Darth Vader - Star Wars Toybox (19)

The Disney Store is proud to introduce the Star Wars Toybox range of action figures, bringing adventures to life with characters from across The Walt Disney Company.

It appears that the makers of the Disney Star Wars Toybox line anted to update Darth Vader. The first Darth Vader (4) figure released a couple of years before this version was a decent animated version of Darth Vader, but the helmet wasn’t right. Now, they’ve taken the old body and designed a new head to make Darth Vader as authentic as possible. The updated mix of parts looks excellent, and we now have a “definitive” animated take on Darth Vader. Not all collectors are willing to accept artistic interpretations of their favorite Star Wars characters, but we find them charming and are thrilled to see this line improve upon past releases. We hope they don’t make this a standard practice, however. Many of the figures are already excellent as is. There isn’t a need to revisit them. Disney opened up the can of Original Trilogy characters, and classic characters like Darth Vader and Boba Fett entered the line with collectors’ approval. These figures look identical to those static miniature statues from the Disney Infinity game but are super-articulated. Oh, and the new and improved Darth Vader is now #19 in the Star Wars Toybox line. Strangely, they didn’t re-release this figure as #4 again.

Darth Vader is significantly chunkier than we anticipated. The figure is stable and possesses heft. Because of the larger and thicker frame, the super-articulation isn’t as smooth as hoped. Don’t misunderstand us, please. Darth Vader has a wide range of movement. We feel, however, that more movement would exist if the limbs weren’t so thick. Following in the same footsteps as figures before it, Darth Vader shares a similar articulation approach. Loaded with plenty of ball-jointed articulation, Darth Vader moves in some impressive ways and attains poses that are not only iconic but scene-specific. The sculpt of Darth Vader is very lovely. The figure has many angular shapes and contours, giving it a geometric feel. There isn’t too much detail in the figure, but the detail is done beautifully and captures this dark Sith Lord’s traits. Of course, the head sculpt is a helmet, but you can see and feel the anger etched into the helmet thanks to an intense design and smart uses of flat and shiny mattes decorating the portrait. Everything is topnotch here. We love it. Fans of Darth Vader should love this figure too. We hope it’s a hit with all action figure collectors.

Darth Vader comes with only a single accessory; a lightsaber. They used the same one from the first version of Darth Vader. It’s well-proportioned and nicely decorated, but the blade narrows as it comes to a tip. Only Darth Vader’s right hand can hold onto the hilt of the lightsaber, and even then, the grip is so loose it easily falls out if you’re not careful. You can “snap” it into the cup of the hand, but it still doesn’t have a tight fit if you jiggle the figure around a bit. The left hand is opened, conjuring some aspect of the Force, so that hand is sadly not an option. We love the ability for Darth Vader figures to come with both hands that can accommodate a lightsaber. An interchangeable hand would have been a very nice inclusion here. We’re disappointed to note that the flowing cape is not removable, but there is some saving grace here. Often, the cape weighs too much and throws the figure down. But in this case, they tooled it in a way to not interfere with the figure’s center of gravity. We had no issues whatsoever displaying and posing this figure in various ways without compromising its balance. Also, what Darth Vader figure looks complete WITHOUT its cape anyhow? We’re excited for whatever other Original Trilogy characters enter this line. This 5” line of figures hits all the right spots for us. But it will only continue to grow with a focus on characters from the Original Trilogy.