Review
Frodo and Sam in Orc Armor | Artist: Gentle Giant | Edition size: 3000
What I like about Gentle Giant’s foray into LOTR is their off-kilter strive. The blatant example being the wild and somewhat bizarre animated maquettes. Their other Rings cornerstone by contrast, breaks no real conceptual traditions; we’ve all seen polystone busts before. You can, however, tackle some old ideas in a fresh way.
Gentle Giant has accomplished this by shrewdly veering from rehashed subjects. Frodo and Sam in Orc armour is a fine example of this (see the upcoming Dark Galadriel for another). It’s exactly the sort of wild variant that people have longed for after years of seeing these characters at their most iconic. Imagine that GG had tossed out the Hobbits in plain Shire garb again– it would have been suicidal.
Under this direction, Gentle Giant is freed the shackles of ‘iconic’, one to which Sideshow is understandably bound in Premium Format (thankfully they have an outlet in the way of dioramas).
These are the first Gentle Giants I have come into possession of, but they don’t seem all that alien to this longtime Sideshow Weta collector. Same smell and everything. You may have noticed that these resemble statues cut off at the legs, more than they do busts, in the classical sense. It seems to be something of a GG tradition. And being 1/6 scale, it’s a good decision, a necessity even. Still, licensing complexities notwithstanding, I can’t help but think how much more popular this line would’ve been if they’d have just gone the rest of the way and issued statues.
There’s much ado about Gentle Giant’s 3D scanning technology, with which I am not 100% familiar– I can only assume that it was employed here too, and to reasonably good effect. Indeed, unlike Sideshow or Weta, there are no sculptor credits to be found on the base, box, or on GG’s site. The likenesses are at least on par (in the case of Sam), or a tangibly improved (Frodo) over Weta’s early hand sculpted efforts. Paint’s pretty ok too.
Though not the pinnacle of refinement, both are plenty detailed and absolutely well put together. Major bonus points for casting Sam’s blade in metal (or some other type of solid, weighted material). This is a nice change of pace from the flimsy, warp-prone attachments that SSW collectors are used to.
Practically speaking, the little ‘Ring drawers’ are beyond pointless. Let’s face it, there are far better places to hide your jewelry than Frodo and Sam’s bum. Still, I recall they ran a tie-in promotion for 100 Noble Collection One Rings; it’s hard to fault a cool promotion. Of course, the best trick up GG’s sleeve here are the removable Orc helms. Serendipitously meant to be oversized and awkward, the idea works well, and add a tremendous amount to the overall value.
It’s the interesting possibilities that make Gentle Giant a worthy player in the game. Still begging Sideshow for a Prologue Elf Warrior Premium Format? Keep dreaming. I’ll stake my bets on the line with Snaga in the pipeline.
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