Review : Princess Leia Organa, A New Hope
Star Wars Black Series (Hasbro)
Wave/Series : 40th Anniversary
Released : March 2017
Price : £24.99
In early 2017 Hasbro announced a series of 6" scale Black Series figures to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Star Wars, A New Hope. The intention was to replicate the original 12 Kenner figures by releasing the 6" versions on retro Kenner style cards.
The first wave was released March 2017 and was made up of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, R2-D2 and Obi-Wan Kenobi. All five figures were re-releases, although the Leia we are about to look at has been given a revised headsculpt after some long running criticisms of the original prototype sculpt and the subsequent Phase 3 release.
The new card backs are sized to accommodate the 6" figures, without being a direct upscale of the original 3.75" figures. They utilise the same character image as well as the Star Wars and Kenner logo's. The character name is set into a coloured box, with the same colouring used behind the figure.
A neat 40th Anniversary logo sits in the top left corner.
Round the back of the card is a checklist of the 12 figures that will be released. These are framed in various colours, each colour matching the scheme that will be used on their card. Under the 12 figures is an image of the Legacy pack, the stand that revisits the original Early Bird pack and gives collectors who aren't keeping these on card a display option for loose figures.
A subtle Black Series logo is atop the card and of course being 40 years after Kenner & Lucasfilm, we now find the Disney logo at the base of the card along with the present day safety notices and legal logo's
Out of the box and Leia stands a touch over 5" high. This means she is comparable to the original Slave Leia, but a good half a head shorter than the Boushh version. In 1/12 scale 5" would equate to 5ft - and Carrie's bio has her standing at 5ft 1 inch. That is good enough for me and well done to Hasbro for sticking with the scale on this release.
This figure has courted controversy since it was announced with the choice of going full soft goods for the clothing - the first time Hasbro has done this having used a mix of soft goods, rubberised plastic and hard plastic on other releases. There was also a lot of negative commentary about the original facial sculpt and paint when it went on display at Celebration London 2016. I was there, and saw the figure briefly before it was taken down - and this production version has certainly fixed a number of issues.
The head we eventually got on the Phase 3 release figure did improve on the prototype but was still not the best likeness to Carrie Fisher. The 40th Anniversary figure was seen as an opportunity to put this right. And boy, did they put it right! The new head captures Carrie's likeness really well and rather than rounded and harsh looking, the new head is elongated a little and now represents that "snooty" look that Leia carries through much of A New Hope.
While the sculpt is improved, the painting is standard fare for a human character. That means there is no depth or shading, even with the high cheekbones. There is a touch of blusher to either cheek and the lipstick is a bright red. The eyes are neat and painted brown with thinly lined eyebrows.
The hair, the iconic danish side buns, is replicated perfectly and up close you can see the lines and strands of the hair. This isn't brought out too well in the paint job with just a flat brown applied.
From this point down the outfit is soft goods. It is cut from a lightweight white cloth that is sheer against a light source and shows off the shape of the figure underneath. The torso section looks great, flowing down to a rubber silver and cream belt that draws the fabric in at the waist. From here it then flows down as a long flowing skirt. There isn't as much folding or creasing here so it doesn't look quite as good as it did further up. It does however hang very well on the figure and splays out at the ground with two splits about half an inch up on each side.
The soft goods for me fail at the arms and at the hood. Neither sit right out of the box. The sleeves look ballooned rather than hanging naturally to the position of the arms. The hood sticks out terribly not matter where you have it, as you can see on our images. The positive it adds being soft goods is that you can put it up over Leia's head, and this works a little better - although in the spirit of the movie, this hood wasn't worn in too many scenes. You kind of feel that this hood would have been better served as a rubberised piece like Maul and this would have then held in the soft goods at the neck.
The other visible parts of the figure are the arms which are slender and flesh toned, but with no real detail. There are then knee high white boots with a trim back sole. And above these the legs are sculpted and flesh detailed. You can remove the whole soft goods leaving you with Leia in a white one piece bathing suit of sorts. I guess this will give Hasbro a good base for a number of female figures such as Mon Mothma or even a number of the female Jedi's we saw in the prequels.
While the soft good robes are not to everyone's taste, the articulation they allow is brilliant. The head sits on a ball joint and rotates fully and looks up and down. The arms are jointed at the shoulders, elbows and wrists and can easily reach most positions and can also hold weapons with one or both hands.
You can twist the waist under the dress, and this allows the torso to rotate separately to the legs helping the firing poses in particular - like the one she adopts when blasting out of the detention centre.
The legs are really articulated with ball jointed hips, thigh swivels, double jointed knees and ankle rockers. With such a wide flowing skirt to the dress you can knee Leia, have her down on one knee or take u wider action stances. With a bit of work (my attempts weren't great) I also think you can bend her into the pose where she is loading the Death Star plans into R2-D2.
She is packed with two accessories, each representing a different scene in a New Hope. Her first is the long barreled elegant blaster she is using aboard the Tantive when its attacked by Vader. This fits into her right hand and even with such slender fingers, they do still slip into the trigger.
The other is the E11 blaster she takes from Luke to blast her way out of the detention centre. The cast is the same one used on the Original Trilogy Storm Troopers to date and that came packed with Luke & Han in their Storm Trooper Armour. It has been tweaked ever so slightly with a touch of silver paint to the side of the barrel. With such articulated arms it is easy to get Leia to hold this in two hands and this really defines the figure - a princess in a pure white dress, but toting a blaster rifle and looking determined. That just about sums up Leia and Carrie.
Getting a tweaked update of a figure is nothing new in the Black Series, nor indeed in figure collecting in general. However, the 40th Anniversary Leia tweak of that head does elevate the figure considerably to its predecessor.
The appeal of the 40th Anniversary figures is of course the packaging, and this lovely vintage representation of a 12-back will most likely be kept mint by most collectors. It also scores high on the nostalgia factor. We must dwell on the increased price, another 10% or so since the start of 2017, and that this is a re-release. That all being said, the head improvement alone takes this figure up a notch, and while the soft goods aren't to everyone's liking our Princess in her 40th Anniversary guise is easily worth a 4 out of 5 score.
