Tantive IV Corridor - TVC - Playsets

There will be a ton of barking and clapping over Hasbro’s The Vintage Collection Tantive IV Corridor playset with an “exclusive” Rebel Fleet Trooper (VC183) figure. But when you distill everything here, it’s not much more than some clever tricks (like smoke and mirrors), cheap materials, and the laziest pack-in figure we believe we’ve seen from Hasbro to date. At first glance, you’ll probably approve of what Hasbro executed here. The packaging is gorgeous, and it’s nice to see this vehicle/playset in “STAR WARS” packaging finally. But ultimately, we have more disappointment than joy, and we wonder if future projects for The Vintage Collection will get approached with a little more quality than a piece like this. The Tantive IV Corridor is a playset that collectors have begged Hasbro for years to make. So, to their credit, we applaud that they’ve listened to all of us. But the final product will leave you wanting more. Just like how they pulled the wool over our eyes for the Carbon-Freezing Chamber playset, you technically get “half” for the price of one here as well. It’s recommended that collectors purchase two of these expensive sets (with MSRP $49.99) to complete an enclosed Tantive IV Corridor. Fine, but if the tooling is identical, why couldn’t they put both halves in here and say, oh, we don’t know, set the MSRP at a more forgivable $69.99 or $79.99 instead? Hey, Hasbro could have also held back a second Rebel Fleet Trooper pack-in figure to save some cost, too, if they did it that way. We digress.

When we pulled the main white wall of the Tantive IV Corridor out of the box, we were instantly deflated by its shoddy construction. It isn’t any better quality plastic than a disposable gallon milk jug. Of course, the Hasbro playset is thicker than a plastic gallon of milk, but once it’s in your hands, you’ll see how Hasbro didn’t do us any favors here. It’s a wobbly design, and we’re quite disappointed by that. The included instructions are clear and concise, and we were able to easily and quickly set up the Tantive IV Corridor. And with a little bit of tweaking here and there, the playset stands erect and straight and develops some rigidity with the interconnecting parts. But then you’ll soon notice how cheap they went with the deco on this playset. Instead of painting the plastic with colorful detail, they resorted to decals. And what’s frustrating is that they’re pre-applied sloppily. They’re not all straight, and the decal art is weak at best. We would have loved to see Hasbro give the Tantive IV Corridor a full paint job and add some carbon-scoring here and there to the walls. Heck, even some dirt or dust would have helped this playset out. Also, this playset doesn’t have many features at all. It only comes with two sliding blast doors. And while they have simple functionality, we appreciate that they move. Hasbro also hid a tiny manila envelope of ten footpegs to place into the floor to help your Rebel Fleet Trooper action figures stand during the action. The pegs work with most modern figures, so you can fill up the corridor as you'd like.

But the biggest disappointment and source of our confusion here is the pack-in figure. Sure, the 2011 TVC Rebel Fleet Trooper (VC52) figure is a wise repack. But THIS release was the time to give us a unique head sculpt. With the MANY action figures produced throughout the years, there is NO REASON AT ALL that Hasbro couldn’t have taken an OLD action figure and created a kit-bashed Rebel Fleet Trooper with a new likeness, so we didn’t get Pello Scrambas again. Yes, we appreciate the Photo Real updating here. We’re thankful to see Pello Scrambas look better than ever now, but they should have re-released the VC52 figure and the same packaging instead as a repack. And then for the pack-in figure here, they should have included a new character, justifying the unique VC183 number. Inside the Tantive IV Corridor, the pack-in figure is numbered VC183 and is on a Rogue One card back. So now we have IDENTICAL CHARACTERS (Pello Scrambas – one with Photo Real updating and one without) on two different card backs (one ROGUE ONE and one STAR WARS) with TWO DIFFERENT VC NUMBERS (VC183 and VC52). Hasbro is sinking deeper and deeper into mucking up this collector-revered action figure line. It’s quite devastating. The updates made to the Rebel Fleet Trooper look excellent. The cap is a different color gray this time, and the shirt is a brighter blue. You’ll see other changes in other deco as well, but the other changes are not as noticeable. We wish we could be more excited about this, but it’s just more of the same from Hasbro, and it’s not generating any new fire for their Star Wars brand.