Imperial Officer - POTJ - Basic

The Imperial Officers are cunning, calculating and ruthless. They have survived a grueling training program to earn their rank. Whether he is giving commands on the bridge of a Star Destroyer or leading a garrison of stormtroopers, the Imperial officer is in complete control and rules with an iron fist. Failure means death, as many found out in the service of Darth Vader.

Tragedy will ensure when Hasbro doesn’t pay complete attention to the action figures they make. The Power Of The Jedi line functioned a collectors’ line because Hasbro ensured that they updated characters that were originally part of the vintage Kenner lineup. One character, the Imperial Commander (who was reflected as General Veers on the packaging of that classic 1981 figure), was a long anticipated action figure we were desperate to see updated. Hasbro thought they did that with 2001’s POTJ Imperial Officer, but they failed miserably. That’s not a “kick them when they’re down” attitude we have, but just a fact because what they gave us is not what they anticipated giving us. The Imperial Officer is actually an Imperial Technician as evidenced by the distinct outfit and cap. The action figure sports no ranking badge whatsoever and the likeness is so generic it doesn’t look like any of the standout leaders of the Imperial Navy we saw in the films. Hasbro has this action figure based on a character from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, but they’re way off and this action figure doesn’t truly represent that character in the least. The irony here is that Hasbro gave us another character from the Star Wars Original Trilogy that we wanted to see get made one day anyway although it has now delayed a true update to the vintage Kenner Imperial Commander action figure.

The characters dressed like this Imperial Officer can be seen in The Empire Strikes Back in addition to Return Of The Jedi, but not A New Hope. In Episode V, you can clearly see them standing on the Executor bridge. And in Episode VI you can see an up close Imperial Officer steering an Imperial shuttle in the beginning of the film. There are still inconsistencies with the figure even when compared to these onscreen characters, so the Imperial Officer is quite an enigma. As an action figure it’s about equally confusing. There isn’t a great deal of articulation. He can attain the basic “at attention” poses that you’d probably want him to achieve, but aside from that we don’t find this figure all that engaging. He comes with ten points of swivel articulation, most of which resides in his upper body. The harshly angled swivel cut elbows allow you to tie his hands behind his back and then there is enough versatility to have him hold the included blaster in his hands, but aside from that this action figure doesn’t bring that much to the table. We’re not too impressed with his likeness either. The Imperial Officer has an odd appearance and his eyes seem too bugged out to take him seriously as one of the Empire’s finest soldiers. We’re picking badly at this figure, but we think the assessment is fairly accurate.

The long wait to get an updated Imperial Commander action figure will only be made longer now since Hasbro decided to update the wrong character. That is frustrating in and of itself. Had they approached this particular Imperial Officer a little more generically (like get rid of the technician specific outfit with all of the pockets) they could have perhaps quickly transitioned this action figure into the one we really want. The battle with Hasbro is not them unwilling to make the action figures we want to see. It’s clearing up the confusion where it spells out what they’re doing wrong when they think they’re making a character that they’re really not making at all. (Yes that was wordy). The good news is that the Imperial Officer helps round out your displays as we did need the technicians (and Imperial shuttle drivers) for our collections and we ultimately got them now. We will continue to wait for Hasbro to update the vintage Kenner Imperial Commander in the meantime. We don’t consider the Imperial Officer and a holdover for the Imperial Commander just to be clear. For us it’s a totally different character off of our checklists. It’s too different to be considered a true Imperial Commander. And at this point, we’re not even sure if Imperial Officer is an accurate description.