Though not apparent by looking at the picture, this figure is deserving of its own information page. While I do not identify it as a variation figure, other than having the harder to find blue Luke Jedi lightsaber with it, there is one key difference between this figure and most of the released vintage Luke Jedi figures. This is one of the hard to find Luke Jedi figures which have a head which was molded out of flesh-tone color plastic with the hair painted on. So the face looks much more realistic and can never have paint wear, which very commonly is to be found on Luke Jedi figures on the nose, cheeks, and chin. When the flesh colored paint has a rub on it, the dark yellow colored plastic the head is molded from for the hair, shows through on the face and really detracts from what I believe most would agree is one of the best sculpted vintage Star Wars figures ever. This variant is unfortunately very hard to find, and hard to find in good condition. I managed to get this one from a collector friend in England. The only wear is to the left hand, a tiny speck of paint missing. The brown paint of the head is perfect, and having it with the hard to find authentic blue lightsaber makes it a really nice figure I think. From what I’ve been able to learn, this relatively obscure but nicely done improvement of a figure came out on Jedi cards only, with the blue saber, and with the green saber. So far, I have not heard of one coming with the snap cape, or on a Power Of The Force card with the coin, so that is why I put it with the blue saber and sewn cape. In addition to the head being made of flesh-tone plastic, the head is apparently a slightly better sculpt than the regular released Luke Jedi figure, so it is improved in that way too. As a side note, it appears that all of them were made in Taiwan and have that mold mark stamped on the back of the leg of all of them. At this point, no one had found any of them that were made in Hong Kong. So at some point at that factory, someone made a deliberate improvement switching from a head made of the hair colored plastic with the flesh-tone colored paint on the face, to a slightly better sculpted head made of flesh-tone colored plastic with the hair painted on. It’s just odd that all of them from that point forward weren’t like this one. Apparently, very few of them were made like this in fact, since it’s so hard to find, so that’s very odd, since it’s clearly a better version of the Luke Jedi figure.
When I was little and playing with the figures, the Luke Jedi figure was one of my most favorite, because his character was so important to the movies, and he was the first of the new Jedi order. Especially since with Obi-Wan and Yoda gone, he was the last Jedi. I’d always been fascinated with the Jedi and the subtle references in the Trilogy movies to the times when there were many Jedi, and what happened during the Clone Wars and to the Republic, so the Luke Jedi figure seemed to be a link to the past of Star Wars that wasn’t revealed until the three Prequel movies, especially in Revenge Of The Sith, showing the actual Jedi purge and the fall of the Republic, and Anakin’s descent to the Dark Side, becoming Vader. All of that ties into the Luke Skywalker as a Jedi character, and the figure, when I think about it. And my Luke Jedi figure, as with so many others, had some paint wear on it from many moths of play. So finding this improved version of the figure, with a more realistic looking face, and no paint that could be worn off of it, and a more real looking hair color too, was a really enjoyable thing for me. I’d definitely recommend that any collector try to track one of these down. It’s well worth it. It’s a really great looking figure.
