You already know Luke Skywalker by now, I'm sure. He's the son of Darth Vader, brother of Princess Leia, an ally of the Rebel Alliance, and the galaxy's greatest Jedi...until a certain mega-corporation messed it all up. That being said, I never owned a Luke Skywalker figure until now, simply because I dread collecting Star Wars toys after being so invested in Transformers and now Power Rangers, especially considering how frequently I buy from those lines than I do Star Wars, Marvel/DC, etc. And of course, much like Iron Man and Bumblebee, Luke Skywalker has been well-known for his different outfits from the Original Trilogy, with 4 in the A New Hope, 3 new ones in Empire Strikes Back, and 1 new outfit with setting-specific additions for Return of the Jedi. I should have gotten a ROTJ Luke because that was my favorite version of the character, though this one was more readily available at the time when I wanted to get free shipping with Premium Edition Ratchet. So here he is on my desk.
Here is Luke Skywalker in-hand, in his signature appearance from A New Hope. Of note with this figure is that he has cloth goods for his shirt, which may be a selling point for the toy, but it looks puffy on him and nowhere near as refined as the sculpted pants and boots. I'll give them credit in making the shirt look how it should, but it just looks more like something a doll would wear than a 6-inch action figure. One interesting aspect about the figure is that underneath the shirt is a bare chest and arms, which does allow this sculpt to be used for any shirtless characters Hasbro may want to make figures of. At least the belt and pants look appropriately sculpted and have some decent colors used for the plastic they're made from to look accurate to the movie.
Head sculpt looks pretty bad. Sure, it attempts to look closer to Mark Hamill in 1977 than the previous version did, but he doesn't quite nail it that well. Also, is it me or does one side of the face look misshapen than the other? At least the hair is decently painted as well as sculpted, and the yes and mouth look realistic, but otherwise, a bad likeness to Luke. I'm afraid Hasbro has yet to depict the perfect likeness to Mark Hamill in their figures. Anyways, articulation is par for the course with the Black Series but is missing key points. The head is on a ball joint on one part of the neck and can hinge up and down on the other, the shoulders can move front and back, in and out, though the shirt does inhibit the movement, the elbows bend at 90 degrees as well as swivel in lieu of a bicep swivel, and there is a diaphragm joint. The hips move front and back, in and out, swivel at the thighs, bend at two points of the knee, and the ankles hinge as well as pivot. He has no alternate hands you you're gonna make do with him holding his lightsaber. Yeah, on top of Hasbro still missing alternate hands for their figures, I'm not a fan of how we still don't have butterfly joints or double-jointed elbows on Black Series figures.
He does have another accessory, but it's the binoculars that he mainly used when looking for R2-D2 on Tattooine. He can't hold them properly so he instead has to hold the dial with one hand and balance it on the other. Like I said, I wish Hasbro can give us alternate hands for these guys. Oh and he can store his hilt on the belt and it turns out that the blades can come off, but I'm surprised that they could because I thought they were not able to this entire time! Either way I don't want to risk it because my Darth Vader's lightsaber tore off at the peg.
You can also store the binoculars on the belt if you so desire and it fills in the gap on his belt but also doesn't mess up any articulation. Overall, Black Series Luke Skywalker is kind of a mixed bag for me. I was generally happy with the other Black Series figures I got, but he just seems kind of like a reminder as to why I don't really want much to do with the line apart from an occasional purchase or two. Between the lack of articulation and limited accessories, as well as the way the likenesses can be inconsistent, I'm not too sure if I'd recommend this Luke Skywalker or not. Maybe a blaster or a training helmet would suffice, but he is the "vanilla" Luke of the Black Series line. I'd probably be happier with a ROTJ Luke.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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