Luke Skywalker (Tatooine) - Mini Busts

In Star Wars: A New Hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi hands Luke his father's lightsaber for the first time: "This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age."

Well, we certainly knew what Gentle Giant Ltd. was attempting to accomplish with the Luke Skywalker (Tatooine) Mini Bust, but in the end we’re not so sure if we can admit it works. Obviously inspired from the classic Hildebrandt Star War poster (which also made its way to the front of the first 21 Kenner action figures as well), and part inspiration from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Gentle Giant Ltd. releases a less than exciting version of our favorite Tatooine farm boy. The Mini Bust should have come out better than it did, and we certainly should have like it more than we did. And we don’t even think the ultra low edition size of 2200 pieces will help to make collectors scoop up this Mini Bust any more quickly. Luke Skywalker (Tatooine) has about an equal amount of plusses and minuses, but ultimately is the most awkward Mini Bust yet in the line. And this is a shame

Due to the way Gentle Giant has designed this sculpt, Luke Skywalker (Tatooine) will likely not be able to fit with the rest of your Mini Bust line. His right arm is fully extended upwards and his lightsaber blade is at a 90 degree angle against the base which makes this Mini Bust inordinately tall. It’s so tall in fact that it is a cumbersome collectible to even photograph for this review. Don’t get us wrong. We love diversity and variability in our collections, but this Mini Bust looks sadly exaggerated when compared to other Episode IV characters and actually makes him a misfit in this normally awesome line. And it’s sad when a potentially good Mini Bust doesn’t fit in with the rest of its “peers”. It’s not like Gentle Giant is unable to make clever artistic interpretations of popular Star Wars characters. No, they’ve succeeded in the past just fine with this approach, so we find their efforts with Luke Skywalker (Tatooine) dissatisfying.

Luke Skywalker (Tatooine) does has some positives as we’ve mentioned earlier. The likeness of Luke is better than average. The artists at Gentle Giant mastered the color and shape of his eyes and the expression on his face is honestly classic “Luke” as he appeared in Episode IV. Luke’s shirt is white and full of layered wrinkles and folds. There is a great deal of detail incorporated here and even his belt with pouches is spectacularly painted. The “leather” looks very worn and the “metal” is shiny. But where the paint job fails is in the plastic/porcelain look of his skin tone. Luke looks a lot more like a mannequin interpretation of Star Wars’ biggest hero, instead of himself. And the hairstyle, while good, looks a little flat in the paint department. Luke Skywalker (Tatooine) is definitely a disappointment. We know it’s much easier for Gentle Giant to make alien characters like Momaw Nadon (Hammerhead) or armored characters like the AT-AT Driver or Snowtrooper, but maybe they should continue to focus their time and energy on characters like that instead, because Luke Skywalker (Tatooine) leaves a lot to be desired unfortunately.