Princess Leia Organa - POTF2 [R/G] - Basic

Height: 1.5 meters
Status: Princess of Alderaan, Imperial Senator, Cell Leader of Rebel Alliance
Classification: Human
Affiliation: Rebel Alliance
Weapon of Choice: Blaster

After many unsuccessful attempts to bring change to the Empire as a senator, Princess Leia Organa became involved in the Rebel Alliance and immediately established herself as one of its most popular and influential leaders. Although it was extremely dangerous for someone of her prominence. Leia often participated in secret missions for the Rebellion. It was during one such mission to recruit General Obi-Wan Kenobi that she obtained the technical readouts for the Empire's new Death Star battle station. Moments before being captured by Darth Vader, Leia hid the plans in the droid R2-D2, who then escaped to the planet Tatooine to find Kenobi.

While being held on the Death Star, Leia was tortured by Vader yet refused to yield any Rebel secrets. She was then forced to watch the destruction of her homeworld Alderaan by the ruthless Grand Moff Tarkin. After a daring rescue by Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, she helped lead the Rebel forces on Yavin to victory by destroying the menacing Battle Station.

She has been called “Monkey Leia” to “Han Solo in drag” so take your pick on how you personally plan to bash this monstrosity. It’s hard to believe that a figure who showed up like a surprise (because she didn’t appear in the photo with the other figures on the card back except for her own card back) would immediately create such have among those in the collecting community. The urban legend is that she didn’t ship in the initial case assortments, but that’s just not true. Her absence on the card back made her a modern day Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot. Seeing one in the wild was nearly an out of body experience because EVERYONE was trying to grab her. “She was canceled” was probably the biggest rumor of all. But once she started arriving on pegs with a little more regularity, her aftermarket value of over $40 plummeted down to normal MSRPs. Why there was such urgency to attain her into everyone’s collection will probably remain the most wasted use of energy of all time in this hobby, but that’s what happened when rumors become larger than life. When it comes down to nuts and bolts, Princess Leia Organa ended up being the dud of the first nine figures. Her likeness was indeed pitiful. And the approach to give her multiple layers, while applauded by some, was perhaps the most clumsiest feature they will ever give an action figure.

A hard plastic outer cape which restricts any normal movement of the figure was combined with a removable skirt shell. And then a figure with a competed white outfit underneath was done so that the figure could sit in vehicles (or playset) as the collector so desired. From an engineering point of view, Princess Leia Organa has it where it counts. Having so many removable pieces and the option to display her with some and not others is a nice feature to have in an action figure. But the base figure has to be good. It’s her muscular frame, weird stance and unattractive likeness that really give collectors sour grapes and we’d even say deservedly so. To make matters worse, she has perhaps the worst center of gravity of all the figures in the first wave of The Power Of The Force “2” line. Getting Princess Leia Organa to stand up unassisted is quite a trial. And it makes us very disappointed that this isn’t priority number one when designing a modern Star Wars figure. However, the biggest surprise with this figure that despite all of the negativity surrounding her, it didn’t stop her from selling out every time she made it to store shelves. It feels almost hypocritical that all of us have complained so terribly about her yet she clearly has sold through regardless.

A significant variation exists with Princess Leia Organa and we’re not talking about the silly packaging variations. One version has two rings around the belt while a second version has three rings. Although we’re sure one version is rarer than the other, neither version is sought out more than the other. In fact, this figure isn’t even really advertised as having a variation. It was news at the time, but it quickly dissipated. There is no doubt that Princess Leia Organa is an ugly action figure. There is clearly no makeup on her face that even attempts to diminish her manly facial features. Even her hair and buns appear matted down like what is familiar within an older generation of females. Not much is going for it. But the rumor mill may be solely responsible for the figure’s success. It puts a little of wariness in our stomachs for suture female action figures in this line. Will they all succumb to the ugliness that is this Princess Leia Organa figure? Or will Kenner/Hasbro do right by this strong, intelligent and beautiful character and give her a likeness that represents all of her qualities and more. One thing is for sure, however. This Princess Leia Organa figure has created a buzz like no other figure in The Power Of The Force “2” line. We suppose it’s true that both bad and good press is good press.