Revenge of the Sith C-3PO review!!
Posted by: Contributor 02.25.04 12:01am
Check it out - an honest-to-God actual news article!! It's been a long time since we've had one of those! I don't want to get ahead of myself, so let me set the table...

The monthly PSWCS meeting was hosted by Brad Kulp last Saturday at his house. Among the items Brad wanted to show off were the unreleased Series 2 Revenge of the Sith action figures! He purchased them at Wal*mart after they mistakenly put them on the shelves. Now, if I found ROTS figures a month before they hit the streets they would have been on eBay the minute I got home. I mean, they'd have to go for $30 or $40 a pop right now! And then I'd be able to pay for the entire run of ROTS figures for basically nothing. I'd be a fool not to turn them over as soon as I possibly could, because their value will never be higher.

The only exception would be if I got one as a gift. And Brad, the awesome guy that he is, gave me just that. Knowing my affinity for all things C-3PO, he insisted I take his home. Since I'm one of the first people in the ENTIRE WORLD to get my hands on a ROTS C-3PO, I figured I'd do a review. So here it goes!!

Packaging:
I'm still not too keen on the packaging they chose for ROTS. They stylized Vader helmet is kind of "eh," the cardback is both generic and busy, and the whole thing just feels flimsy when you pick it up. The OTC figures were the pinacle of POTF2 packaging, and after that, this is a let down. Though I gotta say the character graphics inside the bubble are striking... very nice photo. The bubble shows off the figure pretty well. The back is nice in that it presents a lot of figures from the line while including an interesting (and non-spoiler) blurb about the character. So it isn't all bad... just not as good as it could be.

I would like to add that I can confirm that figures in this packaging can be EASILY removed by simply sliding a razor across the bottom seal and bending the cardback. A dab of glue, and noone would be the wiser. So I predict tons of old Episode 1 figures popping up on the shelves when people return them in ROTS packaging. Be careful!

Here's the front, back, and a close-up of the blurb.

Packaging: 7 out of 10

Sculpt:
Let me just be blunt here... this C-3PO is hands down the single best sculpt of any C-3PO action figure ever produced. Period. If Hasbro had put this figure in the VOTC package, it would have been lauded as the best figure in the line. And frankly, no other C-3PO comes even close. There's this C-3PO, and then there's everything else. They may as well never have existed. The likeness is DEAD ON. I gotta wonder if they used RealScan tech to do this figure, because it's flat-out perfect. The level of detail is amazing. It feels solid, and stands very well, even when bumped or on uneven footing. The only minor flaw I could find was that the left thumb looks a little deformed. But that might be a defect on my particular figure. I can't quite tell, but from in the photo on the back that figure looks to have a slightly longer thumb. But even with the thumb as-is, it's a fantastic sculpt. I wish I could meet the people at Hasbro who worked on this thing and shake their hands.

  

The head, in particular, is noteworthy. Check out just how fantastic this thing is:

Sculpt: 10 out of 10

Paint:
There aren't a lot of paint apps on this figure, obviously. Well, let's start with the chrome. It's great. Nice gold hue without being fake yellow. I know it's hard to tell from the photos with the toning I did on some of them, but trust me, it's excellent. What little paint there is is mostly well applied. The wires on the midsection have a mix of color highlights over the black. The paint on the palms of the hands is very nicely done and highly accurate and detailed. The eyes are a nice, bright yellow, though a little sloppy. As you can see, one pupil is a bit larger than the other, so I assume there will be some variances there. But the nicest touch to me was that they painted the wires behind 3PO's knees. You don't see that too often, and it's a sign that they really put a lot of thought into this figure. Overall, the figure looks fantastic.

  

Paint: 9 out of 10

Articulation:
Not much articulation here. Legs, arms, neck, and between the chest piece and wires. 6 total. And that's pretty slim. You'd think they'd at least do jointed knees, as obvious as the joints are there. I gotta conclude that that's a decision influenced by the hard plastic from which this figure must be cast. I think the knees would probably tend to get loose very quickly, making it impossible to stand after a relatively small amount of play. You'd probably have to craft a knee hinge out of softer plastic that would be less susceptible to loosening, and they probably wouldn't want to mix materials that way. Or maybe it wouldn't be cost effective. Well, that's all speculation. The articulation he does have works well, with the waist articulation being particularly effective. Here's a demonstration of the dramatic emotive possibilities that particular point of articulation enables.

  

Overall, I can't complain much. The level of articulation is appropriate to this character.

Articulation: 8 out of 10

Accessories:
C-3PO comes with... a base. That's it.

It's metal with some lava... probably means something to the story. But it's ridiculous... there's only one foot peg, and really no way to position him except with one foot in the lava. One of the guys at the PSWCS meeting speculated that maybe they're trying to tell us something. Notice his right calf is gold rather than silver. Notice it's his right foot over the lava. So he was thinking "Maybe that's what happens!" I wouldn't know as I'm avoiding spoilers (so don't go E-mailing me and telling me you dorks!!). But it's a good speculation.

So it's a base. It doesn't do much. But it did inspire the following funny little comic strip!

Accessories: 4 out of 10

Summary:
There's no other way to say it... this is the single best C-3PO action figure of all time. It's that good. You don't throw around words like "perfect" all that often, but this figure is as close to perfect as we've ever seen. Hasbro didn't just hit a home run... they hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth while down 3 runs with two outs and a full count. I really can't complain about anything with respect to the figure. The accessory is lame as can be, but I really couldn't care less. If you wrapped a diamond in newspaper, are you really going to complain that it's not the comics page? I think not!! I can't wait until April 2nd when I can get in line to pick up another one.

Final Score: 10 out of 10