A new Star Wars movie means new Stormtroopers. New Stormtroopers means crazy army-building. Crazy army-building is expensive, so are these new Stormtroopers good enough to army build? Looks like we’re going to be swimming in merchandise, so let’s continue our look at the first wave of 6-inch Force Awakens figures with this First Order Stormtrooper.
When the original Stormtroopers burst into the Tantive IV they immediately cemented themselves as faceless killing machines without pity or remorse. Maybe they could stand to take a few more classes in marksmanship, but what lack in accurate targeting they make up for in sheer numbers. There was an inexhaustible supply to bedevil our heroes.
But we know that story. We don’t know this one. And that’s the great thing about a story where we don’t know the end. While we knew the inevitable with the prequels, with sequels we don’t know where the story will be going. The future is as unknown and faceless as these brand new troopers. In driving the story forward, we’re bringing it all the way around, and the familiar becomes brand new.
The First Order Stormtrooper is a natural evolution in the original Stormtrooper design. When you have a design as beautiful as the Stormtrooper, you don’t want to do to much to alter it. The signature components — white plating with black flexible parts — is maintained, the silhouette is very similar, and a lot of design elements have remained consistent. The helmet maintains that eerie “face” that gives it an inhuman yet human feel, but stretches the corners of the “mouth” up to give it an almost sinister smile that the original Stormtrooper helmet lacked.
As a figure, the Stormtrooper is mostly strong, but a couple elements keep it from a perfect score. It’s overall a well-done figure. There’s a bit of a squatness to the limbs that makes it look like it will be smaller than the original Stormtrooper, but it’s just an optical illusion. Due to the lower curve of the upper leg armor this Stormtrooper has more leg motion than the original Stormtrooper, but he’s still not going to be getting into any deep squats. He does have double knees, though, so you can get some decent poses out of him.
The torso joint has a huge range of motion. This is an area where the Black Series has been mostly successful, allowing for a very realistic range of motion. The shoulder pads are much smaller on this design, so the Trooper has a wider range of motion in the shoulders.
The place where the articulation really falls apart and regresses to an older Hasbro setup is the elbows. Where the previous Stormtroopers have double elbows that allow them to get that familiar two-handed weapon pose, this Stormtrooper has an “elbro” type joint that doesn’t even allow a full 90 degrees. This makes getting the trooper to hold his weapon with two hands almost impossible, and aesthetically horrible, like his weapon has been sprayed by a skunk and he’s trying to hold it as far away from his body as possible.
One could argue that Hasbro wanted to preserve the ribbed detail on his arm. One could argue that, but if that were the case, then there was still leeway to make sure there was enough clearance in his arms. Even if that were the case, I don’t see how there would have been any huge loss of authenticity if they had decided on double elbows for him, so this was a bungle on what could have been an across-the-board success.
The trooper comes with a variation on the standard Imperial blaster that we all know with a black and white color scheme that differs from the original all-black weapon. He also comes with a smaller sidearm that pegs neatly to his right leg. Because his second blaster is more of a one-hander, it works better in conjunction with his relatively hampered articulation scheme, but the compromise is, at this point, fairly unacceptable.
But despite the huge nitpick with the elbows — and I fully realize this could bother me more than it might others —the First Order Stormtrooper looks great and is a convincingly futurized take on the extremely familiar Stormtrooper design while still being instantly familiar.
These are currently being found in stores nationwide, but you can check Amazon
You can also preorder him at BBTS
