...is an ARF Trooper. He is super-rad. I will now tell you why:
These are the standard Clone Trooper action figures from the animated Clone Wars series. Every figure in this series of action figures is stylized to match the look of the CGI cartoon. They are AWESOME. I don't really care too much for the rest of the figures in the series mainly because I'm not fond of the cartoon designs, but the Clone Troopers are so darn close to looking like the actual Clones from the movies that they work for me quite nicely. That, and these are some excellent figures in almost every category.
These guys are articulated out the wazoo. Ball-joints are present at almost every articulation point. They are super expressive and can hold their weapons and look pretty much like real people holding weapons.
There's just one thing that they can't do:
The Splits.
All these super awesome ball-joints everywhere and no ball-jointed hips. These guys can't even sit down worth a darn. The first Star Wars figures came out in 1977. It has been over 30 years, and we're still dealing with action figures with simple cut-articulated hips. GI Joe figured this little hitch out from day one. Hasbro's long-standing defense of this practice was always "Giving these characters ball-jointed hips would damage the aesthetic of the character design." Yeah. Right.
Hasbro just made up for a LOT of sins with the ARF Trooper.
Do I know what an ARF Trooper is? Not really. From the packaging it says that these guys ride some kind of two-legged un armored scout vehicle. Who gives a crap... all I know is...
These guys have all the articulation and design qualities that I value in the standard Clone Troopers and...
BALL-JOINTED HIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did you ever have a 3.75 inch tall Stormtrooper that could do that? Me neither!!! HEEEEYAH!
He stands much, much more naturally than the regular troopers and you can pose him in some pretty darn awesome stances:
I'm not the biggest fan of the helmet on this monkey, but thankfully...
The heads are interchangeable!
So... if you like Stormtroopers/Clonetroopers, smaller scaled figures, and awesome articulation... go grab an ARF Trooper while they are still on the shelves.
It costs too darn much to buy a 3.75 inch figure these days, but you can't really do anything about that-- the price will never be going down again now that they know dorks like us will buy them for that much. However, this is one of those rare cases where I bought something at retail price and didn't feel a bit let-down.
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