Original Review by Chris 10/31/14

Is it possible for a figure to be boring and exciting at the same time?  Is it possible for a figure to lack newness, but seem fresh?  That’s where I find myself with this Lando Calrissian in smuggler outfit figure.  I’m excited that this figure exists.  Long before Family Guy’s Something, Something Dark Side parody of The Empire Strikes Back, most astute fans noticed that Lando donned the familiar smuggler attire as he piloted the Millennium Falcon away to search for Han.  Lando doesn’t wear many costumes in Episodes V and VI, so this was an opportunity to eke out a fourth version of a core character.  This figure is not on my “Mount Rushmore of figures I’m glad they made” because that is reserved for figures that I thought had less than a 50/50 shot a seeing production.  The Smuggler Outfit Lando is a legit on-screen costume change for a core character that allows for a lot of tooling reuse.  I knew with certainty that it would get made some day.

Although this looks like a Han Solo costume at first blush, there is one subtle difference that sets the torso apart.  The white shirt is buttoned all the way to the top.  With the exception of the Yavin Ceremony, Solo was a bit more casual and had the top of the shirt unbuttoned.  Again, the seventies were the seventies, regardless of the galaxy.  I don’t think Lando was being more formal than Han.  I think this was a subtle protest against General Dodonna for being so stingy with the medals.  Lando and Chewie did stuff too.  Where are their medals?  Hasbro tooled a new torso to accurately depict the costume as it was worn in that scene.  I was frankly upset that Hasbro did not use this torso for the Ceremonial Han they delivered in the Vintage Collection.  The head on this figure is also new, but I don’t think it looks tremendously like Billy Dee Williams.  I almost want to say that it bears a closer resemblance to a mid-eighties Tom Skerritt.  I think I may have stumbled on to the fact that Hasbro was secretly working on a Top Gun action figure line.

The lower body and the arms are not new.  They were reused from the VOTC Lando Calrissian figure.  For the legs, I have no problem.  There is certainly no on-screen reference for what Lando was wearing from the waist down, so who can say that he wasn’t wearing his Bepsin bell bottoms? Those legs work great and it’s some of the best range of motion for ball jointed ankles that we’ve seen to date.  The only gripe is that this was an early application of ball jointed knees, so the joint isn’t as tucked away into the leg sculpt as we see today and it allows the leg to hyper extend.  The reuse of the arms from the VOTC Lando is bothersome on a couple of levels.  First, the sleeves do not match the 3/4 sleeve of the smuggler outfit.  In fact they’re puffy sleeves.  I have it on good authority that Lando did not want to be a pirate.  I can only assume a low talker is to blame for this wardrobe gaff.  Second is that these arms use inferior swivel elbows with a shallow angle.  The decent poses that can be achieved are finite and the figure cannot place its arms straight at its sides.  One last thing to note is that because of the arm reuse, the hand is sculpted to hold the larger E-11 blaster rifle.  The hand does not grip the much smaller handle on the included DL-44 heavy blaster.  The weapon basically rests in the grip.

It’s another example of it is what it is.  Hasbro was probably looking for a figure to help balance out the wave’s cost average as this figure shipped alongside the Torture Rack Han Solo with its massive accessory.  For such an insignificant on-screen costume, it’s hard to image Hasbro would sink a lot of tooling dollars into this figure anyway.  Again, I’m glad it exists and I feel like it’s an example of “beggars can’t be choosers.”  For a smuggler Lando, I feel our options are this or nothing.  Some new arms could have propelled this to an eight, but as it stands I feel it’s a 6 out of 10.

Updated Review by Bret 10/10/19

Chris covered it well.  The figure is a both awesome and bland at the same time.  It’s a slight retool to capture a brief costume change, but it’s a perfect example of how Hasbro can span minimal tooling dollars to create an all new character.  The swivel elbows are poor, but the mere existence of this figure is wonderful thing.