Star Wars The Black Series Luke Skywalker – Imperial Light Cruiser figure review

For a lot of Star Wars fans, the finale of The Mandalorian’s second season will be forever burned in our brains. It was the unexpected cameos of all cameos with the heroic return of Luke Skywalker saving the say and rescuing Din Djarin, Grogu and friends.

And we got to see Luke go full on Jedi Master against a slew of opponents where just one almost gave Din Djarin more trouble than he could handle.

 

While Hasbro’s already announced more Jedi Luke figures, this one holds a special place in my collector/Star Wars heart and was a no-brainer immediate Day 1 pre-order for me. And sure it might eventually go on sale later, but I don’t care. This is a figure worth paying at full price.

Let’s see if this figure capturing that truly iconic moment enters into the Figure of the Year discussion.

Packaging: Hasbro did give this closed window a go with these portrait style images on the front. It’s not nearly the same as actually being able to see the figure, but it’s not awful either.

The side mural image is terrific with the largely hooded Luke with his saber lit ready for action. He’s No. 30 of The Mandalorian figures for those keeping track.

Luke’s bio is pretty simple as Hasbro’s writers figured they didn’t need to spend time explaining Luke’s backstory so much as connect it to The Mandalorian. I suppose I get it in this case.

My figure shipped directly from Hasbro Pulse, but the box looked like it went through a package war with way too many creases and crushed edges. Not ideal especially when it’s coming from the manufacturer.

Likeness: Hasbro continues to work on the Luke Skywalker likeness.

They’d pretty much perfected it with the Empire Strikes Back Hoth Snow Speeder figure. The Endor version looked pretty good with the Endor attire on, but suffered without it.

This Luke is so, so close to being a dead-on likeness to Mark Hamill by way of de-aging CGI technology. The big issue here is the nose is too broad.

They’ve got the shape down, but it’s narrower than what we get on the figure. His jawline and mouth areas look solid and his hair looks good as well. The upcoming Return of the Jedi final duel Luke seems to have fixed the nose issue.

From the glimpses of the outfit we saw aboard the light speeder, Luke was wearing his ROTJ debut look with the black vest.

The figure captures that look so you’ve got a solid stand-in for the Palace scene with a non-gloved hand.

Oddly Luke has a right hand trigger finger. It makes gripping the lightsaber harder than needed, but it does help in some Force gesturing poses.

Paint: Luke is rocking all black, but Hasbro did distinguish some aspects of it with a flatter black for his tunic, glove and boots while his shirt and pants have a slightly glossier black.

 

The SH Figuarts figure went a little heavy on the gold paint for the hair, but a very minor golden wash around the top of his hair would have been a nice touch.

I love the sheen of the silver belt buckle as that was my first clue this wasn’t random Jedi in black, but actually LUKE SKYWALKER in the battle against the Dark Troopers.

Scale: Luke didn’t directly interact with anyone so it’s tricky to gauge how his scale should be compared to Din Djarin, but it’s safe to assume he’s shorter than the Dark Troopers and is taller than R2-D2.

Articulation: Luke has two purposes in this look — demolishing Dark Troopers and holding Grogu to teach him the ways of The Force.

The cloth cloak is great for the aesthetic view, but it does make posing somewhat tricky to preserve it’s flow while he’s battling the Dark Troopers.

The butterfly shoulders are invaluable for getting decent looking overhead lightsaber strikes.

It would have been nice to have a closed fist to simulate Luke crushing Dark Troopers with The Force.

All told, the articulation for this figure is really great. Luke has a neck joint that allows for greater poseability. He’s got a rocker torso with upper and lower points so Luke has incredible range.

Luke can also hit deep stances thanks to his very solid base as well. He shouldn’t be a constantly toppling figure by any means.

Imperial Light Cruiser Luke Skywalker has:

• neck
• ball-jointed shoulders
• butterfly shoulders
• elbow
• wrist
• wrist hinge
• torso
• hips
• thighs
• knees
• ankles

Accessories:  Luke wasn’t on the episode long enough to warrant a slew of accessories, but he does have his essential elements.

Primarily his cloth Jedi cloak with raised hood to preserve his identity until the big reveal.

The hood hands naturally over Luke’s head doing a decent job of replicating the obscured view from the episode. It takes a little fiddling but the hood actually will cooperate to hang over Luke’s eyes and most of his mouth.

He also has his signature green lightsaber with removable hilt. The green is a nice striking shade that catches the light well. This is an improvement over the Endor Luke, whose blade was far more faint.

Worth it?  The Black Series has surged to $24.99 without doing much different from when the figures were $19.99.

For Luke, the price is not a huge deal, but that is definitely not a winning price point long-term for the line especially considering so many figures end up on clearance or massive discount prices.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Admittedly there might be some bias here, but this is a terrific figure with outstanding articulation to capture one of the Top 5 moments in Star Wars history.

Where to get it? This Luke hasn’t hit stores yet but you can get him from Amazon and Entertainment Earth.