Leia Organa (Bespin Escape) - POTJ - Basic

Princess Leia Organa, the beautiful and spirited leader of the Rebel Alliance, is forced to flee from Imperial forces when the Rebel base on Hoth is attacked. Landing on Bespin's Cloud City, she and her companions are taken prisoner by Darth Vader. After making a daring escape, Leia pursues the bounty hunter, Boba Fett, to the east landing platform in an attempt to rescue the frozen Han Solo.

Hasbro ensured that scale accuracy was a point of focus for the Power Of The Jedi line's action figures. But collectors may not have picked up on this detail until Leia Organa (Bespin Escape)'s release. This figure hit home the reality that things changed for the basic figure line to Star Wars collectors. Leia Organa (Bespin Escape) was the tiniest "Princess Leia" action figure to date. The figure was so small that it looked "too small" next to all of the other contemporaries before it. It took a while for our eyes to adjust. The Power Of The Jedi Leia Organa (General) figure towered over this figure significantly. But Hasbro paved a new pathway, and this was the figure to set Princess Leia Organa's scale straight. Leia Organa (Bespin Escape) is a genuinely satisfying release because Hasbro never offered this version of the character in the basic figure line until this point. Hasbro developed an excellent sculpt and delicate yet athletic frame that mirrored the character we saw in The Empire Strikes Back almost perfectly. What's more, the portrait is attractive, and Hasbro most importantly nailed the "Bespin gown" hairstyle without any issues. This action figure captures the spirit of the on-screen character incredibly well. Tooled with some extra articulation points, Leia Organa (Bespin Escape) brought collectors a desired iteration of Leia into the medium of plastic.

Leia Organa (Bespin Escape) comes with eight points of articulation. These points include a swivel head, two swivel shoulders, two swivel biceps, a swivel waist, and two swivel hips. The figure feels severely limited with how many ways you can pose it. However, Hasbro thankfully gave us some extra-added articulation in the arms that graciously helps create some "new" looks for the figure. The swivel biceps allow her arms to swing out horizontally away from her body. This unnatural body movement isn't that helpful, but the pre-posed limbs help the figure hold the two included E-11 blaster rifles. Interestingly, Hasbro cast them in gray plastic, like so many other weapons in the Power Of The Jedi line, and Hasbro has decided to give this figure two. The two E-11 blasters are screen-accurate. Leia grabs an extra for Chewy when Lando Calrissian gets the Cloud City Wing Guards to ambush the Imperial Stormtroopers. Because Leia performed the most movement in this outfit, it would have been wise for Hasbro to include more articulation. Do you ever find that Hasbro often wastes articulation on figures that do not need it and then doesn't give it to the ones that do? Characters that run all over the place should be given a smidgen more articulation, in our opinion.

There have been many discussions on this particular costume of Princess Leia. Is it just her Hoth outfit minus the vest? Is it an actual prisoner's outfit? Throughout the years, we have found a few good arguments on both sides, although it makes the most sense that it was the latter. Has anyone ever questioned why Leia was "forced" to change out of her Bespin gown yet maintain the same hairstyle? While outfit changes are a big part of Star Wars films, Leia's change in this particular instance doesn't make too much sense. Then again, The Empire Strikes Back has other issues that people seem to overlook as well. That said, Leia Organa (Bespin Escape) is a decent action figure. We have to comment on how awesome it is to see Chewbacca's action figures tower over this one finally. Human characters like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo now look taller because of this figure's newly scaled shortness. Additional articulation would be beneficial here, but that will have to be for a future update. However, it is refreshing to receive versions of characters that have never been offered before in the line. That may be why we like this action figure most of all.