Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Sideshow 1/6 Henry Jones Sr REVIEW 1

Beware the invasion of the 12-inch BIG heads from Sideshow Collectibles. Lately, the 12-inch figures released by Sideshow have been seen with much bigger heads than normal. Not too sure what happened to their 1/6 scale machine but something is definitely not RIGHT. Among the casualties of the OVERSIZED head syndrome are "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" Lando Calrissian and Indiana Jones disguised as a German soldier from "Raiders of the Lost Ark". They almost look like 12" Bobble heads and that's frightening. Maybe Sideshow should marry Soldier Story (the exact opposite i.e. small head manufacturer) and hopefully they'll balance each other out nicely and have normal 1/6 scale "children" - HA! HA!

So I was a bit apprehensive when I got myself this Sideshow Collectibles 1/6 scale 12-inch Henry Jones Sr figure from "The Last Crusade" on Sunday at China Square Central but me being a huge fan of the Indiana Jones movies, I just couldn't say "NO" (that plus the prototype pictures of Sean Connery as Henry Jones head sculpt had been most promising - see the PREVIEW pictures HERE)

The box is the standard Sideshow packaging with pictures of Professor Henry Jones which looked promising enough but then we all know these are prototype pictures taken earlier and might differ from the final mass produced item.


Backstory as provided by Sideshow: The estranged father of renowned archaeologist Indiana Jones, Henry Jones Sr. is a professor of medieval literature and an avid researcher of the Holy Grail. Henry spends much of his life dedicated to locating the Grail's resting place, a pursuit that his son believes to be a maddening obsession.

Sideshow Collectibles 1/6 scale 12-inch Henry Jones Sr comes with 12-inch Sideshow Prometheus male body with 30+ points of articulation, Authentic likeness of Sean Connery as Professor Henry Jones Sr wearing his trademark suit consisting of Jacket, Shirt, Bow tie, Vest, Pants, Shoes and Removeable hat. There's also the Display base with Indiana Jones logo

Accessories include his Briefcase, a pair of extra fist hands (?!?), Umbrella, Glasses, Grail diary and Holy Grail

And here's a closer look at the 1/6 accessories of Sideshow's Henry Jones Sr. The briefcase is very well produced and although it's plastic molded with faux-leather straps, the fantastic weathering paint job makes it look real and worn. Same goes for the umbrella. The paintwork is simply amazing and although just an accessory, it makes a whole lot of difference when placed in the hands of the figure. Brilliant job by Sideshow (thumbs UP!)

The 1/6 scale spectacles/glasses belonging to Henry Jones Sr and most important accessory/item of all - the 1/6 scale Grail diary which is turned to the page showing the stained glass window in Venice that led Indiana Jones to the knight's tomb.

And the 1/6 scale Holy Grail, believed to be the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers

From the initial prototype head sculpt pictures of this figure (previewed HERE), we'd assumed that we'll be getting two head sculpts from Sideshow, just like their 1/6 scale 12-inch Indiana Jones figure (full review HERE) but this is not the case. Seems like Sideshow is cutting costs because their big headed Indiana Jones as German soldier collectible figure also came with only one head sculpt and that's the one wearing the German Army cap. At least in this case, we get a bald Sean Connery as Henry Jone Sr with removable hat and glasses.

Here's a closer look at the FINE 1/6 head sculpt of Sean Connery as Professor Jones by Sideshow




Sideshow 1/6 scale Henry Jones Sr head sculpt with glasses



Sideshow 1/6 scale Henry Jones Sr head sculpt with glasses and hat



What's Sideshow 1/6 scale Henry Jones Sr wearing? A pristine white shirt underneath

The 1/6 bow tie is made of plastic. I suppose at this scale, Sideshow felt this was a safer way to go

Henry Jones' 1/6 pants/trousers

And Professor Jones' shoes. No feet at all, it just ends at the shoes

Sideshow Henry Jones Sr 1/6 vest



And now with 1/6 jacket. Sideshow Henry Jones Sr trademark suit is complete

And he tops it off with his hat

Pictures of Henry Jones Sr with his accessories in the next post :>

4 comments:

desmond said...

The head sculpt is quite ok and credit point is the glass is removable and the accessories are realistic. What I don't like about the Medicom version is that the glass cannot be removed from the head. Otherwise that is a great figure as well.

porkins73 said...

Thanks for the review Alex :) From your pictures, I reckon that the beard lacks a little detail or was it the hard lighting flooding off the details? And the headsculpt does looks a little on the big side. Nonetheless, grateful for your review and actual on hand pics. It made my decision to get or not to get Jones Snr so much easier :)

The Rebel said...

Haha...love you remarks on the Sideshow/Soldier Story comparison! How true! My "Tom Hanks" Ranger figure has a shrunken head...really made him the odd one out from the rest of my DiD-laden military collection. *sigh*

Anyway, Sean Connery's likeness is well captured by Sideshow here. He does not look too bad as compared to Lando or Nazi-Indy.....those were real 'melonheads' to say the least.

I was really looking forward to Lando (didn't preorder him though as I had anticipated him to be a shelf warmer! LOL) but was put off by the sheer big-headed attitude (pun intended!) of the Sideshow sculptors who failed to properly create the headsculpt in 1/6 scale.

alex teo said...

@ desmond: after seeing Sideshow's Henry Jones, Medicom's version seems to be a BIG letdown. Will post comparison pictures soon.

@ porkins73: U R most welcome. me being a big fan of the movies, i really had to have Indy's father along with Indy. now to find me a german motorbike with side-car for father and son.

@ the rebel: glad you enjoyed the review. Sad about the melon heads. Sideshow isn't getting better, only sloppier SIGH