Quick Review – Hasbro ARC-170

The Republic ARC-170 from Hasbro is a big piece of plastic. A big, impressive piece. With a wingspan on par with the Imperial Shuttle from the same line, you’ll need to make some serious space in your collection to display this versatile fighter/bomber. Fortunately, it sits level, and looks good in a desktop display, but spectacularly recreates a movie scene when hung from the ceiling.

The ARC-170 comes packed with action features, should that be your thing, but alas, is not equipped with light or sound. A handle pops out of a hidden compartment, at the vehicle’s centre of gravity, and includes a trigger that open the bomb bay doors to drop munitions on the Separatist scum. S-foils can be adjusted into attack position, and the rear gun emplacement rotates in 2 axes. 2 separate cockpits accommodate 3 figures …should you manage to find 3 of the rare Temuera Morrison-as-ARC-pilot figures, and a droid socket will take any astromech figure on board (albeit a little loosely). The paint job is quite adequate… minimal weathering is involved, but a sheet of stickers adds to the detail. Curiously, the locations of a few of the stickers are not described in the instruction sheet.

This is, without a doubt, one of the coolest ‘Revenge of the Sith’ products from Hasbro to date. The large size means that its scale is fairly accurate and internally consistent. I no longer see this fighter as a half-hearted attempt to bridge the prequel spaceship designs and the X-wings of the original trilogy, but enjoy its aesthetics based on their own merits. Hopefully the future will see more of the unique Episode 3 vehicles such as this one.