The single boxes do look better. I wonder why I went with the Luxury version. Probably a better value....or something. Hard to remember a year ago..
Individual boxes easier to store in separate locations. Essentially the "Luxury" box is just the smaller boxes combined and made inconvenient.
My saga with these has been interesting. I was over the moon at the sculpts when I pre ordered them. I got annoyed at the amount of time it took for them to finally be released. I had the "everything packed together" set ordered. As the economy kept growing worse, and some discontentment with KP, I cancelled my order.
After seeing all the online videos and pictures, I realize there were more things I liked about them than I thought. So I found a way to acquire a set of exclusives, packed individually. Which should be here today.
My thoughts on these, based on what I have seen online, without having my set yet:
The pros:
1. The head sculpts are
amazing. The exclusives are the way to go; in order to get the stoic, 'vanilla' head portraits of both characters. Which happen to be my personal favorites here.
2. Exclusive packaging has some
stellar art work. Individual exclusive packaging will help (in my case) with storage.
3. The tailoring is quite nice, especially with regards to Van Helsing's Chesterfield coat. It's superb. My only quibbles are with some slight tailoring issues. Listed below in the "cons".
4. KP appears to have improved upon their Lugosi release: the boxes appear more collector friendly this time out (Bela's box flap is super thin, and bent in several places when I removed him). I am hoping the wrist pegs are sturdier, and not as brittle as Bela's. I like the fact they went with wrist inserting method this time around to hide joints.
5. Bottom line, this set is probably going to be highly sought after amongst fans of the film.
The cons:
Inaccurate fashion faux pas:
1.
Trousers of the era for these fellas were without belts. No need for belt loops here, or on Bela. Yet all three have them. No one in this film is wearing belts, because the attention to details of costuming were followed pretty closely here and in Curse of Frankenstein. If you're going to make the error of adding belt loops to period specific clothing, thread a cheap belt through there for crying out loud. Belt loops with no belt is...well, just plain silly.
2.
Dracula's neckwear. Ole Drac wasn't sporting a skinny tie in the film. Or any of the films in the series. A star Ace or Product Enterprises crevat would have been more accurate.
That's it for the cons: 2 minor fashion quibbles. Fortunately for me, I have an extra crevat. Guess I better go buy some belts,lol.
EDIT: if I am going to include all "quibbles" with regards to inaccuracy: That white coffin should be filled in with some sculpted, chunky dirt,lol.