CLONE LIEUTENANT
STAR WAR: CLONE WARS (HASBRO)
“Through the creative vision of Lucasfilm Ltd. and the Cartoon Network, the Clone Wars are brought to life in an exciting new series of short animated chapters. A unique animation style captures the drama of this epic period in galactic history along with its outstanding heroes and adversaries. Noble Jedi warriors lead Clone Troopers into battle against the evil Separatist forces and their droid armies. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda and their comrades struggle against the rising power of the dark side and confront personal challenges against a backdrop of war-torn planets.”
Undoubtedly my favorite thing to come out of the Prequel Era of Star Wars is Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars, a 2D animated bridging of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. While the films rarely branched out beyond the core cast of characters, Clone Wars established a precedent, later followed by The Clone Wars, the 3D animated show, of placing focus on less fleshed out characters. While its time spent with the titular clones was still a lot less than the later show would feature, they’re still a notable presence, and they made up a sizable portion of Hasbro’s tie-in line from the time…albeit mostly through a lot of repaints, but it’s kind of what you expect, right? Okay, let’s take a look at a Clone Lieutenant.
THE FIGURE ITSELF
The Clone Lieutenant (who is only actually identified as “Clone Trooper” on the package, due to sharing all packaging elements with the Captain and the Commander) was released alongside the other two colored Clone variants as a late addition to the Star Wars: Clone Wars line in early 2005, before all the Revenge of the Sith product hit the shelves. He’s based on the Phase I trooper designs, as seen in the first two seasons of the show. The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 4 points of articulation. He’s rather standard for the line on the movement front, with movement at the neck, shoulders, and waist. They weren’t really built for poseability, but more as mini-maquettes of the show’s designs. The Clones did get a leg up on the rest of the line, though, since they all got ball-jointed necks. It doesn’t do a ton, but it gives him some subtle variety in his posing. He, as well as the Captain and the Commander, really just existed as way of putting the standard Clone Trooper mold back out there, so he’s just a complete re-use of that mold. Like the rest of the line, it does a really good job of taking Tartakovsky’s designs and making them work in three dimensions. He’s slightly pre-posed, but not in a crazy sort of way, which is ideal for a guy you’ll probably get a lot of. Just the one raised arm for the rifle is a good look, and he’s honestly pretty stable on his feet. The first use of the mold was all white, but the re-releases add the color markings for the different ranks. The Lieutenant is blue, which, let’s be honest, is the coolest of the color markings. Both literally and also in a figurative sense. The application here is a little bit fuzzy around some of the edges, but in general, it looks alright. The use of panel lining on the armor also does a lot to help the mold, as well as bringing it closed to animated stylings. The Lieutenant was packed with his blaster rifle and a display stand.
THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION
Back when these were new, the line was rather a hot commodity, so I only had a few pieces, and this guy wasn’t one of them. In more recent years, I’ve found more of them, and in the case of this guy, I bought a lot of the recolored clone troopers, mostly just for him. He wound up being the only one I actually got around to opening, and he’s been sitting mixed in with my 3D figures for a couple of years now. For as simple as these figures are, I always really enjoy messing with them when I get the chance, and the Clones are really the star pieces of the line.
