Points of Interest:
Happily, last Saturday I received an eFX (pronounced “FX”) Stormtrooper helmet to check out and photograph for our archive.

It was fun opening each piece of the package, wondering if it would be just Master Replicas done over, or would there be changes.

Not so surprising, there's no change in the outer box, the bag over the inner box, or the inner box. Except both the outer box and the Styrofoam were sealed with “eFX Secure” tape, a nice touch.

The helmet itself was very nicely held and protected in the foam. No doubt it will arrive in whatever condition it was packed in the foam, no rubs or sticky stuff will get on it from the packing during shipping. This helmet arrived in pristine shape. Really nice.

Diving into the black envelope attached to the outside of the Styrofoam I found the COA was quite different. The COA was inside a sleeve and didn’t just unfold as before. I had to fiddle with it a moment, wondering how to get it of the sleeve, and finally unsure about it still, I grabbed the part inside the sleeve with my fingertips and pulled, and like magic, as I pulled, the other side came out at the same time. Cool. If I'm not explaining it well, believe me, you'll enjoy it when you check it out. As for the actual COA piece, the blueprint-style line drawing of the helmet on the left side is nicely done, as well as the description of the piece. There is no familiar “prop story” included however. Overall, this is a nice upgrade in the COA we have all been used to. There was also several other collateral pieces in the envelope. A set of four eFX stickers, registration card, "This is not a toy" warning, warranty, and of course the new-style plaque.

I really like the plaque, and its new black metal plaque stand. The design has the episode number "IV" behind the Star Wars logo, inset into the metal finish, which looks fantastic. There is no eFX logo or Lucasfilm logo on the plaque, making it really clean. A really nice touch is the absence of the need for double-stick tape to adhere the plaque to the stand since it just slides into the stand. Overall, this is a really nice upgrade.

Before we get to the helmet though, there's the new stand for it. To be sure, the previous helmet stands were at best, boring. Not true with this one. It's very classy, made of brushed metal, engraved Star Wars logo, shiny acrylic, medium flat black paint, all finished off with screw heads decorated with tiny eFX logos on them. All my favorite materials, well maybe the screws aren't more than just neat, but everything else is really nice. My only comment is when you put the plaque in front of the base, which is where I like it, the Star Wars logo is partially blocked.

As most reading this will already know, the helmet is essentially the same as the Master Replicas version of the helmet, still asymmetrical and not idealized, with the sole difference so far as I know, being the hand-painted frown paint line is more evenly applied, as promised by eFX. This one came with grey lenses installed and green ones taped in a baggie taped to the inside of the foam. Of course the helmets are hand made so there could always be slight variations between individual helmets.

As a brand new company, I think the overall idea of helping finish off the run of Master Replicas abbreviated release of these helmets is a good exercise for eFX to test out their processes prior to major releases of new products. Hopefully the order cycle on July 8 will prove to be as successful as the product looks to be.

• On-Sale date 7/8/2008

• eFX's first product

• Master Replicas customers who had orders cancelled for this helmet were given order priority.

• Review & Photography by Philip Wise