Biggs Darklighter - TAC - Basic (30 17)

Biggs and Luke aspire to enter the Imperial Space Academy together, but only Biggs realizes his dream. At the academy, Biggs discovers the cruelty and oppression of the Empire and decides to join the Rebellion, confiding his secret to Luke during a trip home.

Bittersweet may just be the best word to describe 2007’s Biggs Darklighter action figure that was part of the commemorative 30 (77-07) collection. Hardcore collectors wanted the “Tosche station” version of Biggs for years. But maybe we whined too soon because Biggs in all honesty feels a little bit incomplete. And since this is such an obscure and collector-focused action figure, we have little to no confidence that Hasbro will ever try to attempt to rectify this action figure’s problems. Let us be clear. We still would rather have this action figure than no Biggs Darklighter at all, but we just shake our heads sometimes with the direction Hasbro chooses to take on these very special characters. Biggs Darklighter has a lot of plusses, but he always has quite a few minuses and this is truly an action figure that we wanted to unconditionally love. Unfortunately it seems as if Hasbro rushed him because he just isn’t as perfect as he needs to be.

During Toy Fair 2007, Hasbro told us that Biggs Darklighter would not be coming with a cape. Obviously he did, but do you know what? It may have been better if they omitted it. Because of the dark dyes in the cape and the light color of his upper body, the black has permanently stained our sample. We also checked four other samples and they all have this issue. Do you remember the vintage days when 1983's Luke Skywalker (Jedi Knight) came with his cape folded and tucked behind him? Well, that type of packaging style should have definitely been applied here. It is such a shame that his white coat is permanently discolored. While the “vest” section of his coat is removable, his blue shirt underneath makes him look funny if you decided to take it off, so we recommend leaving it on him. And while some of the details on his uniform look fantastic, Hasbro missed a few important details on it including his dark leather pants. The pants on the action figure are an orangey-tan color. Aside from the cape, Biggs also comes with a small blaster.

To make matters slightly worse, Biggs has severely limited articulation in his legs. He does however have great articulation in the upper body, but below the belt he only has swivel hips. To aggravate things further, his left foot has this “upward curl” to it which completely works against trying to stand him unaided. And he doesn’t have the best center of gravity either. At worst, Hasbro should have included ball-jointed ankles here. But we think Biggs Darklighter is a character that also deserves knee joints. His portrait is nearly perfect and Hasbro has managed to sculpt his hair and mustache unbelievably well. We still think Biggs Darklighter (Rebel Pilot) (30 14) has the better head sculpt however.) While we have pointed out more than a few flaws with Biggs, we are indeed happy to have him entered into the basic figure line. We hope that if there is an opportunity to tweak him that Hasbro addresses some of these issues. But if they never do, Biggs Darklighter is still entitled to be part of your collection anyhow.