Death Star Gunner - TVC - Basic (VC147)

Celebrate the legacy of Star Wars, the action-and-adventure-packed space saga from a galaxy far, far away, with this collection of premium, highly-detailed 3.75-inch scale figures and vehicles. (Each sold separately. Subject to availability.)

Well, The Vintage Collection Death Star Gunner (VC147) figure isn’t “doing it” for us entirely, we’re sad to report. We didn’t get everything we hoped for with this figure, although we won’t deny Hasbro put a lot of effort forth with this figure. What makes this especially painful is that the Death Star Gunner is a figure that has almost everything we’d want to see implemented in a figure for the 3.75” super-articulated line (like 30 premium points of articulation), but it falls short in its final execution and finer details. We’ve compared images of the Death Star Troopers from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to the ones we see in the Original Trilogy. There are differences, indeed. But are there enough differences where the action figure of this character in 2019 looks almost nothing like its other 3.75” ancestors? Or did Hasbro mess up on the proportions giving it a lanky and gawky silhouette? We’re not so sure about either, but we’re grappling with these feelings, and they’re a bit troubling for us. 2019 is a year that is truly turning around for The Vintage Collection figures. We’re getting some impressive action figures and some fantastic character choices now, but we’re not sure if the wonkiness we see in the Death Star Gunner is nothing more than an outliner, or perhaps what we should expect to see in this line moving forward. By now, you might be worried that we see the Death Star Gunner as a debacle to The Vintage Collection. Don’t worry. It’s not. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that we wanted more from this figure, especially since it’s been over a decade wishing for a definitive update. This release should have been it, and, for us, it doesn’t come close enough.

We don’t intend to come down so hard on the Death Star Gunner. But we’re not sure if it’s going to meet the standards of collectors. Hopefully, we’re wrong about that, and this figure is a success. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is one of the better Disney Star Wars films out there. We don’t take issue with Hasbro producing a “Rogue One” version of the Death Star Gunner for The Vintage Collection. We would have much preferred to see an Imperial Gunner/Death Star Gunner from A New Hope or Return Of The Jedi (or both) instead, but a Rogue One version isn’t the end of the world by any means. What we do take exception with here are some of the choices made for the figure. Sure, the Death Star Gunner comes loaded with hyper-articulation, and Hasbro is turning their articulation systems into a cookie-cutter approach, and we find this disconcerting. We’d go so far to say that this Death Star Gunner doesn’t need all of the articulation Hasbro gave it. The swivel thighs are “too much” here and work against achieving action-oriented poses. And they're a tad loose and sometimes don’t want to stay in place, which makes it all the more frustrating. But that’s not close to the biggest issue of this figure. What is up with the skinniness of the frame? All of the members of the Galactic Empire have healthy athletic frames, but this Death Star Gunner could easily pass for a skeleton in a uniform. (For the record, we also took some issue with the thin frames implemented on some of the figures during The Vintage Collection’s first run too.)

In all honesty, we’re frustrated with The Vintage Collection Death Star Gunner. We wanted to love it a whole lot more than we do. We certainly didn’t want to wish Hasbro made further tweaks to it before releasing it, but that is where we're at with this figure. We also think the helmet is too small. We don’t know every last detail about what makes a “Rogue One” Death Star Gunner different from an “Original Trilogy” version, but we do know that helmets are larger. It’s frightening to think about how small a human head must be to fit inside of the helmet Hasbro tooled for this figure. All we can think of is Harry the Hunter from Beetlejuice. That’s probably how small this guy’s head is underneath the helmet. Another detail that sticks in our craw is the antenna. Goodness, gracious. It’s obnoxiously thick, long and angled incorrectly. Hasbro did a much better job adding the antenna to The Saga Collection’s Death Star Gunner (SAGA 041) figure. This version of the character looks quite silly with a large silver antenna poking out of its helmet. It’s disappointing because the design of the helmet is quite wonderful. The radiation vest is a separate piece, but we aren’t too sure how to remove it without damaging the figure, so we left it on our sample. He comes with a “Bespin” blaster, which we found odd, and no holster. So he’ll have to hold it all the time. We hope for a future OT Imperial Death Star Gunner action figure on a ROTJ or POTF card, as well as a slightly beefier figure. Then we’ll be wholly happy about checking this figure off of our wish lists.