Completing (for now) the Lando Trilogy (for now. . . ),
skiff guard Lando presents the great character in his temporary Return of the Jedi Jabba’s palace guard
appearance. There’s a tiny bit of cross over potential for this figure, as the
removable helmet fits on Tobias Beckett from the Solo sequence of figures, so it could be possible to kitbash an
in-disguise Beckett from his movie, but we’ll touch on that later on, whenever we get around to Tobias Beckett.
Lando is a character who has a limited number of looks, and
now with this figure, three of the four have been released in the line, leaving
only General Calrissian from the later portion of Return of the Jedi left unrealized, but probably in the works
somewhere. This figure comes with limited accessories, those being the
removable helmet and a staff weapon, and nothing else. Lando, in this
incarnation, has no other accessories, so we’ve got that “screen accurate”
thing covered. Joint wise, all the usual elements are here, and the sculpt is
excellent, par for the course. This may be the same head as Cloud City Lando,
but I’m not entirely sure on that. The helmet obscures his face about as well
as it does in the movie.
I’ve always thought that it was a bad move in the movie to
have Lando pull down the facemask so that we could identify him. Even as a
child, I knew this meant that our heroes would win the day in Jabba’s palace,
and that simple action of revealing himself to no one but the camera and
audience, if avoided, would have been able to create some real tension in the
early going of the movie. Jabba’s palace is actually a pretty harrowing place:
the Rancor is eating people, Han and Chewie are locked up and Han is temporarily
blind, Leia is captive, and when Luke shows up, he’s pretty quickly overpowered
and they all end up on the sail barge. But we know Lando is around, so we know
that in time, things will work themselves out. Had we not known Lando was on
site, we could maybe have developed concern for these characters, as opposed to
essentially waiting for the plan to show itself.
Lando’s staff is a bit short, so it doesn’t touch the ground
when he’s holding it unless you make his arm pretty slack. He cannot stand,
like, at attention, with the knob of his staff on the floor. While I do confess
to not knowing if this is screen accurate, I’m not sure why they would not have
just made the staff long enough to reach the ground.
While the figure is up to Black Series standards that we’ve all come to know and expect, I can’t
help but think it’s a little bit bland. The colors are all fairly light, with
nothing particularly strong and eye catching. Currently at Coffin HQ, Skiff
Guard Lando is standing guard on a bookshelf while some adjustments are made to
the Star Wars detolf so as to accommodate him, and he practically blends in to
the spines of the tomes around him, while most figures stand out pretty boldly.
The browns and tans of the guard outfit are pretty light, making all of them
run into generic “tan”, and even the parts that are supposed to be metal or at
very least metallic colored, such as the chest plate, are drab and muted. While
this is probably Lando’s least iconic look, it could have been fancied up a bit
to make it eye catching, and it’s really just muddied. There were chances here
to inject some highlights in to the figure that would have made it a brighter
one, but they passed. While this is reasonably consistent with thematically
similar figures, such as the Target exclusive Gamorrean Guard, I can’t shake
the feeling that Skiff Lando is destined to reappear in the Archive series with a flashier paintjob
and all around more striking look.
I also could have sworn this figure had been released
previously, but have been told several times by a credible source that it wasn’t.
Apparently this figure was first seen several years’ worth of conventions ago, with
some other figures that have long since been released, in one of those large “previews
of coming attractions” displays at SDCC or some similar venue. A simple mistake,
to be sure, but this Lando comes as part of the second wave of Solo figures alongside Hoth Leia, Val,
Rio, Dengar, and the Patrol Stormtrooper, a Wave that seems real cobbled
together in my opinion, despite them all having some connection to Han Solo.
The Wave contains a trio of figures from Solo
itself, and then the OT figures, and it is this somewhat mixed yet thematically
appropriate line up that has me confused, I think. At any rate, this figure
does complete the Lando Line-up to this point, with the aforementioned General
version the one that’s missing.
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