General Lando Calrissian
The one thing I’ve been noticing about poor action figure distribution is that I usually end up getting whatever figures eventually trickle down at retail, even if the character in question isn’t even on my short list. Thus, I ended up picking up the new General Lando Calrissian (VC47) figure from the Vintage Collection by Hasbro.
This doesn’t mean that Lando is a subpar figure, far from it, but in a wave with aliens, jedi aliens and superarticulated clone troopers, a figure of a Scoundrel-turned-General isn’t exactly a highlight. Still, I must say I was pleasantly surprised by how this figure turned out; General Lando is a completely new sculpt, depicting the character as a ranking member of the Rebel Alliance. Lando wears a pair of light blue trousers, black boots, a tan tactical vest and an off-white shirt underneath. To round up his outfit, Lando wears a baby blue cape and an armpit pistol holster.
The uniform is nicely sculpted and has a lot of details in the form of subtle fabric textures, folds and creases. Overall body proportions seem correct, although Lando seems to be somewhat thinner than the way he looked on screen.
Lando’s face is also well sculpted, even though the resemblance to actor Billy Dee Williams is passing at best. It’s still a good generic Lando though, and there is little chance of mistaking the character for anyone else.
Lando sports a similar articulation model than that of Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, minus the bending wrist joints:
• Pegged hinge shoulders.
• Pegged hinge elbows.
• Swivel wrists.
• Swivel waist.
• Pegged hinge hips.
• Pegged hinge knees.
• Pegged hinge ankles.
All of these joints work well, and for the most part are articulation is well blended into the costume design, but since the colors of plastic are fairly light, they do tend to pop out more than they did in the aforementioned Luke Skywalker figure.
Lando has rather sparse paint applications because most of the pieces are molded in their final color. There are blocked paint applications for the boots, hair and vest shoulder pads, with some extra metallic details painted on the officer insignia and the wrist communicator. Painted details like eyes and mustache are applied consistently well all over the board with these figures.
In terms of accessories Lando kind of got a little shortchanged here, having just the fabric cape, a removable holster and a small black pistol. Both holster and pistol work well together and look good on Lando, even though the holster might be a bit too big.
The cape is (rather fashionably) long but the material drapes reasonably well for the scale and its tailored to rest over Lando’s shoulders in a way that looks natural. The only problem I see is that the piece of elastic used to close the garment at the neck is way out of scale and can be very distracting at times.
So, in a nutshell, General Lando Calrissian turned out to be a fairly good action figure, as well as the definitive version of the character as a commanding officer for the Rebel Alliance.
Errex Score: 85/100
Category: Featured, Star Wars, Toy Reviews