The Episode III Starfighter is one of the first designs to get the smaller "Class I" treatment, and right on cue, it goes to Anakin (geez, how many mechs does that guy HAVE in his garage, now?!). Anyways, as you'd expect from a Star Wars Transformer, the vehicle mode is very accurate in nearly all respects to how it is on the show and movie; proportionally the front end is a bit thick, but that's about it. Other than the mech head visible from the back end-- and only the top of it is easily visible, mind you-- there's no real mech mode extras in this mode, either. There is a landing gear-like peg that folds down from the mech chest on the bottom that, combined with two smaller non-retracting stubs nearer to the front of the figure, elevates the figure enough where you can fold out those side wings if you so desire. Detailing-wise, this toy has all the mold detailing you'd expect to make it quite accurate, and the paint detailing is quite well-done too, with enough yellow running throughout the vehicle to keep things from boring. (That said, it IS yellow, one of my least favorite colors, so I definitely would've liked most other colors in its place better, here.) The gray is a nice swirly gunmetal shade too, that makes it look metallic and (almost) painted, even though it's not. The amount of paint detailing on the R2 unit-- particularly since it requires colors used nowhere else on the figure-- it very impressive at such a small scale. The figure also comes with two lightsaber weapon accessories that, unfortunately, cannot store anywhere in this mode-- a rather signficant oversight, as I hate having to keep track of accessories that aren't storable in both modes.
    The mech mode is not completely unlike that on the earlier Class II version of this figure (though the cockpit does not become the chest), and as such it has a fair amount of kibble on it. Most of the sides of the vehicle mode simply hang off Anakin's back without begging in anywhere, and are large enough to be eyesores. The legs take up a bit more of the vehicle mode bulk and thus reduce the back kibble some, but the trade-off for this is that Anakin's legs look a bit too brick-like and thick from the sides. The hips also connect to the main body outwards from the hips instead of being integrated into them, which gives Anakin a rather wide-legged stance. Thankfully Anakin's arms aren't as tiny as they were on the Class II toy, but again, this comes with a rather annoying tradeoff-- the unfoldable wings hang off his lower arms, and there's no real way to make them look cool or "frame" the arms naturally somehow. On the plus side, Anakin's chest and head are detailed quite well, with a lot of different colors-- silver, bluish black, and dark dull red-- playing off each other fairly well while still keeping in with Star Wars' "main colors". I like how the feeling of his head is a bit more robotic than most recent attempts at SWTFs of him, looking like a generic "young robot" that could just have easily have had some sort of mechanical crest around his head if it wasn't colored like metallic hair. As for articulation, Anakin's is sadly a bit limited due to his transformation and all the vehicle mode parts-- he can move at the shoulders, side-to-side at the elbows, inward at the wrists, and at the hips, knees (at two points), and a bit at the ankles. It's not terrible, to be sure, but the arm movement is particularly annoying giving how they can only move side-to-side if you aren't talking about the ball-jointed shoulders. His head also doesn't move, which isn't a necessary restriction given the transformation.
    The Class I version of Episode III Anakin Skywalker has a decent enough vehicle mode, but his mech mode suffers from a bunch of kibble as well as some odd articulation and odd proportions. Combine that with the prevalent of yellow which I'm not that fond of, and this is easily my least favorite version of my least favorite mold from the Class I toys.

Review by Beastbot

Back to Star Wars Transformers Index