Figma – Indiana Jones 6-inch Figure

“Look at this. It’s worthless — ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless.” — Belloq

Indiana Jones has had a bit of a checkered action figure history. More than once a line based on the popular franchise has been released, but it seems it’s never been able to maintain the sort of traction necessary to make it successful and lasting. Six-inch collectors, in particular, have been waiting a long time for an Indiana Jones figure to add to their collections. With the release of the 6-inch Star Wars Black Series last year, and now with Funko releasing 6-inch figures based on a variety of popular pop-culture properties, the prospect of a 6-inch Indiana Jones line started to look like a thing that could happen.
That’s why the release of this Figma figure was so exciting. Figma is known for producing superarticulated figures that are quite comprehensive in terms of extras and add-ons. I own the four Figma Nintendo figures and I love them. They’re fantastic representations of characters from each respective property, so I was more than intrigued to see their take on Indiana Jones. I placed my order on amiami.com with the quickness the day preorders opened, and then once he was in stock I selected the more expensive, faster shipping option because I couldn’t wait to get my mitts on him. Once I did have him in hand, my excitement faded pretty quickly, unfortunately.

The packaging design screams classic “Indiana Jones,” and it was difficult to not feel waves of nostalgia upon opening the shipping box from amiami.com. The window does a nice job of showcasing the figure and the majority of the accessories included. The overall presentation here is pretty great, but once the figure is removed from the packaging, the initial anticipation gives way to disappointment.

At a glance the figure looks OK, but still somewhat off. The sculpt is decent, but there’s something decidedly non-heroic about the figure and its proportions. I’ve seen a few people refer to his proportions as “cartoony,” but I don’t see that; he just looks like an average Joe to me. The thing that gets me, though, is how his jacket works, particularly his shoulders. They create such a jarring, sharp point when his arms are at rest that it just looks weird and strange. It looks like he’s wearing a brown vest over a two-tone brown shirt.

I think we all carry a certain image of Indiana Jones with us in our heads that manifests itself whenever we see or hear the name. It’s usually the rugged, scruffy hero from the first three movies, but that’s not what we’re seeing here. Sure, the jacket, hat, shoulder bag, and whip are all present and accounted for, but even with all those crucial attributes in place, this figure still doesn’t scream “Indiana Jones.”

The head sculpt sort of resembles Indy as he appeared in the fourth movie in the series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but even then, not really. He was definitely older in that movie, but he still had that “Indiana Jones” vitality and grit. When I look at this figure, however, I cant help but think it’s Kevin Spacey’s character from American Beauty in an Indiana Jones costume — an average middle-aged guy having some cosplay fun.

The head sculpt just doesn’t work — that’s the main issue here. From the worried brow (seriously, Figma?) to the splotchy and weird paint apps to the sculpt itself, this is missing the mark in a huge way. The paint apps are just terrible here, especially the way they pool around his nose. It succeeds in making him look both aged and sick, as though he’s suffering from some sort of skin condition. Hives? It may be just my figure that suffers from this, so your mileage may vary, certainly, but even better paint apps wouldn’t be enough to save this sculpt.

His hat is easily removable and he looks pretty funny without it, so at least it’s providing some lulz. The hat comes off so you can split the two halves of his head in order to switch out his eyes. Because he comes with swappable eyes for some reason.

With his head split and the eyes in place, he looks like some kind of early 20th century automaton nightmare. This is my favorite thing about the figure.

With the swappable set of eyes in place, Indy is now looking slightly to the right. Again, that’s slightly to his right. Let’s take a look at a side-by-side comparison of these two sets of eyes:

I cannot fathom why they even bothered. The effect is so subtle and ultimately nonessential that to me it feels like a waste of resources. To be able to change the direction of his gaze while the rest of the face maintains a sad, pouty expression seems pointless. Maybe you’ll see something in this I don’t, but these extra eyes are making me roll my own eyes. It’s so pointless.

You know what would have been cool instead? A swappable face that could give us the option of displaying a youthful, rugged Indy rather than just this old, sick one.

Another significant source of aggravation is the holster on his hip. It’s a hard, more rigid plastic piece that doesn’t do anything but sit there on his hip. His gun can’t be stored in it, it can’t be removed, so all it can do is prevent his right leg from moving in any meaningful way. This is frustrating because it effectively kills his ability to be posed in any number of action poses. This was another poor decision on Figma’s part.

His left leg and arms enjoy a robust range of motion, but that right leg may as well be a stump the rest of him rests on.

The bright spot in this set, however, are the accessories. He comes with one key accessory from each of the first three movies: the idol from Raiders, one of the stones from Temple of Doom, and the Grail from Last Crusade. All three are pretty awesome and true to the source, but they also confuse me. Seeing as how these are his pack-ins, it seems to indicate this figure would be based on Indy as he appeared in those first three movies, but what we got more closely resembles Indy as he appeared in Crystal Skull, the one movie that is not represented here with an accessory. Or is Indy’s head the thing that’s supposed to represent that movie in this set? It certainly seems that way, which is mystifying.

He also includes three pairs of swappable hands: a set for holding his pistol, for gripping the whip, and for holding his other accessories. I like that they give us so many options, but a few of these don’t like staying in place. On mine, the right hand used to grip the whip will fall out of its socket with the slightest provocation. A few of the hands are like that, which is annoying. This could just be an issue with my set, but it’s worth mentioning.

In addition to the movie-specific accessories and the swappable hands, Indy comes with a pistol, a rolled-up version of his whip, and a shoulder bag, but the bag really isn’t an accessory since the strap is permanently affixed to his upper body — I just wanted to point that out. Under the bag there’s a hook-thing where the rolled-up whip can be stored, but I haven’t tried it because it feels like it could be a gamble in breaking the hook. You pretty much have to bend the plastic in order to get the whip in there.

This main accessory — the whip — is yet another lesson in frustration since there isn’t a lot that can be done with it. It’s also a very fragile piece. The whip does not bend at all, and it splits in the center for some reason. At the point where it splits there is a peg that can very easily be snapped off. I’ve read a few accounts already of people breaking their whips at this point, so be careful. I found this pointless little trick right when I removed it form the clamshell, so I didn’t break mine, but I can definitely see how easy it would be to snap this clean off. Again — approach with CAUTION.

The whip is permanently posed in this configuration, so there really isn’t much that can be done with it. Some sort of bendy material would have been preferred, just to give it some kind of fun factor, but oh well.

To put it in his hand, you can pop off the very base of the handle and then just slide the grip into his hand. At least they made that aspect easy and effective.

If the whip had been posable, that would have been almost enough to convince me to keep this figure. I would have had him posed above my Star Wars collection swinging from his whip, but since I can’t do that, right back in the box he went.

He fits in decently with a 6-inch collection and is just a smidge smaller than the Black Series Han Solo, a figure that cost a fraction as much, but benefitted from an all-around better execution. Hasbro has been killing it with their 6-inch offerings lately, and putting this Indy in a display with them further highlights the figure’s shortcomings.

I was pretty darn disappointed with this figure. Disappointed enough to sell it on eBay the same day I got it. There was no way this figure was going to grow on me, and I didn’t feel as though it was my job to “fix” all its issues. If this had been a retail offering, I would probably have gone easier on it and would have probably kept it. But at a premium price point (I think I paid around $60 shipped from amiami.com with EMS shipping), there was no way I could convince myself this was worth what I paid.

I want a good Indiana Jones figure in my collection, but it looks like I’m going to be waiting a little longer for someone to do it right.

Discuss on our forums!

Buy (but really give it some thought first!) from Big Bad Toy Store.