Yoda - SW [DV/ROTS] - Saga Legends (SL07)

Yoda battles Palpatine in the Senate on Coruscant. The venerable Jedi has discovered that Palpatine is the evil Sith Lord Darth Sidious and confronts the newly anointed Emperor, a confrontation that ends in a ferocious lightsaber duel.

Well, it goes without saying that if you’re a collector of a “more mature” age, Hasbro’s 2013 incarnation of the Saga Legends line is probably not for you. See, Saga Legends had a long and very rich history. When it first came to fruition in 2007, it gave collectors incredible opportunities to get hard to find action figures with relative ease. Hasbro even asked the collecting community for assistance in picking Fans’ Choice waves and we helped them without question. As the years moved on, Hasbro felt that Saga Legends should be geared more for kids and we started seeing the line lose its flexibility and see the same characters get released over and over and over again. Then the line shut down for a year. Movie Heroes took Saga Legends’ place very, very briefly and then Saga Legends came back but under a completely different premise. Hasbro would no longer repack the same dozen or so figures that they did in the past. The 2013 line would bring the Star Wars collecting community all-new sculpts, but with reduced articulation and controversial realistic sculpts.

Yoda is a perfect example of how Saga Legends will now function. Hasbro designed an all-new sculpt and in many ways it’s a very good one indeed. It has a silhouette like Yoda, a stature like Yoda and the clothing and accessories certainly seem to be Yoda’s, but when you look at the actual figure, you’ll need to do a double take. Does Yoda have the worst head sculpt we have ever seen to date? No, this is absolutely not the case. Again, it actually looks pretty good. But where is lacks most is in the type of plastic used and the final paint job given to it. Yoda is an odd shade of green. Even he looks like he is nauseously green no matter how ironic that sounds. Hasbro rushed so many paint details. Perhaps they don’t care. But with the reduced articulation, reduced accessories and overall cheapness in the look and feel of plastic materials used, it seems they might have wanted to expend a little more revenue on the deco. We aren’t trying to spend their dollars, but Yoda is lacking something. This line may not be as bad as we think, but the action figures are in need of some refinement. That’s all we’re trying to say.

Yoda’s cape is a separately sculpted piece. However, it isn’t removable without damaging the action figure in some way. We tried and heard a “snap” when we forced it too much. You can take the risk if you buy your own sample if you’re so inclined. He comes with a lightsaber which itself looks to be an all-new sculpt as well. Yoda can hold the lightsaber in his hands, but trying to make him wield it believably may leave you feeling a little flat. Thankfully, Yoda has been sculpted in a way that shows some sort of subtle motion already which helps when posing him with the lightsaber. This era of Saga Legends brings the MSRP of basic figures down to $5.99 each. It’s hard to get upset about an all-new action figure at that price, but we wonder if this will be enough to make them successful at retail. Yoda is definitely one of the better sculpts in the first wave of 2013 Saga Legends. We would have loved to see a little more attention given to the paint operations, but other than that he made pleasantly surprise you. We still want to know why the feel of the plastic feels inferior. But we’re not chemists and not sure if we’ll ever figure that out.