The Patriots are getting taken to the woodshed right now by the Chiefs on national TV so I’m in a bad mood.  I hate everyone and I hate this lousy stupid figure and I hate Star Wars.  On the other hand, this figure isn’t bad for its age and I really like Star Wars.  In the first 23 years of the Star Wars action figure line, we were treated to two types of astromech droids namely the R2 and the R5 series.  R4-M9 was seen only briefly on screen with R2-Q2 leading the procession of captives on Tantive IV in A New Hope.  Despite that momentary screen time, fans were excited to have the first ever R4 droid in the history of the line. 

This first thing to note about this figure is that it’s too tall.  It uses what fans would negatively refer to as the “tall” astromech body and is a bit of a throwback to the POTF2 era particularly with the light up eye port.  Even though these Throwback Reviews are written as of the date of the review and not the date of release, I only like to photograph the figures with contemporaneous releases to avoid confusion. If I did photograph this astromech with the Vintage Collection Rebel Fleet Trooper, you would see that it comes up to the latter’s chest when standing upright.  Even with the third leg extended and the figure leaning backward, R4-M9 still comes up to the RFT’s elbow. 

The sizing issue aside, asrtomech figures aren’t really differentiated by articulation since the design simply does not lend itself to multiple points of articulation.  We can expect the feet to swivel, the dome to rotate, the third leg to retract and the primary legs to swivel.  Check in all areas.  The paint details are nice, but there is a little imprecision on the silver on green on the legs.  The figure is perhaps a bit too clean even for a droid serving on board a starship.  Among other things, astromechs were mechanics after all.  A slight grimy wash would have helped.  There is one area that atromech figures do differentiate themselves for me.  Where as regular figures get differentiated by the types and amount of articulation, astromechs are differentiated by details in the sculpt.  One area that always catch my attention is the sculpt of the wires connecting the feet to the legs.  The wires are sculpted as part of the feet in two straight lines on older figures and resemble nothing like a cluster of wires.  Staring with the 2004’s VOTC R2-D2, these wires were a separately sculpted floating piece which adds a lot more depth and realism.  Unfortunately this figure predates that advent and has the wires sculpted as part of the feet.

I don’t think I need to go into great detail on the mouse droid.  It’s essentially a glorified Monopoly piece as it’s a somewhat inelegantly cast solid piece of plastic.  A smaller and all around better version is packed with the Vintage Collection Grand Moff Tarkin.  I don’t feel this figure can be ignored as it does serve its purpose, but it could be a lot better if done today.  5 out of 10.