As part of Jabbapalooza 2019, Hasbro decided to strike while the iron was hot and update a figure that was actually pretty awesome, but had a couple of noteworthy flaws.  VC89 Lando Calrissian (Sandstorm Outfit) was based on a deleted scene from the ROTJ Blu-ray.  That figure, of course, was a huge upgrade over previous attempts.  VC89 was a “two-fer.”  It was marketed as the sandstorm outfit, and it came with a plastic AND cloth shmata, along with goggles, and a tiny tracking device.  But underneath all of that, we got an outstanding Lando in Skiff Guard disguise.  The figure also came with a vibro-staff, a blaster, and a removable helmet.  It was an outstanding sculpt with a ton of accessories.  Still, we collectors managed to find fault with it.  It was too short, and the skin color was way too pale.  These were definitely shortcomings, but I can’t say I was losing sleep…[OW!!  WHAT? OW!!! OKAY OKAY!  FINE!]  Ahem.  So, as I was saying, this was an urgent need to repair an egregious mistake of a figure over which I lost a lot of sleep.  It’s about time Hasbro fixed it!  I mean, VC89 was intolerable!!  [How’s that?  Did I do the right thing?  Please don’t hit me anymore.]

I was most excited about this release specifically because of all the Jabba stuff going on.  I own one of the sandstorm figures, which to me, was pretty darn great, but I wanted more of them for the different displays.  Ebay costs were prohibitive, so the reveal of this figure was something to look forward to.  Frankly, while the light skin tone was poor, I really wasn’t concerned about the short stature…I MEAN…the stature was something that really needed correcting.  Hasbro promised some updating, but to me, the real draw was simply the opportunity to stock up on Landos at regular prices.

Before I get into what the figure offers, here’s a quick word about Walmart.  Walmart is just the absolute worst.  THE WORST! 

Ok, great then.  This figure was a Walmart exclusive. For the first time that I am aware of, Walmart put this figure online for pre-order. That sounded cool at the time, but it turned out to be a complete disaster.  This whole project gave me a lot of agita.  In exchange for shaving a few hours off the end of my life, I finally got the figures I ordered. 

Hasbro did set out to make some improvements to the figure.  To address the complaints about the height, the lower legs were resculpted to be longer.  The rest of the figure was unchanged as far as sculpting, which is fine, as there were no reasons to do anything else.  The elongated shins do wonders to give the figure the proper amount of…tallness.  Chris can do an analysis of whether or not the extra millimeters are to scale.  He likes that stuff, as long as he’s not busy hitting me in the shins with a mallet to ensure that I don’t say that this change wasn’t all that necessary.  To me, the biggest problem with VC89 is the skin color, which was entirely too pale.  This is sufficiently corrected now.  In addition to these improvements, Hasbro also added FACE! technology.  The results are debatable.  I guess I like it better than the original figure, but I think there’s still something not quite 100% right about it.  CJ recently commented that it dabbles in the uncanny valley, so it’s a bit off putting.  It’s not bad, it’s just not objectively better.  On the topic of paint, Hasbro gave this figure a different color scheme. It isn’t just the typical unintentional differences you see when figures are re-released years apart.  I had a vicious argument with Chris one this, but I think he may be right and that the colors are perhaps more screen accurate.  OH YEAH, LOOK AT THE BIG MAN BEATING UP ON THE COLOR BLIND GUY!  BIG WHOOP!

VC144 is a straight up skiff guard disguise version of Lando.  So here, you don’t get the dual scarf, goggles, and handheld device.  You do get the helmet and the vibroblade, but amazingly, no blaster.  As of this writing, we have no official word on whether or not this was intentional.  The helmet and blade are the same sculpts as previous.  The figure interacts perfectly with both.  The helmet fits snugly, and looks great.  Lando can handle the blade in either hand, and can also perform a THWG.  He’s got a holster, as does the earlier version, but for some reason, there’s no blaster.  I guess when it comes time to wrestle with Vedain later this year, they’ll have to fight over Vedain’s blaster. 

[Editor’s Note:  The image of VC89 Lando bragging about his blaster to VC144 Lando has been updated, as per Chris’s comment below.  The wrong blaster was used in the previous image.]

So, Hasbro aimed to correct the height and the skin color, which are both positives.  They added FACE!, which is a marginal improvement.  There’s no blaster, which is a negative.  On top of all this, the sandstorm accessories were omitted from this release.  We gave VC89 a 9/10.  When taking into account all of the changes made, it’s hard to move the needle on that, especially when it would need to score a perfect 10.  In order to even consider that, you’d have to take out the sandstorm accessories from consideration, and accept that this is a different figure, because those accessories have some real value.  In the end, I can’t justify giving this a 10, so I’ll keep it at a 9.  Maybe, after some further consideration, I’ll lower VC89 to an 8.  But probably not.