The Star Wars train is running at full speed toward the premiere of The Rise of Skywalker and that includes more and more merchandise releases. In the last week I picked up three different store exclusive Black Series figures and today we’re going to take a look at Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi.
Packaging is what you would expect, with the standard box, classy illustration, and the absence of a series number on the side because this figure is a Walmart exclusive. Jedi Luke does feel like a bit of a weird call for an exclusive to me though. I know we got one already in the line, but that was years ago. Seems to me like a Return of the Jedi Luke would be a prime candidate for a regular series release.
Luke comes with a removeable cloak, a blaster, a stand, and a Lightsaber.
The blaster is from the scene in Jedi where Luke snags the blaster from a Jabba thug right before falling into the Rancor lair, but it’s more notable to me as Kanan Jarrus’ gun from Rebels. It looks to me like they re-used that mold from the Kanan figure too. It looks nice and has a bit of metallic drybrush and a splash of brown for the handle.
The Saber also looks like re-use to me from the previous Luke, which is fine, however the blade is a little thicker than the previous blade. The nice upshot of that is the blast effect from the Skywalker Strikes figure clips on there well. There is a loop for the saber to hang on a belt, but no belt for that.
The cloak is okay. I think Hasbro is making strides with their soft goods lately, but there mine still has some loose threads and doesn’t quite lay flat against the head all the time. I tried the water trick with it, but it just popped up again when dry. The hood also doesn’t really want to lay flat when I take it off the head either. It looks like they did put a bit of thread in the hood to get it to sit right, but my cloak only had it on one side.
The cloak has some folds that look to be ironed, so that gave me the idea to try and heat the cloak and iron it slightly to get it to lay right. It was an improvement, but not quite perfect.
The stand is familiar as it’s been released with other exclusive figures like the Jet Trooper or the Clone Armor Obi-Wan. I think it works well for action poses, but it’s a little awkward for neutral poses.
The figure is mostly re-use of the previous Black Series Jedi Luke except they added a great new portrait and a slightly less successful vest.
The portrait of Luke is pretty great and I think they nailed Hamill’s likeness here.
The vest is a single soft plastic piece and has a good texture and weight to the sculpting, but I think it’s a little short as his skirt and belt ride a little high for my taste. It is soft enough to not impede articulation, but doesn’t seem to be easily removeable. I think you could probably heat it up and remove it.
You can also swap pieces from the original Luke figure on to this one if you need a black glove look, but you have to heat and swap.
The articulation is not anything special as it was from early days in the Black series. The elbrows don’t get more than 90 degree bend, the neck is a swivel/hinge, and there aren’t any butterfly shoulder hinges.
Paint is probably where this figure is most improved over the original Luke’s face has an excellent faceprinting and is cast on a nice fleshtone plastic that’s less glossy than the recent Yavin Luke. He does have a slight bit of a rosy cheek look to him depending on the light. The hair also has a drybrush on it to bring out the detail and the black plastic on body is a more matte and less glossy than the original figure.
Overall this figure is a bit of a mixed bag. I really like the new portrait, but the vest doesn’t quite work for me. I think I would have preferred a force push or mind trick hand on this figure rather than the Kanan blaster or the figure stand.
