Raiding the Lost Ark : Indiana Jones Action Figures
05.17.08 By Collin DavidSo, the new Indiana Jones DVDs are out, ‘The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ is due out shortly, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve become an IndianaJonesophiliac. He’s the oldschool action hero that we’d all love to have dinner with - as long as it wasn’t chilled monkey brains or ‘snake surprise’.
Action heroes like Indiana make awesome action figures, but the rights to make action figures based on the Indiana Jones films have been tied up for years now, and the only figures being made were exclusive to the Disney Parks. For us commoners who didn’t have regular access to the various Lands of Magic, we were simply outta luck. Recently, in a herculean push behind the newest Indiana Jones movie, many companies are cranking out the neat IJ products - not only from Crystal Skull, but from all of the previous films. My personal favorite stuff from the new Jones merchandise empire are Hasbro’s tiny 3.75” tall figures.
Because of the size of the new IJ line, Indiana Jones can comfortably hang out with the plethora of Han Solos and Darth Vaders that Hasbro has previously released in this scale. No, figures of this teensy size do not get an astounding level of sculptural detail or articulation. In fact, they’re pretty rudimentary in comparison to what action figures have evolved into since the original Star Wars lines, but it’s that simplicity that charms me. That, and the whole set can fit into a very small box.
The first group of figures has been released, and it consists of characters from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ and ‘Crystal Skull’, but as I’m not about to invest in ‘Skull’ before I see it firsthand, I’m focusing on the collection of RotLA figures. This set of singly-packed figures includes 2 variations of Indiana Jones, Marion Ravenwood, Sallah, Belloq, a Cairo Swordsman, the Monkey Man spy, and a German Soldier. Three deluxe packs include an Arab-costumed Indiana Jones with the titular Ark, another Marion Ravenwood with a Cairo Warrior, and a pair of generic German Soldiers. Collectors are scooping up these German Soldiers in both singly-packed and double packed forms, since the enemy threat in the IJ films was rarely about skill, but about the sheer quantity of baddies that Jones went up against. He went through Nazis like tissues on a day with an especially high pollen index. That’s a nerd simile if I ever heard one.
This selection of characters is great, though the German Soldiers lack the swastika armbands that they all bore in the film. Of course, this is all done in the interest of respect and good taste, and these ARE toys, so I can live without a picture-perfect recreation of the film. I’d like to eventually see the big, bald German Mechanic and a few of the creepier Germans, like Toht (with an alternate melty head) before the line fades away. As an added bonus, every figure comes with a mystery relic in a sealed cardboard mini-crate. Collect six of these and their accompanying stickers and you can mail away for a bonus skeleton figure from ‘Crystal Skull’. At the moment, the appearance of the figure is still a total mystery.
This small scale enables toy companies to make vehicles and playsets that can be relatively in scale with the figures, whereas such a thing would be almost impossible with larger figures. Indiana Jones can ride a horse, and German Soldiers can ride motorcycles and be loaded into army trucks.
Collectors complain that the figures are not perfect representations of their characters, but one has to step back and realize that pores cannot be sensibly sculpted into a head smaller than a fingernail. I’ll admit that I was completely uninterested in this line until I bought them, got them home and started opening them up. I don’t really need action figures so realistic that I’m uncomfortable getting changed in front of them. Right now, the intent of the figures is enough to be satisfying, and they’re definitely close enough to their intended characters to remain really fun. Standing them up across my desk filled me with a mild glee, and bought back memories of playing with the original Star Wars stuff - back when it was okay to imagine a hero’s chiseled face onto a plastic lump instead of going onto message boards to complain about it.
Check out the collection in our Community, and keep an eye out for the upcoming ‘Last Crusade’ and ‘Temple of Doom’ figures!
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Article Tags: action figures, Hasbro, Indiana Jones================
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May 22nd, 2008 at 10:33 am
for the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it seems like the recipe of a good Indiana Jones film would be 1 part Nazis and 1 part biblical artifact; the Soviet army does a pretty good job of replacing the Nazis, but the other ingredient…