If that belt had been included on this figure it would have been a fairly compelling release despite the base figure’s faults, and I may have been inspired to pick up a couple more.If you elected to battle this one out in the trenches, start out as a grunt soldier on the top level (5) and run east.

Why this bothers me is that Hasbro tooled a new Stomtrooper belt for the VC169 - Luke Skywalker (Stormtrooper) figure which includes a new holster that works like a champ with the new E-11 blaster. It’s like the time I had to cram my size 12 feet into a pair of size 9.5 boots to pass an inspection. With the new, slightly larger E-11 blaster, it works terribly. That holster was barely passable to work with the old smaller E-11 Stormtrooper blaster, and only in the sense that a “D-” is a passing grade. It’s still the same marginally functional holster from both VC41 and the VC143 - Han Solo (Stotmrooper) figures. One hugely disappointing aspect of this figure is the holster. Unfortunately, all of the other warts of the base sculpt remain, which can you can read in the VC41 review. This represents an improvement over VC41, thus an increased score to 8 out of 10. The helmet also has cleaner and more precise paint applications as compared to the original 5POA figure. Unlike that 5POA source figure, the neck post is a little shorter to avoid the giraffe-neck appearance. The neck peg is retooled to accept the 5POA Rogue One Stormtrooper helmet, which fans have universally cheered. This figure essentially takes the VC41 Stormtrooper, and ditches the removable helmet. This is the latest tiresome tweaking of 2004’s VOTC Stormtrooper. Despite its faults, which are admitted and obvious, you will hold your collection cheap without at least one of these. I feel like the execution of the set is a 5 out 10, but the ambition is an 11 out of 10. It has the the precise opacity needed to recreate the lighting effects from The Empire Strikes Back. This could form the cornerstone of a striking Cloud City display especially if you added some lighting to take advantage of the translucent orange plastic on the stairs and lower platform. TWO SETS CONNECTED ARE NEARLY AS LONG AS THE SAIL BARGE. Two sets connected are nearly as long as the Sail Barge. The above is a Hudsucker Proxy reference. It’s a prodigious environment piece, and the exact type of offering that makes the world building 3.75” scale so incredible. When this set is assembled and populated with figures, it’s magnificent. The product is still viable despite them. The difference here is that the engineering shortfalls are not as damning. This all reminds me of the recent Force Link experiment in that it needed just a tick more engineering and productization to be a really neat innovation. You can see this in images 16 and 26 above. This results in the platform tilting and one of the legs not touching the surface. Finally, the legs for the lower platform are shorter than the carbon freezing unit on which it rests. The end result has the platforms looking rickety. The round pegs leave room for a little play in the connection and so the legs have a tendency to protrude at slight angles as can bee seen in the photos above.

A hexagonal peg would seem to lock the legs in more securely. It’s a case of literally inserting a round peg into a hexagonal hole. The only parts that actually plug together are the legs and the upper and lower platforms, but again the connection isn’t very affirmative. Saying this set is modular is like saying my BMF and AT-TE are modular because I can stack them. The set has been described as “modular” because you can buy a second set to recreate the entire carbon freezing chamber (minus the claw and interconnecting walkways). One accidental bump or any attempt to move the playset will yield a result ranging from the pieces becoming misaligned to the entire thing collapsing like a house of cards. Hasbro owes a royalty to the estate of Sir Isaac Newton for this one. They don’t “click” or “snap” together, or anything like that. Essentially the only thing holding the four sections together is gravity. You have the upper platform, the stair case, the lower semi-circular platform, and the carbon freezing unit itself. The major frustration comes from the fact that the set is basically four distinct sections that don’t “connect” together in any meaningful way. I am thrilled to own this piece while simultaneously being highly frustrated with it. It is at once monumental and underwhelming. This is one of the most difficult items for me to grade in my entire tenure of grading Hasbro Star Wars toys. The Carbonite Block does not get its own review as it’s just a Carbonite Block. One for the carbon freeze chamber and one for the Stormtrooper.

I’m going to break this review into two sections.

Bespin carbon freezing chamber