Darth Vader - TROS - Galaxy Of Adventures

The absolute last thing the Hasbro Star Wars brand needs is another scale. It’s become a bit of a running joke at this point. Hasbro officially canceled the “5POA” line, and they decided to work their “kids” line into a new scale of 5” figures with an animated styled for the Galaxy Of Adventures format, and they should have been all-new animated sculpts from the start. Hasbro’s now backtracking to reinvent the line, and from where we sit, the line is turning out to be something that Star Wars collectors can describe as impressive, excellent, and brilliant, while still being a bit a frustrating basic figure line (more on the last point in the moment). There is no argument that the 5POA action figure line is the cheapest to produce. So throwing it all away like it never existed feels odd and slightly perverse. Still, if the figures don’t sell and pile up to the point that they need to mass-unloaded at discount chains like ROSS and Ollie’s, it makes sense that it’s time to stick a fork in the 5POA line, and move forward with something new. (We say that warily that the new 5” line will eventually suffer the same fate.) As first-time viewers and players of this line, we have to admit that all is not right here, or doesn’t make sense. The newly updated Galaxy Of Adventures line feels like direct competition to the 6” line, which alienating the 3.75” line. And we don’t know why numbers cannot be crunched to maximize the value of scales that are already doing well.

We’ll get to more of their perplexity of this line with front-page articles, however, despite our reservations of the Galaxy Of Adventures line, we can’t discount what Hasbro’s done with the revitalized 5” line. In short, the line looks incredible. We’re hard-pressed the criticize the final figures. They all turned out excellently. Although you have to be a collector that appreciates animation-styled Star Wars interpretations to enjoy this line, no one can discount the high-quality efforts Hasbro put into them. Whether critiquing the design (from the tooling to the details etched into the parts), the paint operations, or the inspiration of the animated style, the new Galaxy Of Adventures line is a success from where we stand. And whether this is salt in the wound for you or not, the figures are super-articulated, attempting to be “Mini-Me” versions of The Black Series 6” line, yet we know very well that Hasbro won’t come close to replicating the same hyper-articulated systems of the 6” figures for the 5” Galaxy Of Adventures line. Darth Vader is a testament to how wonderful this lined turned out. With a stunning sculpt that is reminiscent of Ralph McQuarrie’s irrevocable artwork along with a flair of modern animation, Darth Vader sports geometric shaping through his athletically boxy frame and exudes confidence and dominion over the line already. He looks that intimidating and scary. They did well with this figure.

With a jaw-dropping 23 points of articulation worked into Darth Vader, it’s going to be a bit difficult for lovers of super-articulation to disregard this line completely. We’re not claiming that they’ll fall for it, but Hasbro utilized premium articulation here, that embedded and hidden, and they possess a fluidness that not all of The Vintage Collection figures have, which, of course, is frustrating. But Darth Vader here can do “anything.” More importantly, Hasbro worked in the population ball-socket head and a reverse ball-socket neck (the barbell joint) for Darth Vader and the other figures in the line giving the figure a wealth of movement that isn’t possible otherwise. As far as accessories, Darth Vader comes with a removable cape (you’ll need to remove his head sculpt if you want this removed) and a nicely detailed lightsaber (which is noticeably thicker in girth than the ones from The Black Series 6” line dues to the animated nature of the line). Disappointingly, Hasbro added an action feature to Darth Vader. (He comes with “Force slash,” which is nothing more than a feature that allows him to swing his lightsaber quickly.) If they can “edit out” the action features, this line would probably interest more collectors. Regardless, the biggest issue here is that for only $9.99, Hasbro added almost the same amount of articulation as the original run The Vintage Collection figures, so why can’t they do the same thing for the 3.75” super-articulated line too, and help save costs and give the line more value?