Original Review by Chris 11/2/14

Toward the close of the second season of the excellent Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars micro-series, Anakin Skywalker undertook a solo mission on the planet Nelvaan which served as a proxy for his Jedi trials.  This was the B plot to General Grievous’ siege of Coruscant in an attempt to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine which is the exact type of thing we wanted to see IN THE MOVIES.  But who has time for an epic action packed battle when there is so much stilted romance that needs exposition? In the course of his trials, Anakin suffers a hallucination during which cave paintings come to life tell the story of Anakin Skywalker’s downfall.  Without a spec of dialog, this scene tells that story more gracefully and succinctly than the entire Prequel Trilogy.  It’s also infinitely more emotional.  If you are like me and have a healthy detest of the PT, don’t let that prejudice you against the Clone Wars micro-series.  It’s fairly outstanding.

Prior to the trials, Anakin is stripped to the waist and a Nelvaan shaman tosses a handful of leech-like creature onto his exposed torso which Obi-Wan explains is part of the tradition.  These leeches trace a blue circuit board-like pattern onto Anakin’s flesh and that is the inspiration for this figure.  In that episode, Anakin is wearing customary Jedi attire which includes brown pants.  For some reason, Hasbro through this would translate to mustard yellow trousers when converting this character from an animated style to a realistic style.  Hasbro’s stylized animated figures for this character feature brown pants, so I’m really at a loss for an explanation for this decision.  Between the shirtlessness, the tattoos and the yellow pants, Anakin looks more WWE wrestler than Jedi.  This was a disappointing decision by Hasbro.  I have to wonder if there is a comic book reference that I’m not aware of that supports this design aesthetic. 

Even without this questionable design choice the figure still has a few issues.  The first is my usual whine.  The figure lacks ankle articulation.  The figure has okay natural balance, so while ankle articulation would have dramatically improved the posing options for the figure, you can still effort out a few poses with the knees engaged.  What I feel is a bigger articulation omission for a lightsaber wielding character is the lack of a wrist joint on the left arm.  This hinders the two-handed saber poses because all of those poses are a slave to the sculpted angle of the left hand.  This figure was part of the legendary 30th Anniversary Collection Expanded Universe wave, but is the only figure from that wave that never popped.  Whether it is because of the deficiencies described above, a general Anakin fatigue everyone outside of Hasbro feels, or the fact that the figure was carried forward is the question.  It’s probably a combination of all three.  The end result is a figure that hovers between a six and seven, but I think the safe call is to round down and score this a 6 out of 10.

Updated Review by Bret 9/28/19

Another figure that represents the amazing depth of the 3.75” line, the Genndy sourced figures are among my favorites of all time.  But despite the cool idea to make this version of Anakin, the terrible articulation cannot save it from earning a subpar score of 6.  It’s notable for the source material, the switch-out mechanical hand, and the tattoos. It also is a member of the exclusive shirtless club.  But it really should have had better articulation for a Jedi figure.  Also, sadly, this figure lacks a display partner.  You could use battle droids, or substitute Wat Tambor for others of his species, but it would have been awesome if Hasbro had made a Nelvaan Warrior (pre- and post- experiment).  It’s not a great action figure, but I’m glad it exists.