Sculpt—4/5
With an emphasis on sculpting and articulation, you'd think this Vintage Original Trilogy Collection Vader would be the perfectly sculpted Vader. Unfortunately it misses the mark ever so slightly.

First, let's go over what's good about this figure. The sculpting detail is nice and sharp as it is on most VOTC figures. There are excellent textures in his black body glove and all his control boxes are cleanly sculpted with all their appropriate buttons and switches. Vader's codpiece is sculpted separately from his hip section and does a good job of hiding the hip articulation. The shape of the codpiece seems a little inaccurate, but it doesn't bother me. His boots are likewise done well and hide his knee articulation perfectly. His shoulder and chest armor also looks great and one would hardly expect that his shoulders are ball-jointed thanks to how well these joints are hidden by these details. Vader's right hand is great for holding the lightsaber and is also useful for pointing gestures. His left hand is more open and could be used to strangle Captain Antilles or beckon Luke Skywalker to join the Dark Side.

Vader also features a cloth cape and inner cape. The inner cape is fine though I don't think it comes to the front as much as it should. Nevertheless, it looks great and keeps the hip articulation unhindered. However, Vader's actual cape is quite a beast. Unlike Commtech Chip Vader or Death Star Clash Vader, who had their cloth capes tailored to fit around their shoulders, this Vader's cape is a full blown cape! When laid out flat, it's a complete half circle! With so much material, this cape can be a bit of a chore to get under control. Invariably you will have to fold the cape in various ways to keep if from flaring out and looking ridiculous. After lots of fooling around, I've found a good way to fold it, so I'm actually starting to like this cape a whole lot more.

So what's not to like about this figure? My biggest gripe is this figure's girth. This simply doesn’t look like Vader with a body builder (David Prowse) in the suit. Looking at this figure from the side, the chest is practically flat and doesn’t convey the girth of the Vader in the movies. It's kind of funny that the first Vaders from the beginning of the POTF2 line were way too buff, and now here in 2004, the Vaders are becoming way too skinny. Maybe this Vader is based on how Hayden Christensen looks in the Vader costume?

Vader's helmet is another small gripe of mine. For the most part, it looks great, but once you start comparing it to photos of the real thing you start to see the slight inaccuracies. The sides flare out a little too much, and the helmet simply isn't big enough from front to back. I know I'm really nit-picking here but I figured it should be said in the interest of accuracy. The last gripe is the "chain" attached to Vader's cape. This "chain" is actually just a small silvery rope and I would rather it not be included at all. It looks a bit silly, out of scale, and it doesn't lay flat at all. This is a choice that should have been avoided.

Articulation--4.5/5
Vader has 12 points of articulation: ball-jointed neck, ball-jointed shoulders, angled elbow cuts, wrists, waist, hips, and ball-jointed knees. It's actually more accurate to say that he has 14 points, since he has swivel points both above and below the knee joints which equates to ball-jointed knees and swiveling boot-tops. The ball-jointed neck surprised me the most, as I wasn't expecting it. It's very useful and is actually hidden quite well. The ball-jointed shoulders are awesome, as are the knee joints. The elbow-cuts are slightly disappointing only because they limit the amount of poses. Ball-jointed elbows or bicep-cuts would have got this category a perfect score. As mentioned before the cloth capes and the separately molded codpiece allow some great hip movement, which in turn means more poses for us to create. Well done, Hasbro.

Accessories--3.5/5
You get a lit lightsaber and an unlit lightsaber that can attach to Vader's belt. So why the average score? There's an incredible inaccuracy here. The unlit lightsaber hilt attaches at the wrong end! Vader's hilt should attach at the end where the blade comes out, and not at the "grip" end as it is here. On the plus side, the unlit hilt has a hole so you can attach a lightsaber blade, provided you have one of course. You can use the one from Bespin Duel Vader or Throne Room Duel Vader.

Paint--2/5
Why the low score? There are some glaring inaccuracies in this department as well. Vader's chest box has inaccurately painted buttons and switches. There are three switches that are supposed to be silver, but here they are painted blue! The red and blue buttons on the upper right hand corner of the box are also switched around--the top one is supposed to be blue and the bottom one red! The three horizontal buttons to the left of those are primarily red with silver trim, so if anything, they should be painted red and not silver. Likewise, there should be a red button on each one of the control boxes on his belt, but here are painted silver. Vader's chest armor is painted wrong in the center, with the wrong areas painted silver. And last but not least, my lightsaber hilts aren't painted very well, with a very thin application of paint that doesn't quite cover all that it should. Terrible job and poor research.

Packaging--5/5
One of the big draws about these figures is the reproduction packaging they come in. Anyone who grew up with the vintage figures will no doubt love seeing these. I myself have to admit that there is something kind of magical about holding these in my hands. It's like buying a bit of my childhood without paying hundreds of dollars. To make the package even more special, Hasbro encased them in a nice clamshell case which protects the card and bubble. The cardbacks are done well and show off the original figure in it's packaging and also show the other figures in the series. It's too bad Hasbro couldn't continue the vintage recreation to the cardbacks, but apparently there were legal issues with that. Still, it would have been cool if they had at least mimicked the look of the vintage cardbacks.

Overall--4/5
If I could sum up this figure in one word it would be "inaccurate". Or maybe it would be "disappointing". Well, either one fits the bill as this figure has the most inaccuracies I've seen in a figure for a while, and it's disappointing that a figure of this importance and at this price point could be so poorly researched. Nevertheless, this Vader is the most poseable Vader ever and is useful for recreating plenty of scenes from any of the movies. This truly is the most versatile Vader in existence and is a landmark figure because of that. It is only too unfortunate that Hasbro didn't take the figure to its full potential.

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