Destroyer Droid - TAC - Basic (30 59)

Droidekas, or destroyer droids, are more dangerous and harder to stop than battle droids or super battle droids. Armed with twin blasters and programmed to destroy, they can surround themselves with a protective energy shield or curl into balls and roll into attack at great speed.

If you have one Destroyer Droid from Hasbro, you have them all right? Actually, this is quite the opposite. Interestingly, Hasbro year after year finds new ways to improve upon the Destroyer Droid. If you have the one from the 1999 Episode I collection and the 2002 Star Wars Destroyer Droid (Geonosis Battle) (’02 #48) figures, then you know both of them are pretty authentic to the films, yet they have their shortcomings. Hasbro essentially took the best parts from each and kit-bashed a “new” Destroyer Droid for the 30 (77-07) line, repainted it and the final results are quite impressive. As a figure that relatively remains exactly the same throughout the prequel films, it takes some clever thinking to find ways to invigorate the character to make collectors purchase him again and again. Besides, these droids are major army builders so that works in their favor too. But this time Hasbro made the Destroyer Droid probably as good as we’ll ever get and that is saying a lot since the previous versions weren’t have bad at all.

Destroyer Droid (or Droideka) has been created from the head of the 2002 figure and the body of the 1999 figure. What this does is give the new action figure a much more authentic head yet allows the figure to curl up as need thanks to the “wise beyond its years” bendable body section. This feature was required to be in this release because it comes with a rather large accessory, one half of the energy shied, so that the Destroyer Droid can be positioned inside of it. Collectors weren’t all that excited with the energy half. They thought Hasbro was forcing them to buy two figures to complete the energy shield. But let’s face it. Two of these figures aren’t that big of a scam. And these are figures you’ll need to army-build anyway. But we digress. Collectors wished that the energy shield was transparent and not opaque. Apparently, this was Hasbro’s desire too, but the connecting parts didn’t allow for a true aesthetic, so Hasbro didn’t go this route.

The energy shield has a radiant brilliance to it and it looks very cool. While you can barely make out the Destroyer Droid inside of it, the energy shield was still well sculpted and a fantastic accessory for an otherwise ordinary droid release. And it’s true that the Destroyer Droid doesn’t bring anything new to the table as far as the figure is concerned. We have seen all of the parts that create him before in one fashion or another. But the kit-bashing coupled with the new energy shield accessory make this basic figure a truly unique release. As one of two figures that couldn’t fit in the standard packaging bubble, Hasbro made a larger sized blister so all of the parts could fit inside well. And this figure was also released with an action figure stand. Definitely an odd choice, the Destroyer Droids needs anything but an action figure stand! If you have all the other Destroyer Droids released to date, the 30 (77-07) version is still “different enough” to warrant another (or another two) purchase(s).