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Review |
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| Sculpt: |
| After Anakin Skywalker turns to the Dark Side of the Force and becomes Darth Vader, the Sith apprentice quickly acclimates himself to his role in the Galactic Empire. R4-K5 is the astromech droid Vader uses when flying his Sith Starfighter, a repainted Jedi Starfighter that Vader utilizes while awaiting completion of his personally designed new fighter. Like his Starfighter, the R4 unit has been painted in shades of charcoal gray, black, and silver, with red accents. Post-REVENGE OF THE SITH, the idea of Vader using a repainted Jedi Starfighter was used in the novel DARK LORD: THE RISE OF DARTH VADER (DelRey Books, November 2005). The droid uses the ROTS Sneak Preview R4-G9 mold, which is still a great figure two years after the fact. 8.5 out of 10. |
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| Paint: |
| Arfour's body and legs are molded in charcoal gray, with black, dark gunmetal gray, and silver paint applications. The cables on the two side legs are molded separately, in charcoal gray. The head is molded in brushed aluminum, with the same dark gray and black paint apps as the body and legs. The eye lightpipe is solid black, so no light appears in the eye piece. It's an appropriately "Sith" look: 9/10. |
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| Articulation: |
| Arfour has planer cuts at the dome and side legs, with swivels at all three legs. The dome turns to raise and lower the third leg, then clicks once the action is completed. The wheeled "feet" roll freely on my sample, but I've heard of ones that stick. Sadly, the "foot" on the third leg seems to have been assembled backwards on my sample, limiting the articulation because it can't swivel back far enough to allow smooth rolling motion. So far, all samples I've encountered have this problem, so I'm deducting a point: 8/10. |
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| Accessories: |
| Character-specific figure stand, which says REVENGE OF THE SITH even though this is an Expanded Universe character. Since the card does identify him as ROTS also, this can't be considered an error: 7/10. |
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| Packaging: |
| The same The Saga Collection card as the rest of the series, with a character-specific background image--in this case, the bridge of the new Imperial Star Destroyer seen at the end of ROTS. The insert image is a photo0manipulated image of R2-D2 in Arfour's colors, and has The Saga Collection logo to the right of the character image. The figure's name is just below TSC logo, with its collection number (R4-K5: Darth Vader's Astromech Droid is Saga #066) just to the right. To the left are the five white-orange triangles, indicating the position of the enclosed mini-figure. The cardback features a small image that--I kid you not--shows the R4-K5 plug from the Vader's Sith Starfighter toy nestled in its socket! There's text that explains Arfour's purpose, and there are two versions with typos: one refers to Vader as "Dark Vader," and the other has this corrected but then gets the last few words of the final sentence wrong: "The outer darkness of his fighter and droid mirrors the inner darkness of new the Sith Lord." There's also a diecut display area for the Exclusive Hologram Figure: 8.5/10. |
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| Availability: |
| As of this writing, the figure has been appearing at retail for over two months. Although it initially sold out quite quickly, it's showing up in greater quanities now; it is also available from most online sources: 7.5/10. |
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| Conclusion: |
| Customizers love getting new astromechs in a line, although this is pretty much just a "Sith" variation on good ol' Artoo. The leg raising and lowering function is a nice touch, but still doesn't do much to make these rolling trashcans terribly exciting for kids. Of course, it can also just stand in as a standard Imperial astromech in dioramas: 8.1/10. |
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