Lando Calrissian (Skiff Disguise) - SW [S - P2] - 12 Inch Figures

The Empire prepares to crush the Rebellion with a second, more powerful Death Star. As the Rebel fleet mounts a massive attack on the dreaded space station, Luke Skywalker confronts his father, Darth Vader, in a climactic duel before the evil Emperor. In the last second, Vader makes a momentous choice: he destroys the Emperor and saves his son. The Empire is finally defeated, the evil Sith are destroyed, and Anakin Skywalker is redeemed. At long last, freedom is restored to the galaxy.

The dashing Baron Administrator of Cloud City has a past few on Bespin would suspect. As a rogue and con artist, Lando built his early fortunes from modest beginnings, becoming a daring smuggler captain with a good head for business and a bad habit of gambling. He flew the Millennium Falcon for years before losing the ship to Han Solo in a sabacc match. The same game later won Lando control of the fabulous gas mining colony on Bespin. As the flamboyant leader of Cloud City, Lando combines his sense of style with a newfound sense of responsibility and has come to enjoy his role as Baron Administrator. Lando came to the aid of his friend Han Solo by disguising himself as a skiff guard in the rescue of Han from Jabba the Hutt.

How do you assess a Hasbro Star Wars 12 Inch Figure that has so many things going for it while also having so many things going against it at the same time? That’s about where we feel the Lando Calrissian (Skiff Disguise) 12 Inch Figure ranks in the toy line. First, we have to draw your attention to the figure’s portrait. It’s stunning, one of the finest portraits we’ve seen Hasbro produce in the Action Collection/12 Inch Figures line. The realism to actor Billy Dee Williams is unprecedented, and we prefer to pose this figure without the helmet on to showcase the work Hasbro did on the head sculpt. Lando Calrissian (Skiff Disguise) has the perfect agnostic expression, nice coloring, and gorgeous hairstyle of the smooth talker. The head sculpt is also nicely proportioned to the figure’s body. Often, 12 Inch Figures come with heads too large for their bodies, but we don’t see that issue present on Lando Calrissian (Skiff Disguise) in the slightest. We believe it’s what makes this figure look so incredible. We’d also go so far to say that Lando Calrissian (Skiff Disguise) has an appropriately-sized body too. His frame doesn’t look bulky, but athletic and streamlined. Getting the body proportions correct is a vital part of 12 Inch Figure making. Hasbro passed with flying colors in this department, but there are other parts of this figure where you’re going to wish for more.

It's only when you begin inspecting the finer details of the figure where things begin to far apart. And the sharp decline in the quality of this figure is something that upsets us terribly. Although the soft-goods clothing on Lando Calrissian (Skiff Disguise) is nicely tailored, the armored portions are much too large and look out of place on the figure. The shoulder and elbow armor aren’t that bad, but the chest armor is poorly scaled and hangs loosely on the figure, to the point of looking oversized. What’s interesting is if you look at the figure as a whole, the armor doesn’t look out of place or too large. But up close you can see how it doesn’t hang close to the figure, making it look like it’s misdesigned. Some of the colorings are off too. The deco doesn’t look completely accurate to us. Also, Hasbro went “cheap” on us with the figure’s boots. Instead of cutting the lattice pattern out of them, they painted portions of the boots the color of his pants to create an effect that his pants are tucked down inside of them but still showing. We strongly feel this was a cheap trick, and below Hasbro’s quality standards. How difficult would it have been to do the boots the right way for proper aesthetics and to provide something pleasing to the eye visually? It seems like a trivial thing to ignore, and it wouldn’t have been expensive to correct it and produce them with screen accuracy.

Now we get to the REAL problems of the Lando Calrissian (Skiff Disguise) 12 Inch Figure. His accessories are a relative nightmare. Hasbro designed the helmet of Lando Calrissian (Skiff Disguise) way too big. It’s laughably too large. It could pass for Dark Helmet’s helmet from Spaceballs. It’s also so big that it doesn’t stay firmly in place on his head. It’s difficult to place it straight on his head in the position it needs to be to see his eyes, and the slightest movement will shift it to the point of eventually falling off his head. The vibro-ax is nicely designed but is also too big. But thanks to new hands with fingers that now can cup, grasp and hold onto things, they help assist Lando Calrissian (Skiff Disguise) to hold the vibro-ax with relative ease. Finally, Lando Calrissian (Skiff Disguise) comes with a skiff guard blaster. It looks a tad out of scale, but is nicely tooled and fits into his hands well. Hasbro created a functioning faux-leather holster with a snap that fits the skiff guard blaster when not in use. There are many things to appreciate here, as we’ve mentioned earlier, but the negatives weigh heavily on the overall quality of this 12 Inch Figure. Despite the figure’s faults, we still like many aspects of it and feel it isn’t without merit. We wish that Hasbro changed some of the accessories and details, and we might have had a relatively perfect version of this character in this scale.