Princess Leia - OTC - Basic (OTC #09)

Held captive in the Death Star, Princess Leia is interrogated by Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin. Leia is ordered to reveal the location of the secret Rebel base or see her home planet of Alderaan destroyed. Remaining true to the Rebellion, she witnesses the planet's destruction rather than give up the information. While awaiting her fate, she is rescued by an unlikely group of heroes and makes a dramatic escape from the Imperial space station.

There is no doubt that 1998’s POTF2 [FF/TKC] Princess Leia Organa [All New Likeness] was overused as a basic figure. In fact, that would be an understatement. But if you consider all of the Princess Leia Organa figures Hasbro made throughout the years, this remained the most generic (read not scene specific) version of her to date. After countless rereleases in multipacks and even more instances of rehashes as basic figures (2003-2004 Star Wars “Saga” collection anyone?), Princess Leia once again is utilized for the equally intended kid/collector focused The Original Trilogy Collection. What makes this release so surprising is that Hasbro developed a completely new sculpt for the hugely popular The “Vintage” Original Trilogy Collection in the premium $9.99 format, so its off that they would release two version of this character side by side which would seem to us to works against Hasbro as reason not to buy this figure. Yeah, that’s a long shot we realize. If it’s in cool packaging, especially packaging inspired from the classic Kenner days, then it will be scooped up by collectors in a ravenous fashion.

Nothing new is really brought to the table with Princess Leia. Hasbro dropped “Organa” from her name to keep things as simple as possible. Both oversized guns are included. You would think with the new approach taken with weapons in the Star Wars “Saga” line that Hasbro would have utilized those sculpts for the POTF2 repacks to help maintain authenticity. But they did not do this. And as if Princess Leia’s sculpt wasn’t aged enough, the weapons drive that fact even further home. We’d like to say that this release is the slightest repaint of past incarnations (and for the record we believe it is), but the changes are so insignificant that they are likely caused from manufacturing the figures at two different times. Producing action figures in 1998 versus 2004 will undoubtedly create unintended variances. So with that knowledge in hand we would have to say that this figure is just a straight repack of previous versions. With a fair likeness and less than fair body sculpt, we find it hard to rave about Princess Leia other than saying she was decent at the time and has more than worn out her welcome in the basic figure line. The addition of the standard and generic display base has also been included here.

Without appearing to criticize Hasbro for releasing such an old figure into a more modern line, we do have to comment that had they “refreshed” her in some other ways or released a completely different figure in the lineup it may have been a more desirable and more appropriate release. We have felt for a long time now that The Power Of The Force Princess Leia Collection figure, if repainted to be a whole lot less cartoony, would be a much better release for an Episode IV Princess Leia figure. The Princess Leia Collection figures were designed to draw in a female market, so the figures had exaggerated makeup on the face (especially the eyes), but they had fantastic sculpts and great use of soft-goods. We bet a repainted version of the figure would stand the test of time a whole lot better. With all of the drastic repaints added into The Original Trilogy Collection like the Gamorrean Guard and Bib Fortuna, Hasbro should have thought outside of the box just a little bit more for Princess Leia. It’s moot at this point and there is no use for wishing for things that didn’t happen. We have the awesome Princess Leia Organa from the VOTC line which isn’t perfect, but still a tremendous upgrade from this now obsolete action figure.