I don’t think it’s hyperbolically overstating things when I say that the Dark Troopers were part of the greatest Star Wars moment since the original trilogy. The. Greatest.
Like a love child between Terminators, Robocop and Cylons, the Dark Troopers stole every scene they were in. Which…wasn’t a lot of scenes, but those scenes were cool like the buttocks of a penguin. “Jet black murder droids” is one of those things that you’d be like “of course they’re in Star Wars” because just look at them. In a canon that has Shadow Troopers, Death Troopers and Darth Vader, shiny black Killy McKillingtons is as much a part of Star Wars as grudges against sand.
I was predisposed to love Dark Troopers due to my love of murderous deathbots. Those creepy robotic movements…those cold red eyes…it’s love at first sight.
It felt like it took forever for Dark Trooper action figures to be announced, and then when the expected date—May 2023?!?!—was revealed the interminable wait became ridiculous. Fortunately, BBTS got in a little bit of early stock.
In hand, this is quite a nice feeling figure. And by that, I mean there’s a clean slickness to the metal parts. While it doesn’t necessarily feel like metal, it feels exactly like plastic emulating metal. That probably makes no sense, but it has a hard-edged feel to it. Of course, there are a few areas that are softer, but we’ll get to that later.
The translucent joints remind me of K-2SO, another recent Droid entry that on the surface has a very similar terrifying feel as the Dark Troopers. The Empire doesn’t skimp on creepy droids.
The figure is packed with functional articulation. His neck range is excellent, with a ball joint at the top and bottom of the neck. He has a wobble joint at the torso which allows tilt, bend and swivel. The hip articulation is hampered slightly by the belt, but he can get his legs pretty far up. He has single jointed elbows and knees. The knees swivel both above and below the actual joint.
The entire torso is an overlay encompassing the chest and shoulderpads. I can’t get a good look at what’s under the overlay, but it doesn’t detract. I guess there might be some who have a problem with the fidgety nature of the torso due to that overlay, but it doesn’t bother me. He probably ends up having a better range of motion in his torso wobble because of the overlay getting out of the way.
As an aside, if you’re looking at these photos and wondering why there’s dust on the figure, it’s because the figure could accumulate dust in an airtight room. It would almost grow out of it between shots. Either through static or just the nature of a shiny black toy, I couldn’t dust enough to get rid of every particulate. Good luck keeping them clean.
The Dark Trooper comes with two sets of hands. It comes with a set of fists, and a set of trigger/cradle hands. Oddly, the fists feel a little small, but I guess they’re accurate to the size they were on the onscreen Troopers. I think I’m just used to oversized hands or something.
He comes with a pair of jet effects that plug into holds on hthe bottom of his feet.
Finally, the figure comes with its standard blaster rifle. He holds it well and can cradle it convincingly. I was almost worried about the bulk of his chest keeping him from that, but there was no trouble at all.
I needed a small army of Dark Troopers as soon as I saw them on the Mandalorian. With the inflated price of the figure—”deluxe pricing” is quickly feeling like a crutch–I’m not going to be going army-builder nuts like I might have if this were a few years ago and prices were less crazybonkersnuts, which is a shame. I preordered two, thinking that was May of 2023’s problem, and then promptly forgot about it, so it was a surprise to find that two of them ended up in my pile of loot. I think at these prices I’m going to be sticking with two, unless there’s some deal somewhere.
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Source: Fwoosh
