Destroyer Droid - TAC - Saga Legends

Droidekas, commonly known as destroyer droids, are designed for one purpose only: the complete annihilation of their targets. Slow and awkward in their three-legged mode, they can change into a disk shape for speedy attacks with their twin blasters.

Learning new things is part of being a good Star Wars fans. It’s not really incumbent of us to learn every little nuance of a Star Wars character, but when these things do come to light, the trivia of them make the characters all the more interesting. Take for example the droideka. Did you know there are over a dozen varieties? And did you know that not all of the same ones appeared within the confines of the Prequel Trilogy? Wookieepedia goes into some pretty good detail about the various types and the information is too deep to go into here so we won’t, but we’d be lying if we didn’t say that we were impressed two distinct types: the P-series and Q-series destroyer droids/droidekas. For example, the P-series destroyer droid participated in the Battle of Naboo in Episode I and the Q-series droideka protected General Grievous’ Invisible Hand towards the tail end of the Clone Wars. So how does Hasbro pick and chose which versions they’re going to make for a toy line? It ultimately doesn’t matter. They can change a few things here and there and make them unique without even knowing those specifics. Obviously, Hasbro doesn’t make mental notes of these types of things when they brought Destroyer Droids into the basic figure lines, but it’s still cool to know that there are variances that exist, even if we can’t really see them all in 3.75” scale.

Hasbro made the fun and well sculpted 2005 ROTS Destroyer Droid (III 44) figure and it has held up well even after only a few short years. It’s partly the reason the figure is now part of 2007’s 30 (77-07) Saga Legends line which helps keep army builders and main characters in the basic figure line so that Hasbro can focus on new characters for the basic figure line. Like other droid sculpts from the past, the Destroyer Droid started from Hasbro’s 2002 SW [S -P1] Destroyer Droid (Geonosis Battle) (’02 #48) figure. They also tweaked the figure quite a bit and repainted it, but the shell of the figure still remains with this release. Believe it or not, we think this action figure holds up quite well all of these years. Yes, it has an annoying action feature and maybe its posture isn’t terribly screen accurate, but the figure does look good. No one can deny that. Hasbro tightened up/refreshed the figure with a new paint job, but they kept the same action features in place to add some extra play value for kids. We should be used to this by now. While it’s hard to anatomically assimilate a Destroyer Droid’s parts to a human’s, we’ll try and do our best nonetheless. The “shoulders” on the Destroyer Droid are still terribly loose. They need to be to activate the action feature. The “arms” move up and down with the press of a switch on the figure’s “back”.

We’re confident that the Destroyer Droid won’t be the most popular figure in the Saga Legends line. It was just most recently released as part of The Saga Collection’s The Episode III Heroes & Villains Collection and we’re seeing these accumulate on store shelves. Maybe they should have held off a little while longer before reissuing it into the Saga Legends line. When figures keep getting released and released over and over again they lose their magic and become a little bit boring. And let’s face it. Because the Destroyer Droid is classified as an action figure with an action feature, there aren’t going to be any extras included here. That IS the extra. Well, we do get a coin with the Destroyer Droid. Maybe that “destroys” our argument. Still, we don’t know how many collectors will see the Destroyer Droid as a necessary purchase. A simple yet important retooling of the sculpt would have benefitted this release tremendously, but Saga Legends by definition just means a repack of a previously released figure.… or at the very least a refresh paint job. We actually like the Destroyer Droid despite our cautions and criticism. We still can’t tell you if it’s a P-series or Q-series droideka, but maybe that isn’t the point with a kids’ action figure. For those looking, this is another chance at this core Separatist Destroyer Droid. You may just not need it is all.