure which is a nice detail, even if we didn’t see this in the film. (R2-X2 was clean as a whistle when lowered into Theron Nett’s X-wing fighter, and we didn’t see the droid after that. In our opinion, they did nail the deco on R5-D8 and took into consideration all of the differences that set it apart from R5-D4 (which is something they completely botched on the 3.75" version). It’s unknown if the back of the droid is correct or not as very few reference images exist of this droid, but they did a fantastic job here. It makes us wonder if a 6” Jek Porkins is coming soon in the lineup. The battle-damaged R2-D2 looks pretty good, but a true retooling is required before it’s screen-accurate to the blasts he received during the Battle of Yavin. (Remember the 2008 TAC Luke Skywalker/R2-D2 Droid Factory set? Hasbro has to execute the same approach for the 6" version of this R2-D2.) And again, aside from suffering from a much too small scale, this three-pack of astromech droids is nice. They are also costly.

Just like the R2-A3/R5-K6/R2-F2 three-pack, adding astromech droids into The Black Series 6" line is a nice gesture, but it’s rather pointless if we don’t have the pilots to accompany them. Besides, how would Hasbro add random Rebel Alliance pilots into the 6” line? Would it have to be a box set? Would they pepper them into the basic figure line? Or is it not an option at all to produce them for collectors? (3.75” collectors know how old getting the same orange-outfitted pilot is over and over again.) At best, the Red Squadron (R2-D2/R5-D8/R2-X2) three-pack is a novelty exclusive at best. And because of this, it may only appeal to a certain facet of The Black Series 6” collectors. Hopefully, it will perform well, however. As you know, Amazon is adding these to their site little by little, and it sells out instantly. We wonder if this is a marketing ploy so that people think this set is hot or rare or both. Amazon also might be doing this to prevent the “wait for clearance” crowd after losing so much money on past exclusives. Random astromech droids have typically been hot items in 3.75" scale for many years, but that is now fizzling too. But if in general collectors are more interested in other characters, is it better to focus on other things when it comes to retailer exclusives? We’re pretty sure that the consensus will be that these droids are painted rather well (minus a couple of issues). We think they are painted nicely too. But ultimately they’re imperfect in important ways. We do hope that the pilots to these droids are forthcoming. Without them, all of the random astromech droids that Hasbro produces are rather pointless. We’ll have to see what transpires next.