Sculpt--4.5/5
Hasbro's been missing the mark with the last few C-3PO figures they've released. VOTC C-3PO was a joke and the Saga Deluxe C-3PO was too short and wasn't chromed-out. So it is with great joy that I present to you what is perhaps the best C-3PO figure produced yet. This is by far some of the best sculpt-work on a C-3PO figure, with good proportions and all the right details in all the right places. This is an all-new sculpt and it shows in every inch of this figure, though I suspect that the arms and legs could be reworked from R-3PO.

The body of this C-3PO figure looks just right. The upper portion of the body plating has a nice girth to it which pretty accurately reflects the real thing. The cod-piece section is also sculpted well, maintaining a look that is accurate to the movie without totally hindering the hip articulation. The wiring at the midsection also looks great. The headsculpt is also a very positive point of this figure. It doesn't look too skinny when looking at it head-on, and it's proportions from front to back look spot-on.

Unfortunately, the sculpting isn't perfect. The neck is a bit too long; in the movie, you can barely see C-3PO's neck as it's hidden by his "collar". On this figure, we see quite a bit of his neck and it detracts from the overall accuracy. My second nitpick is the somewhat skinny arms. They're just a tad too skinny for my tastes even though these arms have some the best sculpt work of all the 3PO figures. For comparison, the proportions of the POTF2 C-3PO figures look the best to me. My last nitpick is that the smooth surfaces of C-3PO aren't as smooth as they could be. This is most apparent in the legs of my figure, which seems to have a slight "rippled" look to them.

Articulation--4/5
C-3PO has six articulation points: swivel neck, standard shoulders and hips, and a ball-jointed waist. That's right, a ball-jointed waist! I've been clamoring for this type of waist joint on a 3PO figure for quite a while now, and Hasbro has finally delivered! This waist joint is pretty much everything I wanted it to be; you can pivot C-3PO's upper body forward and back, and rotate it left or right much further than we have ever been able to before. The joint is not a true ball-joint in that you cannot pivot his upper body left or right, but still this is an awesome advancement. This joint alone makes it possible to put C-3PO in a number of poses we haven't been able to do before. It also allows us to adjust how much of the wiring we see at his midsection. All of C-3PO's other joints are standard stuff, and bendable knees would have made the articulation perfect.

Features--4/5
This figure has a pull-apart feature that is not mentioned anywhere on the package. Like other pull-apart C-3PO's in the past, you can pull off the arms, legs, and head of the figure. I have no idea if this feature is in the movie, but it is very useful if you want to use this figure in any Bespin scenes or dioramas. It's a nice little touch!

Accessories--3/5
You get a display base in the theme of Mustafar. I'm so glad to see the return of themed display bases. Don't get me wrong, those generic Star Wars bases were nice too, but these themed bases feel much nicer and more thoughtful. This base looks great with a partially covered metal-looking platform with lava rocks and magma around it. The base has five places where it can connect to other bases, one of which is suited to connect to the Coruscant-themed bases that come with some Jedi figures. It's a nice combination of function and style, and major props to the designers for making the bases compatible with each other even if the themes are different.

Paint--4.5/5
Pretty solid paint job. I wasn't really a fan of the painted eyes on previous C-3PO figures, but this time it actually looks good! The yellow paint looks well-applied and the color is bright and fitting for a lighted-eye look. The black dots in the center of 3PO's eyes are likewise painted well and are nice and small so they don't draw too much attention to them. The wiring at the midsection is also painted well with white, red and grey colored wires. The palms of C-3PO's hands look good too, as does the wires at the back of 3PO's knees. And let's not forget the fact that this figure is vac-metalized and not painted gold! The color of the plating is just right and doesn't look overly gold. Let's hope they never use gold paint on another C-3PO ever again as vac-metalizing is the way to go. The base is also very well painted with orange lava and a nicely weathered platform.

Packaging--4/5
I'm really digging the ROTS packaging. I love the color palettes that Lucasfilm's marketing department chose, and I think that the orange Star Wars logo is a nice change of pace from the silver and gold iterations of the past. The shape of the cards also takes a dramatic step away from the rectangular cards we've gotten in the past. A large Vader helmet looms at the top of the card, looking down at the raging lava below. In the dome of Vader's helmet you can see an image of Obi-Wan and Anakin dueling it out and crossing lightsabers. The bubble covers most of the card and goes right up the bottom edges of the card. The sides of the bubble are taped to the back of the card which makes it slightly hard to get the figure out of the package in hurry, but MOC'ers will have nothing to worry about. There's also a nice layered effect with the use of two cardboard inserts within the bubble featuring the Star Wars logo and a photo of the character. The cardbacks are likewise well designed with perhaps the best cardback layout design I've seen in years. There a nice photo of the character from the movie, a short description of the character, a photo of the actual toy, and nice cross-sell imagery to get you excited for the other toys in the line. Considering how much less space there is on these cards makes the design all the more successful. Excellent job on the packaging, Hasbro.

Overall--4.5/5
Best. C-3PO. Yet. I'm not going to say "ever" because I still feel there are some improvements that can be made. For those of you that felt burned by the lousy VOTC C-3PO, this is Hasbro's redemption. Great sculpting, the best C-3PO articulation yet, vac-metalized finish, nice display base, and a bonus pull-apart feature make this the C-3PO that can replace practically every older C-3PO figure. Come April 2nd, this figure should definitely be on your must-have list. Highly recommended.

--Photos and review by Garett Yoshimura
garett@carrotnetwork.com