I tend to keep up with the toy news and reports of people finding new figures at retail, so it’s pretty rare these days for me to be surprised by finding a new figure on the shelf. I also completely forgot that Target was getting an exclusive Trash Compactor Luke Skywalker figure, so it was a really pleasant surprise to find him on the shelf last week. Let’s take a look!
Luke comes in the standard Black Series packaging without the number, as it typical for these store exclusives. The packaging does stand out slightly from the usual as the drawing of Luke doesn’t quite capture the actor’s likeness as well as these drawings usually do.
Luke comes with a removeable helmet, a communicator, a blaster, and a figure stand. The figure stand is the same one we saw with the recent Gamestop exclusive Rocket trooper and works fairly well in running poses, but is somewhat awkward for a straight standing pose.
The communicator is appropriately scaled, tiny piece of plastic that I’m terrified of losing. I held onto the the other one for all this time, so fingers crossed for this one to stick around. One thing in it’s favor is that it clips fairly securely to the Stormtrooper belt.
The blaster is the same trooper blaster we’ve seen for years and fits well in the holster. I kind of wish they would throw in the blast effect from the Disney Store Stormtrooper for all of the future E-11 blaster toting figures.
The removeable helmet fits tightly and I haven’t noticed that it damages the nose sculpt while on. I’m no Stormtrooper armor scholar, but I like the way the helmet looks on the neck better than the regular Stromtrooper figure, probably due to the added detail of the neck piece.
You can see Luke’s hair peeking out of the back, which is probably not accurate, but doesn’t bother me. I think I would have liked a Dianoga tentacle to wrap around the figure to jazz this figure up a bit.
If you have the previous Stormtrooper Luke, you know what to expect here and this figure carries over the strengths and weaknesses of the previous figure. That figure, which re-used a lot of Stormtrooper parts, is re-used here with the addition of a new portrait of Luke with wet hair.
I do like that they added a shorter torso for height on that older figure, but for some reason the relatively longer arms are standing out more to me the second time around. I also really like the little extra belt doohicky detail. I know it’s in the original figure, but it didn’t stand out to me before.
The helmet does seem a bit different, but I’m not sure if it’s a new sculpt, or if that’s an effect of different materials used to cast the figure. The details feel sharper somehow and overall slightly more narrow.
The new head looks really good to me from some angles and not so great from others. I think it’s an accurate portrait, if not totally flattering to Hamill. He’s got a slight chipmunk effect going on with his two front teeth showing through a slightly open mouth.
I really like the glossier plastic they used for the trooper body. The gloss feels more accurate to Stormtrooper armor than previous trooper figures. The dirty smudge deco has a slight pixelation to it, but is effective for the most part and I don’t think distracts too much for use as a regular trooper.
The head features the face printing technique and it’s also pretty effective. There is a bit of pixelation that stands out to me more on this figure than it does on say the recent Beckett or SOLO Han figures, but it’s mostly noticeable only when blown up in photos.
I also feel like the details on the helmet are slightly more sharp than they were on the old Luke Stormtrooper figure. There’s a nice gloss on the eyes that the original didn’t have either.
Luke with wet hair was not a variant I had a particular desire for, but in hand I’m really enjoying it. Maybe the surprise factor is part of it, but I dig the glossiness of the armor and the new Mark Hamill portrait. I think this will replace the original on the shelf for me.
