My love for the Bandai Star Wars model kits is well known. They are a blast to build and you end up with a great action figure. The First Order Stormtrooper from The Force Awakens is more of the same but with a couple of kinks. Fun, but the finished product leaves just a little to be desired.
And that’s not to say I don’t like the figure. I do. But I can’t help staring at the two stumbling blocks that stick out like a sore thumb. That’s on top of my love for the Black Series First Order Stormtrooper, weak elbows and all. So I end up liking both the model and the Black Series versions about the same, which is a first for me.
It feels . . . weird.
The packaging is what we’ve come to expect with the Bandai Star Wars model kits. Black. Pretty pictures. Holds the goods.
This is where I failed to get pictures of the sprues before I started building. But this pic is a little ways into the build and gives you an idea of the perceived chaos of assembling an action figure piece by piece.
But working through all of that, you end up with this.
The high points:
The sculpt is so sweet and sharp. Straight lines and all the right curves.
My favorite part is the smoky translucent eye lenses. For some reason that fills me with joy.
Articulation is excellent. Where the Black Series fails in the elbow department, the model takes it to school with the ability to grab his own head.
This figure also features the drop-down hips to allow for more leg movement.
The low points:
The proportions. The shoulder pads sit slightly high, the neck is slightly short, causing a skinny guy trying to look muscular while a “shrugging thing” is going on, including the arms that can’t go down to his sides.
Speaking of the arms, the wrist details are supposed to be on the inside, facing the body. When put in this position, the elbows actually swing into the torso, not forward. I don’t know why this decision was made, and it’s easy enough to disregard where the forearm detail should go and turn the arm forward, but it throws me off.
Another odd choice is the accessories. Not the choice, but the execution. First of all, it comes with the standard blaster.
The butt of it comes off and you can attach a stock, which transforms it into more of a rifle.
Which is a nice addition. The weapon can double duty. It also has side pegs to attach to his leg for the holstered look.
It also comes with the baton. It has the ability to swivel out into battle mode.
Excuse the messy paint, I threw that on during the video review and didn’t get a chance to clean it up.
But for the drawback of these two accessories, it’s not the sculpt or the function because those both are great. No, it’s the fact that both are supposed to be white, at least the majority of them. I understand that they are accessories, so they don’t warrant so many small pieces in the correct colors. I also understand that this is a model kit, so painting is expected. But molding both in white would have been a better option because painting the black would have been easier and quicker. Again, just an odd choice.
But the shield? The shield is awesome. It has the same tinted translucent material so the trooper can see through it.
I absolutely love that.
But when you get the figure into action poses, most of my gripes go away. The proportions are hidden. It still makes me want a longer neck, though, since the head is a little hindered because of it.
You can check out the full articulation breakdown and me rambling during the build in my video review:
Comparing to the Black Series, it’s a toss up. I dig the model, but I wouldn’t kick the Black Series out of bed either. I look at it as two different sized guys in armor. They complement each other and look like individuals on the shelf. Plus, at this point, the Hasbro offering is easier to get, so for army building, mixing isn’t a bad thing at all.
The shield, though. The model is so much straighter and flatter than the Target exclusive one, it isn’t even a contest. Plus, triangle window.
All in all, even though I griped for half of this review, I do like the figure and it will find a home on the shelf. I guess I wanted to point out the faults, or at least what I see as faults, because I’ve had far less gripes with past kits. I know some pitfalls could have been avoided. And I guess that’s why it bugs me. But yeah, I won’t army-build this one like I seem to be doing with the original trilogy Stormtrooper model, but this one will fall in rank with Phasma and hold off those pesky Resistance fighters, and look pretty good doing it.
