Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,039: R2 Unit (Red, 2023 Pride Collection)

R2 UNIT Disney Exclusive
Star Wars Droid Factory
Item No.: ???
Manufacturer: Disney
Number: n/a
Includes: Red R2 unit, orange R4 unit, yellow R5 unit, green R6 unit, blue R7 unit, violet R8 unit
Action Feature: Comes apart
Retail: $74.99
Availability: May 2023
Appearances: n/a

Bio: Meet the colorful collection of droids from the Star Wars Pride Collection. Each one of the six detailed R Unit figurines has just rolled off the Droid Factory production line and boasts a different design, creating a special set featuring every color of the rainbow. (Stolen from the marketing copy.) In celebration of Pride and the company's Pride collection, The Walt Disney Company is giving funds as part of our ongoing commitment to organizations around the world that support LGBTQ+ communities. (Taken from the packaging.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

Availability: Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Click here to buy it at eBay now!

Commentary: When I was a kid I checked out the book The Art of Star Wars from the public library, and it featured all kinds of cool artwork, the movie's script, and clippings from comics in pop culture. The world has since come a long way (newer editions of the comic change the language), and decades later there are Pride Collection figures including the "I'm mad I wasn't able to buy one" R2-RNBW (reissue it) and this new collection with a bright red R2 unit. I'm mad Disney beat me to it - I always wanted to do a rainbow set, although I was thinking it'd be cool to match the Crayola 8-packs. This is probably a lot more culturally relevant, but most importantly it's great. I like the colors of the set and it's the kind of thing they should have done a few years ago when the bin parts kicked off so people could get a bunch in a hurry. "Here are a bunch of build-a-droid parts in lots of different colors" is a sensible product, even if the price is not amazing - $12.50 per droid is on the higher end of these droid box prices. But it's a good droid. If they just sold this for $13 in bins, you'd still want one.

Star Wars doesn't tend to have a lot of color in it, so I'm mostly happy with this set. The reason I'm not happy with this red R2 unit specifically is they once again left off painting the processor state indicators under the eye - it's the red and blue blinky light on R2-D2. Given this set has no new tooling and no hats or accessories of any kind, they can afford it. But other than that? It's pretty great. There's a little room for improvement, but they painted the silver "guts" on the neck under the dome. The eye is painted black, the panels are red, there's a darker red on the dome and various panels on the body. You can find a little painted detail on the back, but not much - honestly, few of these are probably going to be opened. Which is a shame, everybody should have a big box of colorful toy droids. I'd have killed for this as a kid, it would've been a great add-on for the Droid Factory.

It's not for everybody - or it is, depending on how you want to look at it - but I appreciate that they made something and it's just neat. It's probably going to be the easiest way for fans to get most of these different build-a-droid molds in one spot, even if they left out the R3 and R9. And R0. And revised R3. Hey, maybe they can do them next year! I'm happy they made a red astromech that's not the same as the many (many) red droids I've already got, and it's nice to see one of these "event" droid sets look like they could probably appear in the background of an episode of a Star Wars. And of course if you don't want to buy this set, you shouldn't... but it's probably my favorite droid pack in quite some time.

Collector's Notes: I got mine from Shop Disney.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,039: June 20, 2023