Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Darth Vader TIE Fighter (SW)




While it was cool to get another Imperial vehicle to fight against your X-Wing and Millennium Falcon, the Vader TIE (in my opinion) was kind of a cheap attempt to do this. Mainly, the only difference between it and the original TIE Fighter was the angled wings. In the movie, the Vader TIE was “filled out” so to speak, not just attached to the wings by the pylons like the other TIEs. Yet this is how the toy looks, and creates an unbalanced ship because of the wings. The only improvement over the original TIE was the coloration – Vader’s is much more accurate than the white ones. This will all be corrected when the 1990's+ line comes out.

Vader’s TIE had a sound effect like the original TIE did, and only came in a SW box (and an SW box with a “Collector Series” splash). The original box says “Darth Vader TIE Fighter,” and the re-issue says “Darth Vader TIE Fighter Vehicle.” of course, it would have nicer sounding if it was "Darth Vader's," but that was not meant to be.

Why should you own this ship? Five reasons:

1. It makes Vader one bad ass mo - shut your mouth!

2. Practice your Death-Star-just-blew-up-and-I’m-in-an-out-of-control-spin maneuver.

3. Make your friends sick to death of hearing the phrase “I’ve got you now!”

4. The only TIE fighter that can jump to hyperspace. So long suckers!

5. The man in black needs his ride. Oooooh, yeeeaah.

Backstory:

Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced x1 (as it is truly called) was developed by Santhe/Sienar Technologies specifically for Vader. It had a larger cockpit than a normal TIE, a hyperdrive, and could carry other weapons like missiles, as opposed to the lasers-only of regular TIE fighters.

Want more? Wookieepedia article on this vehicle

39th in alphabetical order

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Better if it was '"Darth Vader's" Tie Fighter' - huh!? As in - Barbie's Horse? Or Ken's Car? No, this isn't the Deluxe Tie Fighter, nor is it the Mega Ultimate Tie Fighter... this is the Darth Vader Tie Fighter! "Nicer" enough sounding for ya now? :-)
Some Tie Fighters were white in the movies, plus Hasbro has released the white large sized winged version in white. Also when I was a kid, there was very little photo reference about, even renting Star Wars on VHS was a rare treat. So never did I, nor anyone I know think the Darth Vader Tie Fighter was anything but 100% movie accurate. At least until our very late teens the early 90's. But hey, maybe you had a better eye than us? Or maybe you now have hindsight? :-)
Besides that... keep up the good work :-x

Ben said...

Well, in a perfect world, it would have been called Advanced TIE or something like that. My MAIN complaint is that it isn't in the possessive: "Darth Vader TIE" instead of Darth Vader's TIE." I'm sure the backstory for his Advanced TIE came later than the original toy.