Luke Skywalker with Vaporator

Either way, the vaporators are one of the more easily recognized pieces of hardware in the Star Wars universe.    They are seen in the various films with Tatooine locations.  This Luke harkens back to Episode 4 and our first Vaporator sighting.

Appearance:

Yep, this is Luke Skywalker, farm boy.   How many figures of Tatooine Luke have there been over the years?  Personally, I don't think this one does him justice.

First, let's start with the head.  To me, it appears to be slightly large for his body.  I think part of this is due to the fact of making room for the ball joint. 

His hair appears to have been an attempt at a wind swept "action" sculpt.  I wish they had just given us a hair cut like the one on the card.  For that matter I wish his face matched the one on the card as well.  You would figure after thirty years people would be able to get the perfect Luke likeness, but, apparently not.

The rest of his outfit is fairly plain.  Oddly, his legs look good.  Oh, yeah.  He doesn't have knee joints.  I guess to preserve the sculpt or reduce costs due to the pack-in, Hasbro didn't give this Luke knees.  Helps the look of boots though.  I was thinking this might be a re-use of the Early Bird Luke, but can't find mine at the moment.  (Read as "in the middle of a multitude of storage boxes".)

One thing that bugs me the more that I look at it, is an error on his tunic.  If you follow the line of the fold of his shirt to his belt, you'll notice that it picks back up bellow the belt on the opposite side of his body.  Huh?  I'm pretty sure those should match up.

Fun:

Again another figure that can't sit down.  And this one doesn't have knees either.  If no articulation is bad, strange articulation is worse.  I can't get the elbows of this Luke to look natural in any position.  They're big, bulky, and funky.

I really thought when I heard about this figure and Biggs, this would be a revamp of the "floppy hat" Luke.  And he would have a hat and either sculpted or separate macro-binoculars.  (I mainly figured this since they use the binoculars in Biggs's cut scene.)  But, we didn't get that.   I would have preferred those two accessories over the lightsabers in this package.  One ignited and one handle.  And of course, the handle is incorrect.  It does hang on his belt in the correct place, though.  I would think as many time as Hasbro has pulled the "Vader's saber with a silver end trick", they could have just put a new mold in place to make the correct one at the factory all the Luke's seem to come from. 

Surprisingly as well, Luke doesn't come with a droid caller like the Jawa in this wave.  And we actually saw him use one of those.  But, he does come with the standard coin for this year's figures.

Alright, now for the reason that I bought this figure.  The vaporator.  I don't know what it does, but I had to have it.  Well, it's okay.  It comes in a couple of pieces and they go together easy enough.  And it's got some weathered desert paint to it.  But, it seems a little lacking in detail.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was a little bit more than this.   Also, the 4 corner tubes on mine are bent from being in the package.  I've done what I could to straighten them, but they still seem a bit skewed to me.

Overall:

I love Star Wars figures, obviously.  I'll buy a cool figure, just cause they're cool, much to anguish of Mrs. Nerd.  Most of the time, I get my action figure fix and I'm happy.  This time it just didn't work for me. 

First, this is a Luke figure that isn't breaking any new ground.  He's the same Tatooine Luke we've seen over and over.  On top of that, he's not nearly as articulated as most of his contemporaries.  Nor does he even resemble the character.

Second, Hasbro knows we are suckers.  By packing the vaporator in with a less than stellar Luke they knew some of us would buy Luke just to get it. 

However, I can tell you, I won't buy a second Luke just to get a second vaporator.  I just don't want to be a moisture farmer that badly.

Engineernerd Score: 80/100

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