ARC Trooper - TVC - Basic (VC212)

Commemorate the first 50 years of Lucasfilm with figures inspired by Star Wars: Clone Wars!

We know it’s trite to say “it’s a dream come true” over and over again, but that’s precisely how we feel about Hasbro producing an exclusive wave of action figures based on Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars micro-series. After years of Hasbro telling us the series was off-limits for action figures, now, part of the Lucasfilm 50th Anniversary celebration, collectors who waited a “lifetime” now have six more characters to add to this sub-line under the Clone Wars entertainment logo. Six action figures from Clone Wars Volume 1 are not part of The Vintage Collection. And Hasbro was able to revisit some characters they had to skip over because of the previous mandate at Lucasfilm LTD. It is truly remarkable to have a half dozen “new” colorful action figures packaged on exquisite card art while celebrating many things simultaneously. In 2011, Hasbro gave us the ARC Trooper Commander (VC54) action figure. Unofficially referred to as “Captain Fordo,” Lucasfilm film required Hasbro to provide a generic name for the action figure and add it to the Expanded Universe banner in The Vintage Collection. Now, over a decade later, Hasbro dusts off this tooling and creates two new action figures for the line: ARC Trooper and ARC Trooper Captain. The decade-old tooling still holds up well, and we can’t express the joy felt seeing these characters in 2022.

ARC Captain is a rework of 2011’s TVC ARC Trooper Commander (VC54) figure. Hasbro completely repainted the action figure. Hasbro changed the red color flashes to blue. Then they gave the figure a “realistically” animated paint job. For us, this means the figure is based on how the character looks in the Clone Wars micro-series and not necessarily a realistic take on an animated character, if that makes any sense. The new paint job isn’t bad by any means. And in a few ways, it’s better than the original, but Hasbro still had difficulty recreating the “fin” thickness evenly from the center top of the helmet back to the top fin. It starts thick and then thins as you move up the helmet. This detail isn’t the end of the world, but it is noticeable. Also, it appears Hasbro painted the color on the kama better in 2011. It looks a little sloppy and doesn’t stand out as prominently on the new release. But these complaints aside, the ARC Trooper is an exciting release in The Vintage Collection lineup. We have no issue with Hasbro reusing existing tooling to create super-articulated 3.75-inch action figures. An example like the ARC Trooper is a testament that this approach works well. Even by today’s standards, the figure offers excellent movement, fits in with the rest of the line well, and is especially complementary with the rest of the figures in this Walmart exclusive wave.

ARC Trooper comes with an impressive 27 points of articulation. Many collectors consider28-30 points of articulation as “hyper” articulation, so that’s not bad for a 10-year+ old action figure. Unfortunately, the ball-jointed hips function with a bit of wonkiness, but with a little patience, you can get them to behave as needed for posing. The articulation system this action figure offers achieves some astounding positions. You can make the ARC Trooper kneel with one or two legs, and the figure looks incredible in action-oriented positions too. Hasbro included many accessories with the ARC Trooper as well. We don’t get any options to convert it to a Phase II clone like the original release. Still, Hasbro did throw in the removable helmet, pauldron, removable belt/holster piece, a removable soft-goods kama with elastic waist, and two blasters that fit into the functioning holsters on the belt. Yes, the tooling has paid for itself many times at this point, but it’s lovely to receive so many accessories with a 3.75-inch action figure, especially since Hasbro is cheap with so many other figures in the line. The card art for the ARC Trooper is gorgeous, but the back of the card looks odd to us. On the reverse side, the black outline on the bottom of the word “WARS” is “intentionally” missing. But it looks bizarre like Hasbro made a mistake. We’re not sure why they did this, but we wish they had provided that outline. It would have helped frame the reference image shown.