Lando Calrissian - TBS [P3] - Six Inch Figures (39)

Once a smooth-talking smuggler, Lando Calrissian changed from a get-rich-quick schemer to a selfless leader in the fight against the Empire.

It probably goes without saying, but Hasbro will forever be playing catch up with The Black Series 6” line. When the line began, they literally were 18 years behind the eight ball. Picking up where an 18 year old toy line left off, Hasbro had to outline the best way to attack the wonderful characters that makeup the Star Wars saga. Clearly there were going to be some pretty severe omissions along the way. Lando Calrissian perhaps may be the most glaring oversight of all the characters. This smooth-talking administrator from Bespin quickly became one of the most favorite Star Wars characters of the Original Trilogy. But it disappointingly took Hasbro close to a half decade of The Black Series 6” releases to finally get him out. Part of an exceptional wave of figures, it’s great to see this longtime friend of Han Solo and now in-charge man of Cloud City interact with so many other great figures in the line. As good as Lando Calrissian is, he isn’t without some problems. We’ll get into them as clearly as we can, but we’re not sure if they could even be addressed. There is a deeper issue we’re seeing figure after figure now, and if Hasbro doesn’t adjust it, it’s going to be a plague across the future of the line. That may sound dramatic – it isn’t meant to be. But Hasbro should be revising a couple of things to make the best figures possible. For the most part, you really have to wonder what the long wait was about because Lando Calrissian really did come out nicely (plus and minus a couple of things). He should become a highly sought after figure for fans of the The Black Series 6” line. With a pretty better than average likeness, a ton of articulation and very, very clean paint operations, Lando Calrissian is more proof that Hasbro has really shifted the 6” scaled line into high speed.

So what about those issues? Well, Lando Calrissian does look nice, but suffers from lankiness in the legs. At first we had difficulty pinpointing what has bothered us with so many The Black Series 6” figures, but we’re confident now it’s the legs: they’re often too long for quite a few Star Wars characters. If a Star Wars character comes wearing robes or has other ornamentation to take your eyes away from the length of the legs, you’re likely not going to see this trend at all. But with a character like Lando Calrissian we have to conceded that the length of his legs are ever so slightly problematic. We believe even a reduction of less than a quarter of an inch would help make these figures look nearly perfect. That being said, Lando Calrissian is far from being a train wreck. He looks pretty darn excellent if you ask us. He is pretty much everything that 3.75” super-articulated collectors have been waiting to see Hasbro do for them in that scale. If you recall 2004’s VOTC Lando Calrissian action figure you’ll remember how collectors believed this figure was essentially perfect except for the swivel elbows. It is a bit painful to see so much attention given to him in The Black Series 6” scale. Hopefully since this figure has been completed it will mean that we’ll see it revised for the return of The Vintage Collection when it returns Spring 2018. Lando Calrissian comes with an astounding 28 points of articulation, but collectors are used to this by now and pretty much expect figures to come with this much movement. Lando Calrissian can obtain a variety of poses. Some fans of the line will be disappointed about the lack of double-jointed elbows once again, but we personally couldn’t be happier to see a more standard ball-jointed articulation point used instead. It’s so much more aesthetically pleasing to the eyes.

The sculpting of Lando Calrissian is nothing short of beautiful of course. Hasbro works hard to create digital files that capture every last nuance of character, and with Lando Calrissian it seems that they were a little more successful than they typically are. The facial likeness is pretty nice, but we’re sure there will be some that don’t find it appealing. Collectors are overly critical and have unrealistic expectations for what a likeness should be on a plastic action figure. In our opinion, we feel this head sculpt really favors Billy Dee Williams’ youthful appearance from the 80s. The skin color doesn’t seem perfect to us, perhaps a little too light, but the refining details like the eyes and eyebrows are helpful to make you forget what might be wrong with this figure and focus on the more important things: like finally getting him in this scale and looking this good. The rest of the sculpt is really nice too. His pants and shirt are close-fitting, but break where they need to break, and areas that have folds and creases look completely realistic as needed. Lando Calrissian comes modestly accessorized. The cape is molded and removable and for us is a very small setback as we adore soft-goods. The molded cape inhibits movement too much for our liking, but looks divine regardless. The inside is beautifully detailed and colored in a shimmery gold. He also comes with a blaster used by the Rebel Alliance and a communicator, the device he used to alert other Bespin residents to flee before more Imperials arrived to take over the colony. It’s a very tiny accessory, but Lando Calrissian can hold it pretty well in his left hand. The last time we saw this cool accessory was with Sideshow Collectibles in 2009 when they produced their Lando Calrissian 1:6 Scale Figure. It’s nice to have it again with an action figure. Overall, you’ll be pleased with Lando Calrissian. If Hasbro can work on these figures’ legs, this line might leap into a new and unprecedented range.