Disney Exclusive Star Wars Jedi Training Academy Set

[JeffSaylor]

A perfect Padawan army builder...

---

For a great selection of film, comic and TV action figures and collectibles, check out BigBadToyStore.com, BriansToys.com, ToyWiz.com, PastGenerationToys.com, Urban-Collector.com, MonkeyDepot.com, HobbyLinkJapan.com, and Sekaido.com.

To insure your action figure collection, get in touch with our sponsor Collectibles Insurance.

---

The Star Wars Jedi Training Academy is a relatively new attraction held at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios theme parks where young Padawan learners get to try their hand at mastering a plastic lightsaber. Breaking continuity is having both Darth Vader and Darth Maul along with a garrison of Stormtroopers on hand for the experience while grownups and children alike eat it all up.

Never missing a chance to cash in, Disney and Lucas have partnered up with Hasbro to rehash a figure set exclusive to the theme parks on both coasts. Priced at $35 at Disneyland (either $40 or clearanced out in Florida), this set of five figures is 100% recycled, but you know what, that's okay. I'd never thought I'd be happy to troop build youngling,s but now that I have, I'm quite satisfied.

Released in 2009, this set may seem even MORE out of date nowadays but it's not terrible. You won't be finding any rehashed figures from pre-2002 days here at least. Darth Vader is a repack of the original Vintage Original Trilogy Collection, complete with cut elbow joints. Mine fall off upon contact.

The other miscellaneous Jedi figure is kitbashed from a previous Ep3 Jedi figure but with an all-new head. If you look anything like this guy, consider yourself lucky because you can brag to your friends that you got turned into an action figure. This unnamed Jedi can be anyone so it's fun to not have a named Jedi for once. He too has cut elbow joints which limits poses but there's at least a soft goods Jedi robe and a lightsaber with removable blade.

There's a taller Padawan learner here which is essentially the Mechanic Anakin Skywalker from Power of the Jedi days. A new head has been fashioned for this figure and with a soft goods robe, sets him apart from Anakin only a tad.

The other two smaller Padawan figures reuse the same body sculpts of Ashla and Jempa but feature more humanoid appearances. Each come with their own lightsaber.

For $35, it's hard to justify this set for five rehashed figures but if you're able to get at a discount, I'd recommend doing so. I didn't think I would like this set but I actually do. Darth Vader is a complete throwaway figure but everyone else has joined the ranks of my Star Wars collection.


Review and Photographs by David Yeh

---