You may not know much about a company called The Bridge Direct but they are the ones who are making all of the wonderful Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey action figures. Here we are going to take a look at a Hobbit Movie 6 inch Action Figure Review – Thorin Oakenshield.
I was browsing around in Toys “R” Us the other day and I came across these guys. I have seen them on the net quite awhile ago but didn’t order any because I actually wanted to see them in the store and decide then if they were going to be worthy of picking up or not. Well, they actually were! Let’s take a look at Thorin Oakenshield.
Packaging
The packaging for this figure is pretty nice. The graphics match nicely with the films design. On the front of the blister card, you see the Hobbit movie logo with mountains in the background and the character name on the bottom. Also, by the character name, there is a shot of the character from the movie. That’s a nice little touch. The figure and the accessories are displayed nicely.
On the back of the card it tells you a little bit about the movie reading:
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey follows the journey of Bilbo Baggins, who is unexpectedly swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost dwarf kingdom of Erebor which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of 13 dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the wild through treacherous lands swarming with goblins and orcs, deadly wargs and giant spiders, shape-shifters and sorcerers.
Also down below that you get a brief bio of the figure himself (you should be able to read that). You can also see the figure again and the rest of the figures that are also in 6-inch scale.
I like the packaging, though it would have been nice to say on the packaging all of the accessories that the figure comes with.
Sculpt
Now obviously I haven’t seen the movie to judge how movie accurate the figure is but I’ll be taking a look at how the figure looks compared to what I have seen for the Hobbit movie so far. With this figure, you can definitely see that the figure is Thorin. The figure has a ton of different textures on his armor/clothing, which are all very well done.
You can see the texture from the fur on his coat, his mail armor, his boots, the wood shield on his arm, his robe, skin, weapons, and buckles. All of it looks highly detailed. His hair is well done and you can see some of the strands nicely.
The weapons aren’t really as detailed as I would like but I think it’s more of a paint factor. He comes with 2 swords, 1 long and 1 short. The long sword has a sheath that connects to his coat on his back and the short sword goes in the sheath on his robe. He also has a wooden clip-on shield type attachment that clips on his right arm. It’s a pretty cool accessory. His coat can also be removed fairly easily.
Paint
Thorin’s paint is pretty good though I am not too fond of his skin. The skin is what brings this figure down. The skin tone is plain and dull. Other than that the paint on this guy is amazing. Everything is straight and there is no slop anywhere even considering the detail on the costume. There is some nice shading on the fur on the coat and on the upper arms of his robe. For his hair, there are even a few grey hairs running through his hair.
As said before the weapons are lacking on the paint job. Not sure if it is just the silver paint they used or they just didn’t care too much about the detail on the swords. Anyways the weapons look even more disappointing than the pictures actually show.
Articulation
Since this guy is wearing so much clothing he has some problems in the articulation area. Let’s see what he has:
- Ball joint head
- Ball joint neck
- Swivel/hinge shoulders
- Swivel/hinge elbows
- Swivel wrists
- Ball joint hips
- Swivel/hinge knees
- Swivel/hinge ankles
Now with all of his gear on his head is pretty limited. If you take everything off you can move his head side to side and up and down. It is just limited by his beard and hair. He has nice shoulder range of motion and his elbows only bend to about 45 degrees. His hips are ball joints but because of the way they are sculpted and because of his robe it is hard to get him in any kind of action poses.
While he’s not super articulated, he is still pretty cool.
Fun Factor
I’m sure that if you are able to get the whole gang (especially the Goblin King) these figures would be pretty fun. Though he is lacking articulation I’m sure the fun factor would still be there.
Overall
Overall I love this figure. This is the first product that I have picked up from the Bridge Direct and I must say that I am impressed. I would recommend that everyone pick up some of these guys. I was looking at some of the 3.75″ figures by them in the store though and they didn’t look near as good. While these 6″ figures will only run you about $14.99 I think it is well worth the money.
Ordering Options
UPDATE: eBay is your best bet for finding this figure.
Click this link to: search eBay for this Bridge Direct Thorin Oakenshield action figure.
