DEATH STAR with DARTH VADER

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

“Designed to invoke fear throughout the galaxy, the Death Star battle station is the largest, most powerful object in the galaxy. The size of a planet or small moon, the massive weapon took nearly two years of construction in the Horuz system located in the Outer Rim Territories.  A fully-equipped array of surface weapons including turbolaser batteries, laser cannons, ion cannons, and tractor beam emplacements served as deense to the centerpiece offensive weapon — a superlaser system more powerful than the entire Imperial fleet. Capable of disintegrating an entire planet with a single pulse, the superlaser was demonstrated on the planet Alderaan during an attempt to extract vital information from Princess Leia.

Commanded by Grand Moff Tarkin, who oversaw its construction, the Death Star is in effect a self-sustaining world. it houses a crew of approximately 800,000 enlisted soldiers and officers, nearly 400,000 support and maintenance personnel, over 25,000 stormtroopers, and an additional 400,000 droids of various sophistication to assist the support staff.  Also found on the Death Star are several of Darth Vader’s specialized meditation chambers. Exactly like the chamber first seen aboard the Super Star Destroyer Executor, these compartments function as pressurized spheres offering Vader an inner sanctum.”

Have I mentioned recently how Kenner was really just trying a little bit of everything with the Star Wars license in the mid-to-late ‘90s?  Because it’s gonna come up a lot as I get into the depths of what I haven’t reviewed from Power of the Force.  1998 was sort of the height of all the craziness, with lines all over the place, any one of which could have been the straw that ultimately broke the proverbial camel’s back.  In addition to the main line, the “Princess Leia Collection,” The Expanded Universe, and a CD-ROM Game-based playset, Kenner also got into the “Complete Galaxy,” an assortment of weird little contained globe kind of things based on locales from the movies.  I think they were meant to be like Micro Machines or Polly Pocket, but scaled up (which is funny, because there were officially branded Star Wars Micro Machines already).  Largely, they seemed to justify doing another figure with each set.  Today, I look at the Death Star and its occupant, Darth Vader.

THE TOY ITSELF

The Death Star with Darth Vader is one of four sets that make up the “Complete Galaxy” sub-line of Star Wars: Power of the Force.  They were part of the single 1998 assortment.  This set was unique in not being an actual planet-thing (I guess…Endor’s hard to classify), and also being the only one from A New Hope….technically.  Why technically?  Well, while the Death Star itself is very clearly its first movie design, when you open it up to view the “playset” inside, you get a version of Vader’s hyperbaric chamber, which makes its debut onboard the Executor in Empire.  I suppose there *could* have been one onboard the Death Star, but it’s certainly not something we see in the film.  Questionable accuracy aside, the interior is a neat enough set-up.  There’s a swiveling chair for Vader to sit in, and a console behind him, as well as an arm affixed to the top part, which can hold the top portion of his helmet for him.

The included Vader figure is a good indicator of the majority of this set’s figures, which is an overwhelmingly “different for the sake of different” figure.  He stands a little over 3 3/4 inches tall and  has 8 points of articulation.  His construction is fairly similar to (though notably different from) the Gunner Station figure, especially with his added knee articulation.  The details on this one are once again leaning into the Empire designs, with the robes running under the shoulder armor.  The biggest change-up is that his hands are turned to the side, so as to better rest on the sides of the chair.  His head is shared with the figure from the Board Game release, with its removable dome.  It’s all topped off with a cloth cape, which is better for letting him sit in his chair.  The color work is the basic Vader set-up for the most part, with the addition of the visible skin under the removable dome.  The application is generally pretty clean, and about what you’d expect for the line.  Apart from the removable dome, he’s got no other accessories, notably missing  his lightsaber, though I guess he couldn’t hold it anyway.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

These are one of those oddball parts of Power of the Force that I completely missed when the line was new.  I’ve seen them a few times since, but there’s not a lot of uniqueness going on there, so I skipped them a bunch of times, until I finally realized that I might need to get around to finally picking them up.  Vader was the first one that ran past me after I decided to finally get them.  It’s fine.  The globe thing is an odd gimmick, but I guess it’s fun enough.  The included figure is sort of middle of the pack, but I suppose it could be worse.

Shoutout to my friends at All Time Toys, from whom I purchased this figure for review!  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.