Astromech Droid [Black/Orange - Rockets] - Galaxy’s Edge Trading Outpost

Droid Factory and Droid Depot must be a raging success for Disney Parks. Each year, they create a slew of new droids for collectors to purchase for their Star Wars action figure collections. And now, in collaboration with Hasbro, they’re releasing them through Galaxy’s Edge Trading Outpost boutiques through big box retailers like TARGET. This time, Hasbro upgraded the design of the Droid Factory figures. Returning to the design of including “foot” wires, and filling in that obnoxious and useless second lower hole for leg attachments, the latest iteration of the Build A Droid design is the long-awaited version fans wanted to see years ago. This line of Droid Factory/Droid Depot figures can continue being a raging success, but Hasbro must keep variety in the line, and take the opportunity to produce screen-accurate droids from Star Wars Entertainment. Like, where is R5-X2 or R8-B7? The Galaxy’s Edge trading Outpost line is the way to finally get them out to collectors. Lord knows they’re wasting time not producing them for The Vintage Collection! For the inaugural release, Hasbro produced a wave of six Droid Factory figures. They are simply described as Astromech Droids or BB Units. And each has a special feature. What we’re calling Astromech Droid [Black/Orange - Rockets], the figure comes with removable leg rockets and flame effect accessories.

The new and revised version of the Build A Droid astromech figure can be traced back to 2017’s Star Wars [TLJ] R2-D2 Force Link figure. Obviously the Force Link feature is gone for these figures, but the design and updates closely match R2-D2. (the original R2 Unit design was 2009’s TLC R2-L3 Build A Droid figure.) Astromech Droid [Black/Orange - Rockets] comes with eight points of articulation. These points include a swivel dome, swivel left leg, swivel right leg, swivel left foot, swivel right foot, a hinge-jointed left leg wheel, a hinge-jointed right leg wheel, and a hinge-jointed third leg wheel. While the articulation system isn’t perfect, there is enough movement here to display the figure as needed in your collection or display. Astromech Droid [Black/Orange - Rockets] has a particular Halloween-type of theme. The body is black and the mechanical arms and some panels are orange. Interestingly, the dome is clear, and also have orange and black detail on it, along with a green lit-up photoreceptor on the back. This figure is a nice-looking droid, but it may have been better reserved for Droid Factory’s 2020 Halloween release instead. As mentioned, the figure comes with two removable orange leg rockets and two flame effects to make it look like the rockets are working.

The Galaxy’s Edge Trading Outpost Build A Droid series comes in interesting packaging. Each droid is individually boxed, and has a unique assortment number and UPC code. But they all come packaged together in a shelf display that looks similar to the displays that house blind-boxed toys. At the very least, Hasbro will be able to get these out in droves to the collecting community. We only hope that they prove successful at the retail level. We’d love to see this line continue for years to come. There are a ton of droids that Hasbro isn’t making in 3.75” scale, and this is the perfect way to deliver them to collectors. It does appear as if Hasbro is going for variety with this collection of Droid Factory droids. The Astromech Droids are colorful. And we can interchange the parts for additional variety. The sky is the limit for this line. Each droid in this collection has an MSRP of $9.99 each. Yes, it’s a little bit pricey for a single droid. But when you look at what The Vintage Collection figures cost, we are saving a coupe dollars per figure. Overall, we thrilled to see Droid Factory/Build A Droid return, and it’s fantastic we get all the parts in one fell swoop. We no longer have to chase after basic figures for a single part anymore. Our only wish is that Hasbro starts giving us specific characters in this lineup.