So my thoughts in a general way about this whole thing are really mixed; on one hand I just love that this most iconic character is FINALLY getting his just due. I feel he has been neglected somewhat not only by major companies but even on the custom market.
Blitzway is a company that I respect a lot. They have (until now, here’s looking at you Cutthroat Island) selected much needed and beloved licenses and really drove them home through production. This is consistent here, the idea was there, the love was there the engineering was there. What’s not there is the most alarming and inconsistent drop off I’ve ever seen from the company when it comes to production. Ghostbusters was delayed for a lot longer than these and I wonder if these were rushed out somewhat?
I’m going to focus on the gurney version here but I will probably talk about the other one a bit invariantly which I will review a bit later. I will also prefix that this is not geared to give killer pictures (I don’t have my SLR here with me so the pictures suck) but really dissect the figure and as I always do, I ran right into fixing things so I don’t have a lot to show for what it was right out of the box.
As I mentioned this is really geared towards us few old school guys here who have been in this Hannibal game for years now and have the rest of the stuff that’s been put out there.
The Sculpt: 4/5
Let me be frank in saying that the reason it’s not a 5, as it damn well could and should have been is that I detected a very slight distortion in the production castings. I think there is a bit of vertical squishing happening. Other than that the plastic used may be a bit too orange and shiny which I think is throwing off the base of the paint somewhat, but it is high quality PVC and the size is just right. Not to go unmentioned is the stellar likeness and detail. I might not that the hair could use more detail but I think a lot is to do with the paint. There is no mistaking this is an epic and amazing portrait of Hopkins as Hannibal.
Right: Iminime (always hated this sculpt)
The Paint: 1.5/5
Where to start here. Let me just say that if I was Yelim I’d want my name taken off of the box. It’s true Blitzway has always had a drop off from prototype problem nothing has ever been this severe. I talked a lot about why it’s hard to replicate a paint job like Yelims in the pages before, but what is most concerning here is not the replication it’s just how poor this is by industry standard. Now let me say, the issue here is not sloppiness… crisp eyes and details are present, it’s more about overall depth, finish detail and tone. It’s an incredibly flat base with very little detail in the tone, which is rendered atop this orange and shiny PVC base (even hitting this thing with a standard Tamiya matte coat spray may do wonders) the skin freckling is odd… the hair… perhaps the most shocking, a crude and harsh gray slab of paint with clear neglection to his very prominent bald spot and McFarlane Toys esque dry brushing was kind of reminiscent of a 2006 Sideshow sculpt to me. Other odd things are his one tone teeth that do not have a spot gloss on them. Three zero, a company I have a lot of issues with… stack their Saul Goodman up to this from paint and production standpoint and you will think you’re looking at a masterpiece by comparison. There is no excuse for this and it needs a full repaint… there is no saving this by adding tweaks or details, it has no leg to stand on as a paint job.
The outfit: 3.5/5
What we have here is the nicest and most accurate straight jacket we have seen yet with really lovely weathering. I’d argue it was too white. This always seems to be overlooked. The classic scene with the senator is a bit tungsten lit, but If you look at the scene when Hannibal is in his cell wearing the cage mask, there is an overhead shot where you see white papers om the desk, you can see how much more off white and crème the jacket is supposed to me. I dyed mine with a dash of chocolate brown synthetic RIT to match what is on screen, which made the weathering a bit less stark which I don’t mind. This is for us obsessive folk. If you care about the character at the very least dip it in coffee for a bit. If you want to live with what they gave you, I wouldn’t fault you for that either. The collar is not as thick as it should be but they got the little yellow lining in there and there is a wire in it which is a godsend.
The jumpsuit is nice but the main issue is it’s just too big and baggy, had I not had the iminime option I’d have been OK with it though. Now I won’t fault blitzway for this because as far as I know there’s literally no way to tell what that jump suit looked like under the jacket. A quick google search will link you to a non-official reference that looks like the iminime one with the printing on the back and the number on the right breast. Not the way blitzway went. I don’t know which is accurate but I like the iminime approach better on principal, I also prefer the brighter color and more tapered fit.
Top: iminime
The body situation 1.5/5
So I’m pretty sure what they put this on was that Ghostbusters body. So Hannibal under his stuff is ripped to shreds with massive John Cena triceps and the overscale 7 foot tall approach. I’m happy though that the head doesn’t seem to be in scale with that. I’d be pissed if I was the kind of collector who liked things stock, but more than happy that he won’t have a bobblehead when I switched him back to a more proper scaled body. So yeah, the body is a terrible choice and all kinds of wrong, way too massive he can’t assume natural poses in the strait jacket. I’d almost have wished that theory just gave his body a moded piece like the arms on the white prisoner outfit because this was truly awful. He comes on the same white fat suit that the other one has and I think it actually mimics his body well. It especially shines on a regular thin truetype body. He also has nice cupped hands, the sculpt and paint is terrible on them but it doesn’t matter as they are intended to be hidden.
You will see on mine that I used my old combo regular TT legs and upper TT thin with the iminime fat suit. you can get away with the aforementioned thin TT body and the BW fat suit just fine also
Left is an old style TT that I modded a bit (all I had here)
this is what I used
The Accessories 2.5/5
Here we go, well let’s talk about the mask again quickly. It’s a major bummer that they changed the sculpt to be inaccurate from the prototype but as Robbie found out it was likely due to rights issues. I wonder how NECA got away with this? Sculpt side the paint is also terrible wrong color and way less detailed than in the prior pics. But I guess that’s no surprise.
The little sign thing is also very cheap and plasticky looking.
The shoes are nice, they got the brown soles. Which you can see in a split second frame in the dolly scene. I find it hard to determine what kind of shoes he actually wore but these do the trick nicely.
The points here come from the gurney, I divorced myself from the masterpiece that is the Robbie one and tried to think if this objectively. I have to say it’s not bad but the overall quality can feel a lot better even in plastic this FEELS plastic. HT does a lot better job of having plastic look and feel like metal. This sort of reminds me of something from Hasbro (albeit a step very much above them). They got the design right however, it also lowers and raises well. Robbie’s have a lot more detail and logic in the design (padded bars make a lot more sense than bare metal bars) but again this joke paint job gives him a dark brown pillow. Where did they get that idea from? it’s so clearly visible for so much of the film and it’s white.
The mesh mask is pretty decent despite it being soft plastic, it looks surprisingly realistic. It hooks to a piece under the pillow, Robbie interpreted his differently and built those rings it into the mask closure, we can’t tell which is right but both approaches work.
Robbie's is the one on the left
Robbie's is the one on the right
Robbie's on the left
OVERALL 2.5/5
If they gave him a proper sized body, and gave him a great paint job it would shoot up to a 3.5. Or a 4 If the dolly was made out of a plastic that felt less like plastic and had some paint weathering and detail it would shoot up to a 4.5, This feels like a rushed effort from BW and is pretty heart breaking to see. I really don’t see anything also coming out from this company any time soon that’s worthy of buying but I hope they continue their trend of kick ass licenses and I hope they slow down and keep the bar high because the slim here in quality is beyond inexcusable. BW can, has and damn well should strive to do better.
What you see here is Robbie’s stuff, the sculpt swapped on the body situation I mentioned above, the iminime jumpsuit and the sculpt that once I get around to repainting will put a top 10 in my collection item… but the reality is it’s so far from what BW offered.
THE VERDICT IF YOU HAVE THE OLD CUSTOM FIGURES:
1. Don’t buy this
2. Buy the straight jacket loose
3. Buy the Fat Suit loose (optional)
4. Buy the shoes loose
5. Buy the head loose
6. Get the head repainted
iminime jumpsuit on a thin TT and BW fat suit and a HEVILY MODIFIED BW white version (more to come on that, the body was a mess out of box)
on the right is straight out of box BW
