Aayla Secura - TVC - Basic (VC217)

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

In a sea of Disney Star Wars sewage, it’s comforting to know that Hasbro maintains enough respect for the legacy multimedia events that they’ll produce a sub-line of figures paying homage to the good old days. Let us express our bias. Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars micro-series is the most significant storyline outside of the films, in our opinion. And the micro-series captured the hearts of many collectors who wanted every character introduced in the show realized as 3.75-inch action figures. In 2008, Hasbro officially said “goodbye” to Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars action figures with a solid wave dedicated to the series in The Legacy Collection. Lucasfilm tucked away these characters to not compete with the new Dave Filoni interpretation, called The Clone Wars, for this precious and fertile Star Wars timeline. There were new stories and new characters to see. Aside from a few gems and masterpieces that “slipped out,” like Count Dooku (Holographic Transmission) (BD 21), L8-L9 (Build A Droid), and K’ruhk (BD57), action figures from Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars became extinct. Then, out of the blue, Hasbro worked in a generically named ARC Trooper Commander (VC54) figure into The Vintage Collection three years later. But everyone, including Hasbro, knew that the release was a two-in-one action figure that gave collectors the Phase I and Phase II versions of Captain Fordo, a character exclusive to the Clone Wars micro-series.

Lucasfilm instructed Hasbro not to designate the character by its name from Clone Wars. So, they chose ARC Trooper Commander (BD54), which would make everyone happy. But it was a bittersweet moment in the 3.75-inch line because Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars was never to be named again, as Lucasfilm recklessly threw it into the Legends banner, which, simply put, means it didn’t happen in the Star Wars timeline anymore. We’ll say that collectors were disappointed without going down that rabbit hole any further. But as time heals almost everything, the original Clone Wars micro-series became a fond distant memory of better times, better Star Wars, and 2D animation that wowed us with delight and joy. Then a minor miracle happened. To celebrate Lucasfilm’s 50th Anniversary, they asked Hasbro to dig deep into the various line looks and multimedia events released throughout the years and the original films to produce a collection of figures under the Lucasfilm 50th Anniversary sub-line. One of the sources Hasbro added to this repertoire is Clone Wars. And they picked six incredibly colorful characters to add to The Vintage Collection based on the entertainment logo Clone Wars. Aayla Secura is one of the characters chosen. We are thrilled to see a new take of the classic The Vintage Collection figure entered into the line again but slightly different. Let’s break this incredible action figure down.

Although planned for 2011, Aayla Secura (VC58) was one of five The Vintage Collection action figures that got bumped into 2012 because of the backed-up bottleneck The Vintage Collection suffered at retail. But Aayla Secura (VC58) and company finally made it out in the second quarter of 2012, and collectors were thrilled to finally add a super-articulated version of the Twi’lek Jedi Knight into their collections. The figure was a runaway hit. Collectors accepted that Hasbro didn’t get the paint operations right (the figure was much too dark). However, upgraded articulation, including a soft-goods robe and accessories including a hilt and a lightsaber, set the latest version of Aayla Secura higher than any past version (and there were some excellent releases throughout the years). Hasbro attempted to redo Aayla Secura’s paint operations in the spirit and style of the animated character in Clone Wars. But coincidentally, the figure looks more like a “corrected” version of the original 2012 release instead. And that’s fine by us. When you compare Aayla Secura (VC217) to 2005’s ROTS Aayla Secura (III 32) or 2003’s SW [S - P2] Aayla Secura (Jedi Knight) (’03 #11) figures, you’ll probably be impressed by how close the new figure now favors their deco approaches. (It’s all good.) Hasbro also chose a fabric with hues of “red” in the brown. It’s less “chocolate” color in the shade this time.

We would have loved seeing Hasbro upgrade the figure a little bit here and there, but that idea may have made this cost-prohibitive as a retailer exclusive basic figure. But we know there will be collectors who will whine about Aayla Secura’s wide hips. We get it. But that’s the price we pay when Hasbro adds ball-jointed articulation into the hips. For the record, we don’t think they look wide. And then some might complain that they’re not crazy about the Prequel Trilogy characters. Oh well, don’t buy this figure then. That said, we still believe there is some room for improvement. We wished Hasbro would have either retooled the left hand or added an interchangeable attachment for a different option. The pointing fingers are scene-specific, and it limits how many unique poses you’ll achieve. The hilts look the same, but we noticed some slight differences, probably due to their age. Lastly, the Photo Real updates are fantastic. We thought the initial release of this figure had excellent paint operations, but this version eclipses it. Aayla Secura comes with 25 points of articulation over 14 areas. The figure still poses excellently, and you’re going to love your options. Aayla Secura is one of six Walmart exclusive characters. This revised version of Aayla Secura is easily the best super-articulated 3.75-inch version of the character you can buy. It has an MSRP of $13.99, but Walmart has it set a tad cheaper.