'Set your course for the Hoth system'

The Imperial Fleet

Darth Talon Action Figure

This Darth Talon action figure came in a comic two-pack with Cade Skywalker (seen below). Great detail but poor articulation.

Darth Bane Action Figure

Yet another of my favourite villains form Star Wars, this is Darth Bane, the Sith who decided upon the 'Rule of Two'  approximately 1,000 years before the rule of Emporer Palpatine.

"Did I miss something?"

Only a very quick set of photos this weekend, just some fun shots of Anakin, Obi-wan and Palptine escaping down the elevator shaft in ROTS. If one or two look a bit odd, well that's what happened in the movie.

"Lord Vader... Can you hear me?"

Another set I picked up at Invasion Dublin this year, in front left you have an FX-6 medical droid, in the center is Darth Vader with removable helmet and chest panel complete with medical table, behind Vader is a 2-1B and on the right is a DD-13 (also known as a 'Chopper Droid', presumably to chop off the burnt stubs?)

All the figures seen in these top two images come in one pack (with the exception of the FX-6), I picked the pack up as I thought it was really cool concept and thought it'd make for a cool blog post. Some limitations however in that only two pieces of Vader are removable.

The helmet unfortunately is one piece, mask and helmet separately would have allowed for some better photos. The above photo really wasn't possible with the scale we work in (at least not for us) but I like the lighting so I've left it in.

More detail in the face of this figure would have been nice too, his skin is all one colour, some pattern to the burns/scars could've made a massive difference.

Properly cheating here in that the above is NOT THE ACTION FIGURE, instead its a happy meal toy where you open it up and it has a maze game inside. It's just a trinket I've kept but was the only way of getting this shot and look for more of these 'cheats' going forward as it'll allow us to do a wider ranger of shots.

The table itself is maybe the coolest part, it pivots from flat to standing and has a clip/switch at the bottom so when fully upright the wrist restraints pop open.

This Palptine I've used a few time before, it originally came in a battle pack with Yoda, two Clones and a senate pod.

I'm sure many fans didn't want to hear any more whining about Padme right after Anakin finally becomes Darth Vader in his full glory, but I think it's well delivered by James Earl Jones and ties the two iterations of the character together nicely.

Palpatine is fantastic all throughout Revenge of the Sith, again the delivery of the lines is great.

What we need now is a birth of the twins battle pack to go with this, come on Hasbro, I know I'd buy it.
(Also to note, this is a different Vader figure in the last photo, the one from the set doesn't have enough articulation for the pose.)

Darth Malgus Action Figure

Long time readers will know my favourite action figures are the ones based on video game characters. So when I first heard news last year of a Darth Malgus action figure my anticipation was high and this figure did not disappoint.

For a start its really solidly built, as you can see above, but it also manages to have decent articulation in the arms and legs.

Quite often with highly sought after figures like this I find Hasbro never really expected you to open it, a good example is the Darth Revan figure, looks great but doesn't stand up straight even with the help of a stand. The Darth Malgus however is great, really well balanced, I'm just hoping they bring out some more SWTOR action figures so I can play about taking some fighting photos with this.

While we're on the topic of The Old Republic I thought I'd drop in a little piece about my experiences with the game itself, normally I'd do a post on the game but I've nothing physical in my collection to photograph. I played as a Sith Warrior who I named 'Keteor' as seen above, after listening to the audiobook of Deceived I thought Darth Malgus was the coolest character in the TOR era so wanted to play as something similar.

I did really enjoy the game, especially the cut scenes and dialogue choices, however it's like any MMO, it's designed to keep you playing and working a 45 hour week I honestly didn't feel I could justify paying for it on a monthly basis when I wasn't getting a huge amount of time to play it. I do plan to go back to it at some stage soon as I'd like to finish the Sith Warrior story but I doubt I'd ever finish all eight storylines.

"Duel of the Fates" part IV

It's the last post in our "Duel of the Fates" series, Obi-wan Vs Maul. Don't forget you can check out all four parts along with all our TPM shots by clicking on 'Movie Scenes' at the top of any page.

We hope you've enjoy it the past few weeks and check back next week as we jump to another area of the saga!

"Duel of the Fates" part III

Welcome back for part 3 of our Duel of the Fates re-inactment. In an attempt to recreate the force field effect we've used one of our coloured gels we normally use for lighting.

It's not really the right colour so we've gone for a more striking approach with it but I think it gets the idea across fine for our puposes.

I've always loved this fight since seeing it on the big screen back in '99 (and last Feb in 3D of course). I tend to think of Obi-wan as the old hermit living out in the Dune Sea and its great seeing him in his prime during this fight.

Even in this sequence when he's not in the actual fight, he's arguably the most intense character on screen and it's through his perspective that we worry about Qui-Gon as he fights Maul alone. 

I still struggle to get my head round how Obi-wan doesn't make it through all the 'gates' in time and maybe someone can hep me. Maul and Qui-Gon fight their way down the corridor, Maul is able to make it all the way through and Qui-Gon makes it one gate from the end.

But when the gates open the second time, Obi-wan is right up on the first one and sprints all the way down the corridor but is to slow to and gets stuck at the last gate. How did Maul make it all the way through while fighting in one go and Obi-wan not while running? That's without considering we saw the Jedi use Force Speed down a hallway at the start of the movie.

Last week I said this week would be the last part in our series, however it turns we'll have to go one more to complete the fight. This week we haven't really attempted to convey the pit they fight around so nows it's our challenge for next week.

I was 13 when I first saw TPM and it was right about here that I released only Obi-wan was the only one in the fight who had to survive based on the OT, then immediately this happened...