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There’s been a ton of hype and merchandise surrounding the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and yet I haven’t covered any of it here at QSE. Oh, I’ve covered plenty at my site, Michael’s Review of the Week, but here at QSE I’ve been remiss in my duties, at least in terms of the Indy fans.

So let’s start fixing that tonight with a look at three of the 3 3/4″ action figures. These are being produced by Hasbro, the makers of the other largest 3 3/4″ series, Star Wars. While I doubt there will ever be as many Indy figures as Star Wars, they certainly have started out with a bang, releasing 17 different figures in the first waves, with even more figures planned to hit in June. Then there’s three vehicles in this scale, as well as eight deluxe sets.

These smaller figures retail for anywhere from $7 – $9, depending on the retailer. While that’s a little steep, many of the retailers have been having sales, and these three I bought at Toys R Us last week during their “buy 2 get a 3rd free” sale, making them less than $5 each.

There are figures in the first 17 from both Raiders of the Lost Ark and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As the line progresses, we’ll see figures from all four films, so be prepared for the onslaught.

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“Indiana Jones – Whipping Indy, Colonel Dovchenko, and the Ugha Warrior”

While whipping Indy is from Raiders of course (and yes, there is a Cairo Swordsman to go with him), the other two are from KOTCS. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, obviously they won’t mean as much to you, but trust me – they play key parts.

There are two unique features to this line worth pointing out up front. First, each figure in the series is packed with an ‘artifact’. They come in the little brown crate-like box in the package. These artifacts are generally out of scale for the 3 3/4″ figures, but many of them are actually in sixth scale, making them ideal to go with your Sideshow Indy once he’s here.

The other nifty feature is that there is a mail away with several of the different Hasbro lines. You collect small stamps that come with each figure, pop them into the passport-like form, and send it off to Hasbro with a check for shipping and handling. In the case of the 3 3/4″ figures, the figure is actually a bit of a spoiler, so I’ll just say it’s another character from the KOTCS film and leave it at that.

Packaging – ***1/2
I like the look of the packaging, and the design feels both retro and new. The colors and graphics stand out well on the current pegs, and the figures are shown off nicely by the style of bubble. There’s some personalization on the back of each, as well as small photos of other figures in the line. Sure, they aren’t collector friendly, but did you really expect them to be? At least they’re easy to tear into!

The form for the mail away is in the bottom of the bubble, but the stamp you’ll need is inside the cardboard box with the artifact.

Sculpting – Warrior ***1’2; Dovchenko, Indy **1/2
Once again, the bad guys come out on top. It just shouldn’t be that way when you’re talking about Indiana Jones.

The Indy figure is actually one of the better head sculpts in the line…I think. It’s tough to tell under the paint, but I think with a better application this would have looked quite a bit more like Harrison Ford. The proportions are decent, and the hat is sculpted on the head, a smart move to make it look correctly sized.

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But the leg pose is static, designed to look good with the whipping action and that’s it. I can live with it, but what I can’t live with is the hugely oversized and ugly holster. It throws the look of the whole figure off, and I would have much prefered a sculpted one like Dovchenko’s. Yes, you can put Indy’s pistol in his, but it still looks ridiculous.

Speaking of Dovchenko, his sculpt is pretty nice. The costume has some nice details, particulary in the folds and wrinkles. Both hands are sculpted to hold the accessories, and he stands well on his own. He’s not a perfect match to his movie counterpart, but he makes a good addition to the soldiers in the display.

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The Ugha Warrior is a very different design, and we don’t have enough native peoples in the Indy collection yet. The head sculpt is great, with a nice generic pissed off look, and the ceremonial scarring on his body is actually sculpted on, not just painted. He holds his weapons nicely, and the sculpt and articulation really work well together, allowing him to stand great on his own in a ton of poses.

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Paint – Warrior, Dovchenko ***; Indy **1/2
Paint has been an issue for this line so far, especially the various Indiana Jones figures. If the paint were better, the quality of the sculpt might show through…or not.

From the neck down, Indy isn’t too bad. His outfit isn’t as nicely done as the Cairo version, since the shirt is much to clean looking and there is a fair amount of slop in areas like the edge between the pants and shoes, or the high gloss skin tone on the chest. The face still has a bit of the googly eyes going on, although this one did look a little better to me on the peg than some. The stubble doesn’t look too bad, but overall the figures is average at best.

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I like the Warrior a bit better. None of these figures have a ton of detail (and Hasbro has opted to cast much of the figures in the colored plastic to avoid paint), but the raised scars are painted well, as is the eyes and face. The bone armor has issues with poor cuts between it and the skin in many spots, and shiny plastic colored legs hurt what would otherwise be a better score.

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Dovchenko has a decent paint job as well, but again, nothing to contact your congressman over. The eyes are decent, and there’s more small details on the costume here than many of the other figures in the line, but there’s also enough slop and generally careless work that it ends up being pretty average mass market work.

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Articulation – Warrior, D ***1/2; Indy ***
Of these three, Indy is the least articulated due to the action feature. You better like the leg pose, because it’s what you’re going to be living with.

He has T hips, but only the right leg can move forward and back. The left is reserved for the action feature, where it it’s squeezed inward to move the right arm. Indy does better up top though, with a ball jointed neck (limited range of movement), ball jointed left shoulder, cut right shoulder, pin and peg elbows, and a cut waist. Most of the articulation is there to get a decent pose centered around the whipping action.

The Warrior has much more articulation. His ball jointed neck has a decent range of movement even with the longer hair, and both shoulders are ball jointed (pin/post style). There are also these pin/post style joints at the knees, ankles and elbows, as well as cut wrists, and a cut waist. Finally, he has the T hips.

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Likewise for the Colonel. His articulation matches the Warrior’s, and works about as well. My big grip is the hips on both of them. If there were better hip joints that allowed for more than just forward and backward movement, then the great knee and ankle joints could be put to much better use.

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Accessories – ***
All three of these figures come with two accessories plus their artifact.

Indy has his whip and his pistol. The pistol sculpt is quite good considering the scale, and it fits in his hand relatively well. The whip is a sculpted plastic handle, but the rest of the whip is brown string. I think this was actually a smart idea, as it looks more like it’s braided, and it flips in the air better than a rubber whip. Unfortunately, the handle is huge and oversized, and won’t stay in his goofy right hand when using the action feature even with this issue.

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Indy’s artifact makes up for it though – the lower half of the Grail Tablet! It’s a little small for sixth scale, but close enough for my display, and the tiny letters are even sculpted into its surface. The monotone paint job tends to obscure the letters, but it’s not a bad little accessory for your larger figures.

The good (actually, bad) Colonel comes with two automatic weapons: a rifle and a pistol. The pistol can’t go in his holster (it’s sculpted in one solid piece on his body), but it looks fine in his left hand. I do wish that the articulation would allow you to hold the machine gun in both hands across his body, but it doesn’t quite work.

His accessory is the Chalice of Kali, from Temple of Doom. The sculpt and paint on this are quite nice, certainly the nicest of any of these three. However, it’s scale is all off. It’s too large for the 3 3/” figures, and too small for the 12″ figures. If you bought the 7″ Indy from Disneyland, it would work well with him.

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Finally, there’s the Ugha Warrior. He comes with two weapons as well, a bolo tie weapon and a stone axe. Both of these fit nicely in his sculpted hands. Because of the long handle on the axe, he can actually hold it in both hands, but it’s a bit tough to get it there and keep it there.

His artifact is the plainest of the bunch, a ancient arrowhead. It’s too big for an arrowhead even for 12″ figures, but you can always say it’s a spear head instead. While the sculpt and paint are plain, that’s not too surprising considering that arrowheads tend to be quite basic in design.

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I included a shot of the 12″ Whipping Indy with a couple of the artifacts to give you some idea of scale.

Action Feature – Indy **; Warrior, Dovchenko bupkis
Sometimes, getting a bupkis can really hurt your score. Other times, it’s exactly the opposite.

Here, the fact that the Ugha Warrior and Dovchenko don’t have an action feature is a GOOD thing. I generally hate action features, and not having them means they work just fine as actual action figures.

Indy has one, and while the mechanism has real potential, they screwed up in one very major way.

He has ‘whipping’ action. You place the whip in his right hand, pose the hand above his head, and squeeze his legs together. The right arm snaps forward, cracking the whip. Theoritically.

The whip handle is too small and thin to stay in his grip, however. What that means is that whipping action turns into throwing action, and Indy can toss that whip a good foot or so without any trouble at all. Put a tiny baseball in his right hand, and he can toss out the first pitch on opening day.

Of course, that’s not supposed to be how the action feature works, but this simple mistake turns an action feature with potential (the leg/arm mechanism works quite well) into one that’s merely lame.

Fun Factor – Warrior, Dovchenko ***1/2; Indy **1/2
The two villains here have solid sculpts and articulation, with some cool accessories. They’ll be able to battle Indy and provide plenty of conflict in any play scenario. The Indy is a bit weak though, really only working as a display figure opposite the Cairo Swordsman.

Value – **1/2
With more and more stores dropping the price on these or putting out sales, the value has improved. I’m assuming you end up paying about $7 for these, and at that price they’re a pretty average value. The included artifacts is what makes these a better value at this price than say, Prince Caspian or Pirates of the Caribbean would be.

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Things to Watch Out For –
As I said, some of the googly eyed paint jobs appear to be improving in more recent shipments, especially with Indy himself. Keep an eye out for the best you can find. Other than that, you should be smooth.

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Overall – Warrior ***1/2; Dovchenko ***; Indy **1/2
It’s funny, but so far of the figures I’ve opened up, I generally like the work on the villains much more than on the good guys. That’s the case here again, where both Dovchenko and the Warrior are superior figures to the Indy.

I’ve only opened two Indy’s so far, this one and the deluxe Cairo version with the Ark, but I have to say that the Cairo Indy is still my favorite. This one will make a good display with the Cairo Swordsman, but otherwise, isn’t particularly useful.

I’d pick up the Warrior and Colonel though, to fill out the shelf with interesting villains a bit more. You can always use more bad guys, and both of these are done well.

Where to Buy –
These guys are at just about every major and minor retailer right now, from K-mart to Target. Get out there and go shopping!

Related Links –
I’ve already covered a number of new Indy products:

– in the unusual category, there’s the Blockbuster exclusive DVD Case.
– I reviewed the 12″ German and Cairo Swordsman, as well as both
12″ Hasbro Indy’s.

– in the smaller scale, I looked at some of the deluxe two packs
and several of the single pack figures.

– There’s a number of cool Lego sets, inlcuding this
one
.

– Gentle Giant did a 7″ version for the Disney parks.

– Disney has done a few other Indy figures, including this wave of small
ones
.

– and if you’re looking for something a bit bigger, check out the very cool sixth scale Grail diary, or this
sixth scale figure.

Comments: 8 Comments

8 Responses to “Toy Box: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Never Ending Merchandise”

  1. joseph Says:

    I don’t know if you remember, but the Super aticulated Vintage OTC Luke Skywalker from a few years back had hip joints that actually extended outward. they worked really well. that type of joint with Indy figures would be great. don’t know why they dont use it.

  2. Michael Crawford Says:

    Yep, the hips remain disappointing. They have used the better hip joints on a number of Star Wars figures, and even in this line we have the Indy that can ride the horse, but these figures were left to simply stand.

  3. patrick Says:

    they have these for all the IJ films?

  4. Toy review roundup : Fanmode Says:

    […] Crawford reviews the Hasbro Indiana Jones Indiana Jones (whip-cracking action version), Colonel Dovchenko and Ugha Warrio… […]

  5. Michael Crawford Says:

    They will – right now it’s just KOTCS and Raiders, but as the year progresses, you’ll see the other two films covered as well.

  6. pablo Says:

    The whips used here for various situations are really fascinating. Whips were sold at unbelievable prices only because the designers had decided to get themselves noticed at right place like eastern toys. Variety of whips as used in Indiana Jones film is available in eastern stores.

  7. Mark Says:

    Meh. The “Whip cracking” Indy doesn’t even come CLOSE to looking like Mr. Ford. The one holding the piece of Grail Tablet looks much closer. Pretty good likeness, and they got the hat right!

  8. terry Says:

    indiana jones jackets, hats, sachel, whips are all available at http://easterntoys.com

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