LUKE SKYWALKER – JEDI EXILE
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (HASBRO)
Two years with no new trilogy Luke Skywalker figures, and now, in the span of three months, we’ve got two of them! We’re moving on up, homebiscuits! Oh yeah!
*ahem* Aaaaanyway, The Last Jedi presented a very different look at our esteemed hero Luke Skywalker, and his two distinct looks from the film sort of play into that. The first look, seen at the end of The Force Awakens, presents a Luke we’re all a bit more comfortable with. He’s sort of a merging of the classic Luke and old Ben from A New Hope. Older and wiser than when we last left him, but certainly continuing down the path he was set on at the end of Return of the Jedi. The Last Jedi opens and (almost literally) throws that aside. The wise teacher Luke we were presented with in TFA is mostly ceremonial, and he quickly changes his garb into something removed from his Jedi teaching, and more in line with the isolated, bitter, and morally compromised hermit he actually is. It’s utilitarian and practical, and perhaps not as distinct, but in it’s own way, it’s still true to the character.
THE FIGURE ITSELF
Luke Skywalker (Jedi Exile) is, like his sister, part of the second Orange assortment of Hasbro’s The Last Jedi line of figures. This figure stands about 3 3/4 inches tall (he’s a smidge shorter than the last Luke, which is a little odd, but it’s not a terribly noticeable difference) and he has 7 points of articulation. Yep, this is another figure that’s sporting the wrist movement. Those joints are showing up with enough frequency at this point that I’m a little bit surprised they aren’t just standard. It’s certainly nice to have them, though. Luke’s sculpt is all-new to this figure, and it’s decent enough, but not without its flaws. The articulation, particularly at the hips, isn’t very well integrated. I also don’t like the likeness so much on the new head sculpt; I think the last one is a better Hamill. Sadly, the size of the two neck pegs is different, so you’ll have to pad the socket on the old head if you want to do any sort of swap. On the plus side, the jacket’s pretty nice, and he has a nice selection pf textures to help keep him visually interesting. Luke’s paintwork is decent enough. Aside from a slight bit of slop on the beard, everything’s pretty clean. Unfortunately, the color scheme just isn’t all that dynamic, so he’s not the most thrilling Luke figure. This figure’s packed with a walking stick and a removable hood. The stick is very thin and a bit warped by the packaging, however, it’s a decent enough recreation of Luke’s prop from the film. The hood’s sort of bulky and goofy, but not terrible. I do wish there was a pulled down piece to swap out for it, though. Luke’s Force Link-compatible, and the lines I got out of him were “How did you find me?” “Reach out with your feelings,” “What do you know about the Force?” and “You shouldn’t be here,” along with an assortment of battle sounds.
THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION
Luke was a bit of an impulse buy. I was definitely getting Leia, but Target was doing 20% off all Star Wars toys, and I figured I’d take advantage of the sale. I like him better than I expected to, but I still don’t like him as much as the Jedi Master figure. But, if this is the look you prefer, I’m sure you’ll be happy with the figure, and I’m glad there’s more than a single Luke available.
FIRST ORDER STROMTROOPER BLASTER
One little word sure can make a big difference, especially when that word is “deluxe.” Yes, this is in fact a different blaster review from last week, it’s not a typo. So what does the First Order have to offer when “deluxe” is off the table? Well… not very much, as it happens, but let’s have a look at it anyway.
The First Order Stormtrooper Blaster was released in 2015, alongside the deluxe version as a promotion for The Force Awakens. If you’re not sure what part of the movie it’s from, you can be forgiven for missing it because it doesn’t get a lot of screen-time, but it’s there, I promise. Now, having just recently The Last Jedi, I can tell you it gets a couple scenes where characters using it are front and center on the screen, so that’s nice. The blaster itself is almost as basic as you can get. It is a single shot, muzzle loaded pistol with a little spring loaded priming tab in the back. While the tab does a good job of maintaining the blaster’s aesthetics even when primed, it does mean the actual size of the plunger tube is severely limited. You can really get a sense of this by how short and light the priming stroke is. The outer shell is completely new to resemble the blaster from the film and looks pretty accurate… until you actually hold it. In the film, the SE-44C blaster, which this is designed after, is built on a Glock 17 pistol. If you’ve been keeping up with my Star Wars Nerf reviews, you’ll know that in general the Nerf blasters have pretty good ergonomics as they’re modeled after props that used real world firearms. In the case of the FOSB, the shape is right, but the scale is waaaaayyy off. It feels tiny in the hand. As such, the normally quite comfortable grip of the Glock has been shrunk down so it no longer lines up with regular human sized hands. I understand the reasoning behind it, because otherwise there would be just an unnecessarily large body housing a small internal mechanism. Sure, they could have scaled up the plunger tube to get more air into the system but that… actually, that’s a good idea. Why didn’t they just do that? I guess it’s probably safe to assume that it all comes down to cost cutting measures, as is so often the case. But hey, at least it comes with a cool attachment piece, right? I mean, it does come with an attachment piece which clips onto the standard Nerf rail on the top of the blaster, but what even is the piece supposed to be? As far as I can tell it’s a sight(ish) but it sits in the dead center of the blaster and has no other sight to line up to, so it’s kinda useless. It’s actually really useless, but its on the blaster in the film, so there it is. The FOSB’s performance is about what you’d expect for a Stormtrooper’s backup blaster. Distance and power are lacking pretty heavily from that of a regular N-Strike Elite blaster, but you can usually hit your target if the muzzle is just about 5 or 6 inches away from it, so… yay? Stormtroopers are meant to be imposing and scary, but a couple shot from this blaster and I doubt you’ll be able to maintain that kind of fear-based dominance over your younger siblings when you bust into their room. The First Order Stormtrooper Blaster comes packaged with the useless sight/spike thingy and 3 of the red Star Wars branded Elite darts.
Look at this post. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so punctual. Ok ok, technically this week’s blaster isn’t from the “empire” so to speak, but the First Order is basically the Empire 2.0, so yeah. Also, I know there is a more recent First Order Stormtrooper Deluxe Blaster on the market now, but I couldn’t justify hefty price tag on that one just yet so we’re going with the older one. But that’s enough about that, on with the review!
The First Order Stormtrooper Deluxe Blaster (the first one) was released in 2015 as part of Nerf’s Star Wars tie-in products, at the time, corresponding with the release of The Force Awakens. Functionally, the blaster operates just like the N-Strike Elite Rampage, or Raider before it as it built on virtually the same internal mechanism using a pump-action magazine fed setup. This makes a lot of sense as a design choice since it probably saved the good people at Hasbro some time and therefore money working out how the blaster was going to work. Also, given that the Sterling Mk. IV SMG (the real steel firearm on which the F-11D Stormtrooper rifle is based) loads magazines from the side, I’d say the decision practically made itself. The blaster looks and feels pretty good. Leaving enough to clearly denoted it as a toy, the blaster resembles the prop from the film pretty closely. Being modeled after a real world firearm, the ergonomics are pretty good. The pistol grip is simple but does the job well. The pump grip could be a little more rounded for comfort in my opinion, but it’s understandable squaring it off to accommodate the proportions of the blaster body. As a fun side-note, most of the official promotional 
images for the blaster show it with the pump grip installed backwards. The FOSDB also comes with a scope and stock accessories that fit onto standard Nerf attachment rails and lugs, respectively. The scope is very low-profile and actually provides quite a nice sight picture for what that’s worth in a Nerf attachment. The stock is nice and solid, if a bit short on its own but the way the body of the blaster extends back past the grip means it’s at least a useable length when attached. At the very least, it fits with the overall compact size of the blaster. Without the stock, the blaster itself is really sized more like a large handgun than a rifle, something that it has over the Rampage. That and the fun primed indicator disguised as a vent that changes from black to red when the blaster is primed. Both of these little improvements make it that much more disappointing that the performance isn’t up to the same standard as Elite blasters. I’ve been over the reasons why this is the case, but it still bums me out sometimes, especially with blasters that should be awesome by all rights. Even if you’re not getting exactly the same range and power, at least you can throw out movie quotes as you bust into your younger sibling’s room and start blasting. Good luck hitting anything, though. It is a Stormtrooper rifle, after all. The FOSDB comes packaged with a scope, a stock, an all-white 12 round magazine, and 12 red Star Wars branded Elite darts with transparent red tips.
