Shmi Skywalker - POTJ - Basic

As a girl, Shmi was captured by space pirates, separated from her family, and sold into slavery. Shmi currently serves Watto, a junk dealer on Tatooine, and also earns a small income cleaning computer memory devices. Shmi is devoted to her son, Anakin, who possesses special powers. She can always sense when he is nearby.

Should we accuse Shmi Skywalker for all of the problems the Star Wars universe experienced, or is that much too trite of a leap to make? Can we call her the mother of “whine” or is that not a very fair assessment at all? Oh man. How does one rank/rate/interpret Shmi Skywalker, the mother of Anakin Skywalker and the grandmother of the new hope to the galaxy. For it seems it would be difficult to describe her poignancy in The Phantom Menace and her relevance to the Star Wars saga in general. In all fairness, she does come across as a very sympathetic character. It was very emotional in Episode I when she kissed little Anakin Skywalker goodbye and told him to follow his heart and never look back. (A lot of good that did.) And she was honestly very likeable the moment we heard her speak in the film. She interacted well with Qui-Gon Jinn and Padmé Amidala (her future daughter-in-law) and basically ignored the silly antics of Jar Jar Binks. Clearly, her attention was tightly focused on her son, as any good mother would devote attention. So Hasbro has now designed an action figure based on her character. And we once again find ourselves asking of its relevance. We’re torn once again as well.

Are we happy to finally have a Shmi Skywalker action figure. Well, yes. But then again, did we need one? Hasbro did an admirable job creating her action figure. She has a decent likeness, just average articulation, and a cool accessory that from the best we can tell is off screen and not screen accurate. She’s been known to clean computers, so maybe she is utilizing the included accessory to do this. Who the heck knows? The action figure interpretation of her however does look too young for the actress who played her. Shmi Skywalker actually looks like she is in her prime and perhaps isn’t even old enough to have Anakin Skywalker yet. But you might feel differently about that assertion. Shmi Skywalker has a beautifully replicated costume. Hasbro’s sculptor’s did a really nice job on it and then they’ve added perfectly complementary paint operations to match the full design as closely to the film as possible. Her hair looks spot on to the style in the film and her little accessory is nicely painted as well. As far as quality is concerned, we believe that Shmi Skywalker meets all of those expectations quite well.

As we’ve stated earlier, Shmi Skywalker really just lacks in articulation. But what kind of danger and/or action poses are you going to place her in where super articulation will be needed and warranted? Exactly. So it’s our opinion that Shmi Skywalker is good as she need to be for an action figure. We have said it before and we will say it again. The Power Of The Jedi line is advantageous. Hasbro has taken what we consider big risks in this line in order to bring us characters that most collectors never expected to see in action figure form. Shmi Skywalker may not be completely out of the realm of possibility, but she definitely doesn’t feel like a first choice action figure either. Plus, because she is a female character, she is even a rarer sight to see in any basic figure line. Many collectors and fans of Episode I have waited a long time to get Anakin’s mother. So now they have her and we hope they’re satisfied with how she turned out. We think that she passes as a good action figure, but there is no way she is going to maintain long term appeal. We could be wrong, but we just don’t see her making a big splash in the basic figure lineup.