Star Wars fever may have died off – but that doesn’t mean that the toys have completely fallen off the shelves of toy stores. Hasbro’s line of talking figures weren’t the biggest sellers when they were released but die-hard fans gobbled them up by the dozen. Sadly, most of those fans are now seeing the toys they paid big money for on the clearance tables of stores as well as several online vendors. Take advantage of these special prices while they last!

One of the more popular figures from the Star Wars line is R2-D2. Upon first glance it looks like a wonderful figure, detailed and containing several moveable parts. Looking at it out of the package is a different story. R2-D2 has three ‘legs’, of which only two are moveable. The center leg only moves up and down which really limits the positions you can have him in. The two outer legs move as well as the ‘feet’ – but this doesn’t really solve the dilemma of positions.


What Does R2-D2 Do?

Of all the characters from the Star Wars series, R2 has to be my favorite. His endless series of bleeps, bloops and whistles fascinated me as a child. This figure however is cheap and extremely clumsy. The top part of the head turns one click – if the legs are completely straight down that is. This reveals the (insert captivating music here) secret booster rockets. Pish posh; when you push up on the center “leg” of R2 it releases the rockets from his inner chamber – a great concept but to move his legs anywhere you have to push the rockets back into the body. After the first few times I played with it one of the rockets in the back became stuck and I had to force it back in by hand.

OK, R2-D2 does talk – with the help of the Comm Tech Chip reader that is. R2-D2 doesn’t have any set words but does emit a series of bleeps, whistles and screeches. Most of which can be extremely annoying to adults but extremely entertaining to kids. As with all the Comm Tech chips it has a nice photo with a holographic background. The package claims to have seven unique sounds but I only heard five.

My biggest complaint is the fact that it just isn’t the right size – it stand over two and a half inches tall and when places side by side with C-PO they are almost the same size. Sorry, but in all the scenes in all of the movies, C-3PO has always been at least twice as tall as R2. In my opinion this is really a bad design flaw – how can you have all the figures lined up and have such an obvious mistake. Perhaps the designers felt that if R2-D2 was at a proper scale it would be too small to operate or it wouldn’t reflect the detail. Regardless, it is something that bothers me.

R2-D2 can be found in the Collection 2 series – others in the series include Destroyer Droid, Ric Olie, Nute Gunray, Watto and C-3PO. The packaging claims that the R2-D2 chip will interact with Jar Jar Binks, Padme, Anakin, C-3PO and Jedi but I have only found that R2 can converse with Jar Jar and Anakin and on occasion Watto.

Even with the obvious flaws this figure is a personal favorite. I have several still sealed in the package as collector pieces and a few for my boys when they get older. One thing that sets this apart from other figures in the Collection 1 and 2 series is that it is large enough to really enjoy playing with. It doesn’t fall over like Anakin or C-3PO due to a top-heavy design and small feet. It has stood up to hours of play with the boys and hasn’t lost any of it’s color or luster.

If you are looking for an inexpensive set of toys that you can save as a collection – then this might just be something to look for. Take advantage of the clearance prices at stores and online – I found these for a whopping .97 cents apiece online. How can you pass up a deal like that?

As always, thanks for the visit!

^V^ Freak ^V^

© 2003 Freak369


Other CommTech product reviews...

Watto CommTech Figure
C-3PO CommTech Figure
Queen Amadala [Naboo] CommTech Figure
CommTech Reader
Anakin Skywalker CommTech Figure
Obi Wan Kenobi CommTech Figure




Recommended: Yes