{"id":32517,"date":"2016-02-10T13:09:52","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T19:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=32517"},"modified":"2016-02-10T13:09:52","modified_gmt":"2016-02-10T19:09:52","slug":"star-wars-week-walgreens-exclusive-darth-vader-review-emperors-wrath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=32517","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars Week! Walgreen’s Exclusive Darth Vader Review (Emperor’s Wrath)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> “You already… have, Luke. You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister… you were right.”<\/strong> – Anakin Skywalker, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983). <\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s an ongoing joke here at IAT that theme weeks spell doom. Whenever I try to have a little fun, maybe do some extra reviews, or give myself a larger goal than just posting a few reviews \u2013 something bad happens. We saw it last week with Absorbing Man Week and the site crashing. <\/p>\n

This week, we\u2019re reviewing Star Wars Exclusives all week (to coincide with our Entertainment Earth Giveaway). My doubling down on two theme weeks in a row must\u2019ve angered the review gods. Both Sam & my wife got very sick on Sunday into Monday and then passed it on to me for yesterday. While I was waiting for the sweet release of death, or you know to just not have to live in the bathroom for the rest of my life, there really wasn\u2019t time to get a review in there. <\/p>\n

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I feel better this morning though and as I\u2019m washing all the clothes and bedsheets from the last few days, I snagged some pictures of the recent Walgreen\u2019s Exclusive Darth Vader. This figure, \u201cEmperor\u2019s Wrath\u201d Vader depicts our intrepid villain as he finds the light within himself and attacks the Emperor to save Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s very similar to the original release, with two noticeable differences: his head and his right hand. The original Vader was ostensibly a ROTJ Vader based on the smaller details, so it makes sense that most everything would be carried over. <\/p>\n

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His right hand is the simpler change of the two. It pops off now and some red & blue circuitry details have been painted at the joint to replicate what we saw in the film. It\u2019s a small detail, but I love the extra painted details there. It\u2019s still clearly a peg hole on an articulated joint, but I appreciate the effort to do more than just have it pop off and not think twice about how it looks. I do lament the loss of the ball-joint though. I think they could\u2019ve done both. <\/p>\n

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The head is entirely new and it\u2019s pretty amazing. The first thing is the sculpt itself. It\u2019s so much better than the basic release. The removable helmet feature was cool, but somewhere in the process, that helmet got a little mucked up. It looked wide and Vader ended up with big, doughy sad eyes. That\u2019s not really a thing you want on your dark lord action figures. This new head sculpt is difficult to really study since it\u2019s clear purple, but I imagine a few customizers will or already have painted up this head is a gloss black and I bet it looks spiffy. Continue to Page 2…<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The other thing that makes the head amazing is how carefully it was done. The outer helmet came off on mine \u2013 I assume that\u2019s a QC issue as it doesn\u2019t appear to have been supposed to do that, but I\u2019m glad it did because it really let me get a good look at the sculpt itself. The skull inside is fantastic. It\u2019s well detailed (though it may not have teeth) and it\u2019s sufficiently creepy. That skull is this weathered a bit and some blue lightning bolts are painted across it (wasn\u2019t expecting that). The skull is then encased in the clear purple shell that makes up the mask. It looks like the skull was just put directly into the mold when the helmet was poured. I love it. There are a ton of figures with skeleton aspects that I would have loved to seen done this way. <\/p>\n

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The rest of the figure is as top notch as the first release. The sculpt on the body is good. The soft goods are incorporated okay for the most part (I like the tunic part, but the way the cape connects seems off). The articulation is probably better than David Prowse could move in that costume. The classic lightsaber with removable blade is included. I keep wanting to make a link back to my original review for these little details, but I guess I didn\u2019t review Vader originally. I\u2019ll need to get to that. <\/p>\n

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I think my laundry is done, so I\u2019ll wrap up there. Overall, this is a great release. I\u2019m not sure that it\u2019s a really crucial figure everyone needs or even one that ends up displays forever since it\u2019s such a one-off, but Hasbro did their best to do the figure justice with the changes they made. I also have to give a shout out to Walgreens. I love having them be a player in the action figure world. This is the fourth release I\u2019ve bought from them and I\u2019ve loved all four. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s them coming up with variants or if they\u2019re selecting a list from Hasbro, but they\u2019ve clearly got an eye for it. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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