Dooku Vs Anakin - ROTS - Battle Arenas

Re-live the incredible battle between two of the most powerful Jedi of all, as they fight to the finish on a Trade Federation Cruiser! Only the strongest Jedi remains – will it be the light side or the dark side of the Force?

The Revenge Of The Sith line was the broadest toy line to date from Hasbro when it was released in April 2005. Incorporating not only the core basic figures which are all collectors favorite things, but it also deviated from the norms by including other sub-lines outside of the standard Deluxe formats, all ranges and sizes of various vehicles, and retailer exclusives. Hasbro also added some of out the box expressions of the characters in the Revenge Of The Sith film. A perfect example of this is the Battle Arena line. Always willing to try something in an environmental type of format, Hasbro created this line for figures to interact with one another while laying a backdrop of the new worlds. Ultimately, the format didn’t perform well at retail. Likely price and poor character selection made the line dead on arrival. But it’s important to note that the Battle Arena sets aren’t without merit either. Some are better than others, but they do something for the basic figure line that hasn’t been done until now. For one reason or another Hasbro decided to go with abbreviated names of the characters included in these two-packs. In this case, the Dooku Vs Anakin set brings together Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker once again as they take each other on during the rescue of Chancellor Palpatine on General Grievous’ Invisible Hand flagship.

Like all of these sets, figures are simple in approach and have weapons permanently affixed to hands. Hasbro did a great job of capturing screen-accurate likenesses (some are better than others of course) and decent paint operations, but there are better iterations of these characters in the Evolutions line and basic figure line, so these figures are already obsolete. Collectors don’t like having little to no options with their action figures. The better figure in this set is Count Dooku, but you can get a much better super-articulated version of him in the The Sith Evolutions collection, and an “almost” super-articulated version of him in the Revenge Of The Sith basic figure line (Count Dooku (III 13)). Dooku’s inclusion here is a bit perplexing. We suppose Hasbro picked two of the most relevant characters to recreate one of the opening scenes of Episode III, but these figures are moot in retrospect. Things get worse with the included Anakin figure. Anakin has his left arm up with a fist-pumping. It looks as if he’s at a pep rally more than battling the evil Sith Lord Count Dooku. His expression also doesn’t match the intensity of the fight that transpired between them during these moments of the film. And like Dooku, Anakin’s lightsaber is permanently affixed to his right hand. Although both figures have limited articulation, there is only so much you can do with a figure that never lets go of his lightsaber.

Both figures are however displayed beautifully in dioramic packaging. Each Battle Arena set is based on a specific battle that occurs within the timeframe of Revenge Of The Sith. And the Dooku Vs Anakin set is based on the Battle of Coruscant, but more specifically, what happened as Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi attempted to rescue Chancellor Palpatine. The two figures each come with a quarter moon display based with a lightsaber controller that moves a based around an arc while twisting functionality allows the figure to spin around as you move it up and down the arc. The two bases connect to create a half moon shape, and you get a nice and complete surface area on which to build a great background of the interior of the Invisible Hand. It’s important to note that each Battle Arena display can connect with another to create a full circle of action, but because each Battle Arena is based on a different scene or battle in Revenge Of The Sith, it’s a relatively useless addition or feature to this run of toys. Why would you want half of the floor to be Utapau and the other half of the floor be in the interior of a spaceship? It makes little sense. Still, the option exists if you’re not as discriminating as we are. The Battle Arena sets provide nice scenery backdrops for displaying action figures, but they’re MSRP is $19.99 each, and that’s a lot of money for what you get here.