I love the 3D Clone Wars television series, but I also have a soft spot for the Genndy Tartakovsky 2D Clone Wars shorts and all the pre-Revenge of the Sith Clone Wars comics and figures. I was fascinated by the over the top action of the show and the realistic takes on show characters like Durge and Asajj Ventress that Hasbro released to support the show. They weren’t exactly matches for what was on screen, but more realistic interpretations of those characters so they would hopefully fit in with the movie figures. This ARC Trooper reminds me a lot of that old wave. Let’s take a look!
The packaging is reminiscent of the cards for the old animated style clone wars figure assortment released around the same time as the more realistic figures. It’s a nicer package design than the realistic figures had back then, so I get why they chose this one, but it’s a little funny to me since this figure does have a realistic sculpt rather than the animated style. It’s nicely executed, but ultimately feels to me like a waste of money because I’m really not nostalgic for that packaging and only want the toy.
The accessories are fairly dull with three different clone weapons (two pistols, a small rifle, and and long rifle) that we’ve seen dozens of times before in this line. In the cartoon short, this ARC trooper uses pistols with a larger barrel, so it would have been nice to get that here. He also uses macro-binoculars, so that would have been a more interesting inclusion than the same two blaster rifles we always see.
The guns fit in the hands fine and the pistols in the holster, except the left hand does not have a trigger finger. This has been a defect in every dual wielding Clone Trooper since Rex in 2017 and it just gets more irritating to me with each subsequent release.
The figure re-uses the body from the recent 3D Clone Wars ARC Trooper Echo with a new helmet. The new helmet feels slightly overlarge to me, but it works better with the large shoulder pads of the ARC trooper than the it does on the regular trooper with no shoulder pads. I don’t think this body is strictly accurate to the character in the show. In the show he doesn’t have the extra chest piece, pack, or leg armor we see in the 3D Arc Troopers and the ammo pouch is on the opposite side of the chest. I can kind of justify the additions as part of the translation from simplified animation design to more realistic design, but I have a feeling this was done for cost reasons more than anything.
The articulation for this newer generation Clone Trooper body is an improvement over the original trooper in some ways. I really like the mid-torso and neck range of motion here, but I prefer the knee design and range of motion on the hips in the original version of the clone. The Trooper has:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles
- Ball and socket mid-torso, lower neck, and head
- Butterfly hinged pecs
- Thigh swivels
- Hinged range finder
The paint is very simplified. The clones were pretty clean in this short, but they look weird this pristine and he could really use a wash or some damage hits. Overall this figure is a little dull. I think we’ve all noticed that the cheap repaint has come to dominate Star Wars Black Series releases lately. The one bright side to that economic reality is that my Clone Wars shelf has exploded with Clone Trooper variants over the past few years and I actually like getting cool Clone repaints. Unfortunately this one doesn’t strike me as all that cool and feels a little lackluster.
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Source: Fwoosh
