Monday, March 31, 2014

What The Line Was Building To: The TC-70 Build-A-Droid Star Wars Action Figure!


The Good: Great coloring detail, Wonderful articulation, Good balance
The Bad: Not unique, Costly for the concept
The Basics: The Amazon.com Exclusive Legacy Collection Build-A-Droid TC-70 is an unnecessary oddity whose value only comes from getting an additional figure out of an unremarkable action figure line.


Last Black Friday, I found myself unnaturally excited by Amazon.com. One of their few toy-related deals for Black Friday was the complete set of exclusive Legacy Collection Build-A-Droid action figures that the website had commissioned from Hasbro. After a few duds and erratic Star Wars toy lines, I was psyched to see the return of the Build-A-Droid concept – especially as Hasbro was busy disappointing me with the lack of original figures in The Black Collection. So, having gone through the six figures that were exclusive to the Amazon.com set, I now find myself contemplating the seventh figure one gets in the case . . .

. . . and discovering that, unlike most Build-A-Droid figures, it is not original or unique! The figure is TC-70 and there is another TC-70 figure in a boxed set released years ago under the Legacy Collection branding!

The 4" TC-70 is a super-articulated figure from the 2013 Amazon.com Exclusive Legacy Collection and it is fairly unremarkable. After all, TC-70 was seen for about five frames of Return Of The Jedi (reviewed here!) as Jabba’s droid minions drew and quartered him.

Basics

TC-70 stands 3 3/4" tall to the top of its head. TC-70 is sculpted using one of the latest bodies for a standard Star Wars protocol droid and colored a copper color. That makes TC-70 a humanoid robot, virtually identical to C-3PO, save in coloring. The distinctive aspect of TC-70 is a painted triangle on the character’s forehead, which looks almost like a tribal tattoo. That is represented well on this action figure.

TC-70 is colored with amazing attention to detail. This metallic copper droid was made to look like a clean version of the little-seen protocol droid and details like the neck servos molded in perfectly! The figure is colored accurately with a lighter steel-colored leg panel, much like C-3PO has panels that have been replaced. The coloring details are accurate right down to different colored wires in the abdomen section of the droid, below the familiar circle on the protocol droid’s breastpiece.

Accessories

TC-70 is a mass-produced droid and, like most protocol droids, comes without any accessories. After all, what use does a translator for Jabba The Hutt have with any sort of tool? They are the tool!

Playability

The four inch toy line was designed for play and TC-70 is exceptional in that regard. First, the figure has decent balance. Flatfooted, TC-70 is entirely solid, and because of the lower half articulation of the figure, it has decent posing options. Some extreme poses may be done without using the holes in its feet! Even so, the holes in the bottom of its feet allow it to stand tall on any number of playsets in outlandish poses.

TC-70 holds up extraordinarily well in the articulation department, which is a surprise for a droid figure. This droid has hinged ball-and-socket joints at the ankles, knees and elbows, as well as a ball and socket joint which allows a great range of motion for the bust. The shoulders, groin socket, neck and wrists all have simple swivel joints that provide the figure with more than enough posing options to make the figure worthwhile! This is incredibly poseable – more than most C-3PO figures! - and that makes it very worthwhile for play!

Collectibility

TC-70 is part of the Legacy Collection line that was released in 2013 exclusively through Amazon.com. Because the complete set is still sold by Amazon.com, fans have not had to deal with trying to scavenge the figure from buying the single figures culled from cases (which is bound to be a pain in the ass as the torso comes from the less-inspired FA-4 figure, reviewed here!). Combined with the fact that there has already been a TC-70 figure, it is entirely possible that this is a Build-A-Droid figure that will not appreciate significantly for quite some time, if ever. (Though, note to Amazon: I love that the entire set was sold together for one low price! Very easy!)

Overview

TC-70 is a somewhat pointless background droid that is hardly essential, though it is exceptionally well made. That is pretty much all that makes it worth assembling. It is by no means an indispensible Star Wars droid figure!

For other Build-A-Droid figures, please check out my reviews of:
HK-50
R4-D6
R4-J1

7/10

For other Star Wars toy reviews, please check out my Toy Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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