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I get a distinct feeling that the original release just wasn't selling much at all, so they have redone two of the heads more in a traditional Conan style in the hopes of boosting sales, and tying it closer to their upcoming Frazetta lines. Remember, after all, they were shooting for 200 Ex's on this originally, but last I heard still have stock left after reducing that all the way down to a mere 50 ex's.
And while, generally speaking, I think the new head sculpts really are an improvement overall, it's a shame that they are so passive, especially the helmeted head (which I find to be the better of the two), as these hardly look like the faces of a mid-battle Conan about to cut into a giant snake. I wasn't a big fan of the original heads personally, but at least they sold a sense of exertion mid-battle, something that these new ones seem to lack. So while the look of Conan himself has been improved, the look of Conan in battle has actually been diminished somewhat in my view.
Meanwhile the thing that people complained about the most, the girl, doesn't seem to have been addressed at all during these latest shenanigans.
I also think just arbitrarily making this change and dropping it on people out of the blue like this, this late in the game, is a rather poorly thought out effort, likely to lead to nothing but confusion, and in some quarters, possibly even anger from some customers. If they were going to do this, it could have been handled in a far better, more customer friendly manner, rather than just suddenly going "Hey, you know that statue you've already ordered, we've just changed two of the heads. You're welcome!" and then trying to deal with what should have been seen as entirely predictable consequences of such an action only as they happen after the fact. Made even more difficult right now by the fact that ARH's website and emails still aren't functioning yet. This is a very expensive item, so such radical late changes really should have been handled in a far more informative and customer friendly way than this.
I also wonder how Sideshow and other retails will feel, given that they have been put in a position where they could be accused on pre-selling a product based on misleading information and images. Outdated images that they are still using, even now. And you could very easily envision a situation where customers that such outlets already have for this piece may remain ignorant that the product has been changed, and may be in for quite a shock when they eventually find out.
Interesting days ahead...
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