 Everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here, and it's that time of the month again. It's time for another vintage Star Wars toy review. And this time we've got a little bit of synergy between this Star Wars review and what I've got going on with my GI Joe reviews. This month, July 2015, is Cobra Month for GI Joe. So since I'm looking at bad guys in GI Joe, this time I'm going to look at a bad guy in Star Wars. We are going to look at the backbone of the Imperial Army, the Stormtrooper. This is the Stormtrooper, he was the foot soldier of the Galactic Empire. This figure was first introduced in 1978 as part of the first wave of carded Star Wars action figures. Stormtroopers first appeared in the very first Star Wars movie, Star Wars Episode 4 A New Hope, in the very first scene in the attack on Princess Leia's ship. A Stormtrooper is a shock trooper, and it's associated with the Nazi Sturmabteilung, or SA. The Star Wars movies had other allusions to the Nazis as inspiration for the Empire. There is an equivalent of the Stormtrooper in GI Joe, the Cobra Soldier, who is also a foot soldier, and serves the role as the nameless, faceless enemy. Each of the original 3 Star Wars movies introduced a new type of Stormtrooper, with the Stormtrooper in Hoth Gear and the Speederbike Stormtrooper, but this original Stormtrooper appeared in all 3 movies of the original trilogy. For a significant part of the first Star Wars movie, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker disguised themselves as Stormtroopers in order to infiltrate the Death Star and rescue the princess. Look at the card back, and this is a Return of the Jedi movie logo card back. These Stormtroopers would have been released with cards that had all 3 of the Star Wars movie logos on them. For instance, there would have been a Stormtrooper with a Star Wars logo like this, like this R2-D2 card, and there would have been a Stormtrooper released with the Empire Strikes Back logo, like this Hoth Luke Skywalker here. This one is the Return of the Jedi. The artwork or the photograph on the card would have remained the same, and the action figure was the same, they just changed the movie logo on the front of the card. As you can see, it has the movie logo up here, the toy is for ages 4 and up. It has the character name here, Stormtrooper, and it has a photograph of Stormtroopers taken from the film, and this toy is produced by Kenner. Flipping the card around to the back, we can see this is a 77 back card, referring to the number of figures pictured in the cross-sell here, 77 of them, and they are listed here, which I think is kind of nice. Now, this is a generic card back. This same card back would have been printed on the back of all of the carded figures released at that same time. Down here we have an advertisement for some small play sets and creatures that you could purchase at the time. Unlike GI Joe, the Star Wars card backs did not feature individual character bios or anything like that. These were just generic card backs. This particular card back has had the proof of purchase clipped off the corner here. That's because you could send these proofs of purchase in to Kenner for some special mail away offers. Let's look at the figures accessory, and he came with only one accessory, this laser blaster, which has been dubbed the E-11 laser blaster. This is a pretty good looking accessory, but this is not an exact match to what we saw in the movie. It has this extra little rectangular bit here that looks a little bit like a magazine that would hold bullets, but of course this is a laser blaster so it wouldn't take bullets. It has what looks like a scope here, and this other piece that kind of sticks out here at the side. The authentic movie version of this weapon had what looked like a folding stock on it, but the sculpt on this toy weapon, it doesn't really look like that. I prefer this toy version of this blaster over the authentic movie version. I kind of like the extra magazine looking bit here. It makes it look like a submachine gun or a machine pistol. Retroblasting already noted that the stormtrooper holds his laser blaster with a slight downward angle. I don't really have anything to add to that other than to confirm that yes, the figure does tend to hold the blaster that way. Let's take a look at the articulation on the stormtrooper. The stormtrooper had four points of articulation, meaning he could move at the shoulders and at the hips. He could not move at the head. There was no point of articulation at the neck because of the sculpt of the helmet. Most Star Wars action figures like Han Solo here could swivel at the neck like that, but some of them because of the head sculpt like the stormtrooper here and Chewbacca did not have a swivel at the neck, so they only had four points of articulation. When Kenner varied the articulation on the figures, it was usually to give them less articulation, not more. Both arms could swivel at the shoulder all the way around. The legs could swivel at the hips. They could move up all the way like that. They could not move all the way back. They could move part of the way back, but the sculpting on the butt here kind of prevents the legs from swinging all the way back. That's pretty much it for articulation, so let's look at the sculpt design and color of the figure. As you can see, the figure is made entirely of white plastic with just a few black paint applications here and there, and that's pretty much how he appeared in the movie. On the head we have some black lenses over the eyes and just a little bit of black paint just here and there all the way around, and that is how he appeared in the movie. That's pretty movie accurate, perhaps a little bit more detail would have been in order, but this whole design is very minimalist, so for this type of design you really don't want to overdo it on the detail. The torso is also white, and this is white armor. In the movies, the Stormtroopers wore white armor over a black undersuit, and this armor would have had environmental and temperature controls, so these Stormtroopers could fight in hostile environments like a desert planet such as Tatooine. We've got some control buttons on the abdomen. We've got this kind of power pack thing here on the back, and he's got this utility belt that kind of goes all the way around, and we know this utility belt at least had a grapple hook in it because Luke Skywalker used that grapple hook in the movie when he was disguised as a Stormtrooper. The arms have more of that same armor with some black gloves, very simple, very minimalist, and the legs are also very simple and minimalist. This is a very uniform design for the entire figure. There is some different sculpting on the knees, and that does reflect how this armor looked in the movies, but this is a nice uniform design. It has a copyright stamp here on the left thigh. It looks like China 1977. On the bottom of the feet we have holes, and these would have been for foot pegs that were on some of the vehicles and play sets, so you could stand the figure up. So what can we say about this figure and the Stormtroopers this figure is supposed to represent? Well, first of all, this armor is not very effective protection against laser blasters. I mean, one hit and these guys would go down. Also, white is not a very good camouflage, as the Stormtroopers no doubt discovered during the Battle of Endor. Stormtroopers have a reputation for not being able to shoot straight. In the movies they had a hard time hitting their targets, and they were pretty well defeated by the rebels. There's a fan theory out there that I like though, that the Stormtroopers were only bad shots when they were intentionally trying to miss their target. For instance, in A New Hope, Vader intended to let the rebels escape, so the Stormtroopers would have been ordered to not shoot them. Also, in Empire Strikes Back, Vader wanted Luke alive, so the Stormtroopers conveniently missed him when they shot at him. Stormtroopers were much more effective when they were trying to win. For example, the assault on Hoth, when they overran the rebel base. Stormtroopers are great army builders, meaning you could buy a bunch of them and make a whole army out of them. A lot of Stormtroopers appeared in the movies. Hundreds of these guys sort of have been shooting at the rebels. But as a kid, I only had one Stormtrooper. This was mainly because my parents really weren't too keen about buying duplicates of figures that my brother and I already had. So I had to make do with one Stormtrooper and pretend like he was a whole army. So I didn't get to do any Stormtrooper army building as a kid, but there was one Star Wars action figure that I did army build, and that was the UG-naught. Why the UG-naught, you ask? Well, I'll tell you why. For Christmas or for birthdays, I would always get UG-naughts as gifts. And that's because my aunts or my grandma, when they wanted to get me a gift, at that age, they knew I liked Star Wars toys, but they didn't know which ones I already had. And instead of just asking because they wanted it to be a surprise, they would just go to the store and pick up the first one they saw, and it was always the UG-naught. Never a Stormtrooper, even though I really could've used more Stormtroopers, it was always the UG-naught. What am I gonna do with a lunch pail full of UG-naughts? In fact, I'm going to put that question to you, the audience. It's your 7th birthday party, and every present you open up is an UG-naught. What do you do with them? What exactly the hell? If you're thinking of picking up Star Wars action figures, the main things you need to look out for are paintware, for example. On this hand, there's some of the black paint worn off there. You can see the white plastic under it. And loose joints. And fortunately, the joints on this one are still nice and tight. That's very good. And then also, of course, missing accessories. Looking at the Stormtrooper overall, this is a really great figure. I mean, this figure is essential. Stormtroopers are iconic Star Wars characters. In fact, when you see a Stormtrooper, you can't mistake it for anything but Star Wars. It really just says Star Wars. These Stormtroopers are now deeply etched into the memory of pop culture. For that reason, even though it is very minimalist, very simple, only comes with one accessory, it's hard to say anything bad about it. Even though it has even less articulation than most Star Wars action figures, this one really is a nice one. It's just so striking. It stands out in a crowd with all the white plastic. This is just gorgeous. And it really captures the essence of the Stormtrooper as he appeared in the Star Wars movies. That was my review of the Star Wars Stormtrooper. I hope you liked it. If you did, don't forget to give me a thumbs up on YouTube and don't forget to subscribe. I'm doing Star Wars figure reviews every month and I've got a lot of G.I. Joe toy reviews coming up every week. Don't forget to like the Facebook page. You get a lot of updates there. You don't get anywhere else. I'll see you next time with another vintage Star Wars toy review. Oh no, guy, look out. He's going to get you. Look out, the vicious beast. Oh no, Chewbacca. Run, run!