Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Tin Man


Let' get this out of the way, this figure looks good. It's a pretty damned nice interpretation of the MGM Wizard of Oz version of the Tin Man. I think they released this line of figures for the 75th anniversary of the movie and most of them look screen accurate. To the point that I would not be shocked if you told me these were made by Sideshow. (This only applies for the Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow. The female figures in this line look like Barbie dolls with surprisingly accurate face sculpts.) The use of plastic for the entire thing means it is head and tails above the older "cloth costume" version of the Tin Man that Barbie released a few years ago.

This would be an amazing figure except for one thing: The articulation is so horrible as to be non-existent. This is the worst case of impotent joints that I've ever seen. The sculpting of the plastic over the joints restricts articulation to the point that it might not even exist. Take a look at the knee articulation. Here's the knee straight.


And now here's the full extent that the knee can bend.


Wow. This means that the figure can pretty much stand straight up, and that's it. So that's the pose he has to stay because even with all his joints, the figure can't move. He is frozen into a pose. Seriously, might as well put in a sound chip where the figure murmurs "oilcan" because its just as frozen as the character in that moment. Unless there's some ridiculous solution where you have to put oil on the freaking figure.

And this is all a shame, because it really is a nice looking figure. Dig how good the likeness is: they simulated the way the make up was applied to the actor's face so that small bits of the human skin underneath broke through around the eyes.


Such a missed opportunity for a great figure.

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