Why The Relative Lack Of Love For Lak Sivrak Compared To Arleil Schous?

First off, happy Veteran's Day to all that have served, and a belated 250th to the Marine Corps.

Okay, onto Star Wars business. Yesterday, I was working up some of the behind the scenes reports for the incredible dashboards that Mr. Miko puts out for Last Figure Standing (which we will hopefully be showing off this Saturday after we reveal the winner). Something jumped out at me. As you hopefully all know, Arleil Schous is in the finals of this year's LFS, and has a chance to become a back-to-back champion. Last year he received the most nominations during the submission phase, and then was the pole-to-pole winner in the voting rounds. He was the top vote getter in all four rounds on the way to winning the championship last year. Ever since we were teased with his figure during the Cantina campaign, he's been at the forefront of the community's mind.

Meanwhile, there's another deleted wolfman from Cantina, Lak Sivkrak who gets relatively little love in Last Figure Standing. He only got 15% of Arleil's nominations this year. Why is that? Both characters started life as the same exact Rick Baker commercial Halloween mask (per the Wikipedia), but one is seemingly dismissed. It can't all be due to the "shown something you can't have" factor with Arleil. That's certainly part of it, but it can't be all of it. So what else is it?


Lak Sivrak was released in 1998 as part of the glorious (in terms of figure selection) Freeze Frame line. You can se our review of it HERE. This is clearly a factor, but we also already have a Labria figure. In fact, we've even gotten two releases of it with two different paint jobs HERE and HERE. But Labria got 42% of Arleil's nomination compared to Lak's 17. So "new before redo" can't explain it all away. Plus I would argue that POTF2 Lak is so inaccurate that we don't really have one yet. Compare the figure:


To this reference photo:


Lak does not wear a cream colored smoking jacket. He has a reddish-brown tunic. I likewise don't think anyone would have the guts to walk into Chalmun's Cantina wearing matching cream trousers. That seems like a formula for a knuckle sandwich. Lak appears to be wearing gray slacks.


This is certainly true. As mentioned above, both masks started life as the same Rick Baker-designed commercial (i.e. off-the-shelf) Halloween mask. Lak's is unaltered (and it shows). Baker went to town on Arleil's mask. It's heavily modified and much more studio quality. Theres's no doubt that Arleil's cooler, but 85% cooler? Tzizvvt has an equally questionable mask as Lak, but he got a whopping 55% of Arleil's nominations.


Arleil's stand alone shot has been overwritten by Melas (and I would argue the Arleil creature-work is better), but he is still featured at the table in the opening shot. Lak has been completely erased from the Special Edition by Ketwol. I just don't think Cantina aficionados would be swayed by this. I tend to think they'd have a negative opinion of the SE changes. Plus you can't convince me that Tzizvvt was ever in the movie.


I just don't get it. I don't think the community's relative dismissal of Lak is deserved compared other Cantina aliens. This miffs me because I can't stand Ketwol and his reverse, Melas. I want my Cantina display restored to its Original Original Trilogy glory. I can't put Lak in my top ten, but he might crack my top twenty five for March Madness. But why do you all hate Lak Sivrak?

---

comments powered by Disqus