Sunday, November 21, 2010

Hot Toys Colonel Hans Landa from "Inglourious Basterds" REVIEW II

continued from the previous post...

Lt. Aldo Raine: So you're "the Jew Hunter".
Col. Hans Landa: A detective. A damn good detective. Finding people is my specialty so naturally I work for the Nazis finding people, and yes some of them were Jews. But "Jew Hunter"?

Here are more pictures of Hot Toys MMS134 (Movie Masterpiece Series) 1/6th scale Col. Hans Landa Collectible Figure with Christoph Waltz likeness from the "Inglourious Basterds" movie.



Hot Toys Col. Hans Landa with his Walter P38 pistol (which has removable magazine and working slide) and pistol holster on his black leather-like belt. He's dressed in the German Grey Field officer blouse with Colonel Shoulder Tabs plus awards and decorations, the single-oak leaf tabs (rank of Standartenführer) on both collars, Officer riding breeches, General Officer leather belt and tall knee high black leather-like boots.


Close-ups of the Walter P38 pistol



From what little I know, this particular type of pistol holster design with the latch and spare clip pouch in front is usually the hard shell kind, not soft leather as what Hot Toys has done here. If you look at the same P38 holster Hot Toys Aldo Raine came with (link HERE), you'll realize that we have been short-changed because this one is of an inferior quality compared to the earlier version. Shame on you Hot Toys for giving us inferior products.


Here's Hot Toys Col. Hans Landa (portrayed by the brilliant Austrian actor Christoph Waltz) wearing his 1/6 scale leather-like black trench coat over his WWII German Grey uniform and carrying his leather-like black briefcase




Hot Toys has included an extra left hand designed to carry the briefcase which can be opened, of course. They should have used this same thick leather-like material for the pistol holster instead of the cheap looking type SIGH!


1/6th scale Col. Hans Landa (with approximately 29.5 cm tall TrueType body) wearing the black and grey colored German Officer's cap with badges (SS eagle and insignia of a Totenkopf or skull head)


Now holding 1/6 pipe and grey gloves in hands


Col. Hans Landa: May I smoke my pipe as well?
Perrier LaPadite: Please, Colonel, make yourself at home.
[Hans pulls out a very large pipe five times the size of Perrier's]

Close-ups of the 12-inch Nazi Waffen-SS Standartenführer (Colonel) Hans Landa's 1/6 scale tobacco pipe by Hot Toys



The 1/6 scale German Officer peak cap (Schirmmütze) with SS insignia (Totenkopf or skull head) on the front of the band and the SS eagle above is IMHO one of the ugliest caps I've ever come across. It has no shape whatsoever and looks almost like a chef's hat (a toque instead of the totenkopf). That's two things that's not kosher now. The word "kosher" (a Jewish word) has become a part of English slang, a colloquialism meaning proper, legitimate, genuine, fair, or acceptable.


By dropping a subtle hint about whether or not to leave LaPadite's family alone in the future, Landa manages to break down LaPadite and locates the hiding place of the Jews underneath the floorboards. He orders his soldiers to fire into the floorboards, killing all but the teenage Shosanna.

Nazi Waffen-SS Colonel Hans Landa aims his Walter P38 pistol at Shosanna as she runs away from the LaPadite home.


I always felt that Hot Toys 1/6 figures have HUGE hands and you can see from this picture that Col. Hans Landa is not able to put his entire finger inside the trigger guard to squeeze the trigger properly - no wonder he missed!




Well, after taking Hot Toys Col. Hans Landa out of the box and putting him together, I'm a little disappointed with this figure after having come to expect GREAT things from Hot Toys. He doesn't come with a lot of extras and although the UGLY P38 holster can be covered / hidden by the black trench coat, the out-of-shape HIDEOUS Officer peak cap is there for all to see :(

NEXT: Pictures of Hot Toys Lt. Aldo Raine and Col. Hans Landa side by side

5 comments:

WL a.k.a Wee Loong said...

Hi Alex,

agreed on the peak cap... Soft headwear has always been tricky for toy makers...

Berets are still ok but garrison or wedge caps are very tricky...

the one on my DiD Maj. Winters did not fit well at all whereas the one (nick-named 'pilotka' by Russians during WWII) on the Vasily Zaytsev was juz nice..

Asrul "iLham" Sany said...

hope for Eli Roth figure form this series. hohoohoh

Anonymous said...

he didn't miss.

peredevis said...

Alex, I'm totally agree with your last words, although looking good enough figure with nice portrait sculpt, there some details with the uniform that also bother me… first of all the ribbon on the right breast pocket is wrong at all. Landa wears all the time, with every uniform thru the movie the ribbon for the Blood Order Medal (a true nazi decoration BTW, that recalls on the Munich putsch of 1923) which was the only one award that was placed there. The ribbon on the HT figure pocket is for the Iron Cross, an award that Landa, as a bureaucrat hardly could won and of course never would be placed on the right pocket. In this way, don't awarding the iron cross to Landa was a wise (and great) background detail scored by the movie production even it's truly tempting for film industry putting iron crosses on every nazi appearing on the screen.

Other detail I don't see is the SS eagle on his left sleeve; the diamond shaped SD patch (the Colonel is a policeman) and the cuffband are missing as well. Other minor detail is with the right sleeve, Landa wears thru the movie the chevron of honour of Old Fighters, another "true nazi award" that gives you a nice idea of what a kindly guy he is and which is missing here. Maybe Hot Toys thought that collectors will display the figure with his leather coat and saved costs with all this. But the more bad looking detail comes with the front buttons of the feldbluse, since these are not hidden by the coat. Where's the upper button? It should be a button next to the collar! The same way that the lower button is too low! And finally they look totally unaligned with different length gaps between them (let me ask if they are sewed or just punched, in the coat they seem to be sewed…)

The other awards on his left pocket seem to be ok according to the screen and the rules, the Golden NSDAP badge in the middle (again a true Nazi prize) and the War Merit Cross without Swords at the bottom (the ribbon on his "second" breast button is for this award also). As for his ribbon bar above the left pocket, I think they placed it upside down, since the most important award displayed appears at the far left and must be the first at the right (the War Merit Cross) If you see closely the scenes with monsieur LaPadite you'll see that they did correctly the work for the movie, don't know why Hot Toys failed again with this. Despite that, the bar looks correct.

Sorry for being too tedious.

alex teo said...

hi Pere, thanks for the detailed comments and taking the time to write it all down :) Hot Toys seem to have slacken in quality and detailing on this particular figure which is a sad thing since I was so looking forward to a good 1/6 scale Col. Hans Landa figure to accompany 12-inch Lt. Aldo Raine CHEERS