Reviewing Fanhome’s ‘Darth Vader’ 1:2 Scale Build-Up Subscription Stages 70-74

The latest shipment in my Fanhome Darth Vader 1:2 Scale Build-Up Subscription* has arrived. With 120 stages in this build, I am past the halfway mark. I have two arms, complete with two sets of hands, a helmet, shoulder armor, a lightsaber, and three quarters of a leg.

When this month’s stages are complete, I’ll have that left leg completed and will have started on the right leg. This is a melancholy period in the build because it’s really easy to imagine how this half-sized Sith Lord is going to look when completed, but there’s still at least ten months to go before that vision is realized. 

Build Stage 70

This stage’s magazine has two articles that both feature women of color. The first is a space witch named Mother Aniseya, who was very kind and good to children and her people, but was a menace to pretty much anyone else. The other is Sana Starros, whose time and energy were generally spent hunting Han Solo and Dr. Aphra before eventually helping the rebel cause against the Empire. 

The build stage involves completing Lord Vader’s right calf, attaching his knee cap, and a hinge bracket for the right boot. 

Build Stage 71

Stage 71’s articles are both about animated characters. The first is on Fifth Brother, a humanoid male Inquisitor of the Galactic Empire several years before the Battle of Yavin. On the orders of the Emperor, the Fifth Brother was dispatched by Vader to hunt the growing rebellion against the Empire. The second piece is on Kragan Gorr and his space pirate gang The Warbirds.

This build stage is the first on Vader’s left leg, starting with the knee. It’s identical to the assembly of the right leg, with half the knee base, one friction disc, and a mobile knee bar.

Build Stage 72

Darth Maul’s brother Savage Opress gets a second look in this stage’s booklet. The second article is on a gold plated Storm Trooper named Commander Pyre. I was never a fan of the way they treated Captain Phasma. They gave her that silver-plated (Adamantium-plated? Beskar-plated?) armor and got an actual Amazon (Gwendolyn Christie) to play her, and then we never saw her past Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Now, here’s a gold-plated Storm Trooper with a goddamned LASER AX, and I’ve never heard of him. 

Stormtroopers have always been cogs in the machine. They were throwaway generic soldiers that could be shot, mangled, thrown, and exploded with impunity because there are millions just like them. When Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones established that stormtroopers are, in fact, literal clones, it further cemented the uniform look of the footsoldiers of the Empire. If you’re going to break from that clone-level uniformity with something as obvious as electroplating the entire uniform, please do something with the character. Cheers. 

This build stage completes the left knee joint with the other half of the knee base, another friction disc, and the other mobile knee bar.

Build Stage 73

This stage’s articles are on the Eighth Brother and Major Vonreg. 

The build stage involves attaching a support base to the knee joint we completed in the previous stage and securing the left rear thigh.

Build Stage 74

Stage 74’s magazine has a piece on more space witches; The Great Mothers. These three Dathomirian Nightsisters, Klothow, Aktropaw, and Lakesis, aligned themselves with Grand Admiral Thrawn. They claimed to be able to read the threads of fate and destiny. If this sounds familiar, it should. This is about as direct a lift of the Greek Fates (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) as you can get. 

The build stage in this issue is for half of the left hip support base, one mobile bar, and one friction disc for the left thigh. I am going to hold off on assembling this stage until the next box arrives, as it only completes half of the part and there’s no way to attach it to the left thigh until the subsequent stages arrive. It’s easier to keep track of if it’s still in the package.

And that’s the bottom of this month’s box. Like I said, it’s really cool to see some of the completed parts to get perspective on how large this thing will actually be. Fanhome spent a lot of time engineering these elbows, wrists, shoulders, knees, and hips to make it as poseable as possible without sacrificing structural integrity. Between the removeable mask and helmet, the poseable hands, the lightsaber hands, and all the other moving parts, there really aren’t many poses that won’t be achievable on the finished model.

*Fanhome provides this subscription to me free of charge for the purposes of review.