Heroes And Villains - R - 12-Inch Figures (Exclusive)

Yeah. We just don’t get this six-pack of confusion at all. Aside from the well-known drama of Rebels product not getting out, we have to admit that we’re probably more disappointed with the line’s exclusives. If getting the same vehicles getting packed with the same figures wasn’t bad enough, now Hasbro is marching forward doing the same thing with the Hero Series (12-Inch Figures) scale now as well. What’s more, the accumulation of characters in this set makes no sense at all. Did they pull these choices out of their butts? Were these exclusive repaints the first thoughts that came to their minds/ Does it even matter repainting a figure if you’re not going to repaint it properly? All of these questions and more have infiltrated our mind while we process alongside of it the demise of the Star Wars toy line and the sad direction it is headed. While not everything in the “shampoo bottle” scale is horrific, more often than not they leave a lot to be desired. In the TARGET exclusive Heroes And Villains supersized six-pack, kids and maybe a few collectors are treated to 50% Rebels product while the remaining 50% is pulled from across the Star Wars films and the newly dubbed Star Wars: Legends Expanded Universe. The choices are as confusing as they are unnecessary. Obviously they’re just easy repaints, but are the “new” characters in this set something that Star Wars fans even want for their collections? We’re not so sure about that.

The figures in this package include Darth Vader (based on Episode V), Clone Trooper Captain (based on Episode II), Shadow Stormtrooper (based on Star Wars: Legends) and then Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger and The Inquisitor all from Star Wars: Rebels. Yeah, it makes about as little sense to us as it probably does to you. Wouldn’t it have been sublime if Hasbro tooled the other three members of The Ghost crew and made them exclusive to this release? Imagine instead of Darth Vader, Clone Trooper Captain and Shadow Stormtrooper that we received Sabine Wren, Hera Syndulla and Chopper instead. Even if you didn’t collect the Hero Series scale, you’d still be hard pressed to pass on a tightly themed set as that. Admit it. If Rebels is a show geared to younger Star Wars fans, is this an attempt to draw their interest into characters from across the films (and deep Expanded Universe territory)? Or is it just a cheap way to create a couple of exclusive Star Wars figures to market the exclusivity out of this thing for the collector market? We think it fails both those ways (if they’re even valid ideas). Please don’t misunderstand us. The Hero Series line serves a purpose. And Hasbro has released some nice “deluxe” versions in this scale that include extra parts that aren’t necessarily screen accurate. But to repack these same exact figures sans extra parts and sell them again to what Hasbro may hope is an unassuming audience is just bad form.

Darth Vader will be hit in any format, so it’s really no surprise that they’ve included him here again for the Heroes And Villains set. But the Clone Trooper Captain and Shadow Stormtrooper figures are just complete head-scratchers when it comes to their inclusion here. They’re not even painted with accuracy which will undoubtedly upset collectors of this line, not the kids of course. You do get a lot of “stuff” in this set for $49.99, but even at that price, it’s a lot of money to plunk down when sixty-six and two-thirds of it is all rehashed products while the remaining thirty-three and one-thirds of it are just lazy repaints of characters that were already released in the line. Does the sheer size of it come across as a nice gift item? Sadly, yes, and many gift-giving adults are going to be fooled into buying a bridge with this release. At $50, each figure breaks down to roughly $8.33 each. This of course isn’t a bad deal, but knowing that you are getting more than half of the contents for the second time is a bitter pill to swallow. They couldn’t have included a third “newish” figure in here to soften the blow a little bit more? We’ll just finish this review up by saying that we just don’t get it. It’s inconceivable to us that Hasbro thinks repackaging all of this stuff together makes the slightest bit of sense. And even though technically this set arrived to retail before many of the other single figures did, it just makes us believe that there was something duplicitous about Heroes And Villains from the start.