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Packaging - **1/2
This is a BIG figure. And yet he comes in a relatively small
box...something you might get the usual 12" plastic figure in, just a
little deeper. How is that?
Because he comes in pieces, baby...pieces. All the tentacle-like pieces
come separately, to be attached by you, but that's probably no
surprise. He also comes cut off just above the knees, and you need to
force the legs on. This also means there's a cut joint above the knee,
which is mighty nice to have.
Because of this, the presentation in the box isn't great. You can get a
feel for the sculpt and paint work by checking him out through the
window, but his truly impressive size and well designed articulation
won't be apparent until you see him free of the twisties.
And oh yes, there are twisties. Twenty four of them, to be exact. And
these aren't new, fancy, easy to open twisties , oh no, these are old
school, break out the wire cutter twisties. Be prepared to spend a few
minutes getting him out of the box.
Sculpting - ****
If the figure looks familiar, than you must have seen the NECA 7"
Alien. Yes, it's based on the same sculpt, blown up to quarter scale.
And it looks even more beautiful in this scale. It is common for a
sculpt to lose detail as the size of the figure increases, but that is
not an issue here.
Did I mention this figure was Big? Yes, it warrants the capital 'B'.
This is a figure scaled to 18" = 6 feet, so the figure itself actually
stands almost 22" tall straight up. Even hunched over, he comes in over
19" tall, but I did find that seemed a little small compared to other
18" scaled regular humans. Another inch would have been perfect, but
I'm still quite happy with his size. There is a photo with a sixth
scale Donald Trump to show the difference with a 12" figure, and the
Teague in the second to last photo is the NECA 18" version.
The figure is also predominantly solid plastic - no rotocast arms and
legs here. He's very solid, and that hard plastic holds the detailed
sculpt extremely well. It also means that the hard, solid legs should
be able to hold up the weight of the torso over time without wilting.
I've got my fingers crossed.
And the figure does stand great on his own. The sculpt and articulation
are designed to work in concert, making some seriously beautiful music.
The hand sculpts are right out of the film, and the detail work on the
various body parts is impressive.
This is the original Alien, so you can see through his clear skull to
the interior bone. This dome has what *might* be a plastic seam down
the center, but it's so tight and so buffed out, that it also just
might be the V ridge at the top of his head, molded to look that way.
The various internal proportions - head, hands, arms, legs, torso, feet
- all look screen accurate to me.
Paint - ***1/2
Alien purists - and you know who you are - are going to find reasons to
fault this figure. Either the metallic gray/black body won't be quite
enough gray, or black...or metal. The vein pattern on the interior
skull won't be exactly right, or the shading on the doom won't be
enough/too much. None of these things seem to be issues to me, and I've
watched the movie about 267,398 times since it's initial release (in
fact, I just watched part of it again last night one Encore), but an
extremely detailed comparison of this figure to the actual suit is
bound to bring out some flaws.
For me, and I'm betting most folks, any issues with the paint in terms
of technical details are really very minor, and are not going to ruin
one's appreciation for this exceptional figure. The shading and
highlighting on the body looks terrific, and areas that require an
extremely fine and clean application, like the interior skull, have it.
If I didn't have a couple specific issues with my paint job, this would
have been a four star category. Unfortunately, there are a couple nits
on my figure that got negative attention. First, I have what appears to
be white paint slopped onto several of the 'fins' on his tail, near
where it connects to the body. It looks like someone was painting
something else, and bumped it several times with another brush in their
hand.
I also would have liked a slightly better application on the silver
teeth. Mine isn't quite as clean and consistent as it could be,
particularly for a specialty market figure.
Finally, there's the interior jaw. The detailing and wash are a bit
more heavy handed on this area, making it look less realistic and more
toy-like than the rest of the figure. It's visually jarring enough that
I don't plan on displaying him with the jaw extended at any time.
Other than the work on the interior jaw, these issues are most likely
specific to my figure, and hopefully aren't a consistent issue across
the run.
Articulation - ***
The most articulated large scale Aliens we've seen have been the
excellent Hot Toys versions. The use of a rubber 'suit' over the ball
joints at key areas like the hips allow them to have a tremendous range
of movement and still look movie accurate. Of course, they also cost 3
times as much as this figure, and are only sixth scale, not quarter
scale.
The figure has a good ball jointed neck, which tends to tilt downward a
bit better than backward. In the hunched pose, I really wanted to bring
his head back a bit more, but was restricted in doing so by the sculpt.
Still, it tilted to the sides and turned quite well for this style
figure. The soft rubber 'hoses' that attach from his head to his torso
do not restrict the movement of the head in any significant way.
The shoulders are ball joints (post/pin) on the torso side, with a
straight cut joint on the arm side. This gives the shoulder a better
sculpted appearance while giving him a good range of movement for
posing.
The elbows, knees and ankles are all pin joints, but very tight pin
joints. This is important since this is a solid, heavy figure. You
don't want him wilting over time, or getting loose knees and ankles.
Both the knees and ankles are also 'clicky' style pin joints, giving
them even greater strength in a set position. I've had him standing,
crouched, for about 48 hours now, and there's no sign of any joint
fatigue.
He has cut joints at the wrists, above the knees and at the hips as
well. The cut joints were necessary at the hips to maintain the great
looking sculpt, and they actually work better than you might imagine. I
was able to get him in a variety of stances, including standing up
completely straight just like the old Kenner toy!
His chest is a ball joint that allows for tilting, turning and leaning
forward and back. It helps a tremendous amount with the posing, giving
extra life and realism to what otherwise would be rather static stances.
Let's not forget the tail, which is bendy of course. The bendable
nature works quite well too, and I was able to get it into several very
good poses. The figure stands great on his two solid feet, so that you
don't have to use the tail to support his weight. That gives you a much
wider range of possibilities in terms of posing the deadly appendage.
Last but not least, there's his mouth. The jaw is hinged so it can open
wide and you can pull out the inner jaw/teeth. This works okay even
without a mechanism to extract and retract the hidden mandible. The
mouth doesn't close quite as far as on the 7" version, and in general
the articulation doesn't work quite as well, but considering the size
and price, I'm very impressed.
Accessories - Bupkis
Nope, nothing here to see. But considering the price and the character,
I'm not complaining too loudly. Let's face it, there's a limited number
of things to complement the figure (facehuggers and eggs tend to be the
most common), so not getting a bunch of extras and keeping the price so
low was a smart move.
Fun Factor - ***1/2
Do you know kids that love monsters? Then they'll love this guy. Yea,
he's supposed to be a 'collectible', but you could play with him with
little concern or worry about breakage or damage. Well, as long as
you're not talking about the damage to your kid's psyche. If movies
have taught us anything, it's that kid's that are fascinated by
monsters grow up to be psychotic social misanthropic serial killers.
Then again, movies also teach us that you can: escape from any room
through an air vent; a kid's special hidden genetic powers are always
activated by puberty; and evil aliens are always killed by either a) a
common virus, b) water or c) Slim Whitman music, so I'm not so sure
they're telling us the whole truth.
Value - ****
Usually, figures end up in that middle of the road area when it comes
to value. Why? Well, because you usually get about what you pay for.
Sometimes it's a little less...sometimes a little more. But for the
most part, it's in that ** - *** star range.
And then once in awhile you get a REAL value, something that is giving
you quite a bit more than you normally can get for that kind of money
on today's market. This figure is a perfect example of that. A huge
figure, made from solid plastic, with an intricate sculpt, excellent
paint, and terrific articulation - all for under $40 at some retailers?
And this is a specialty market item on top of it? Wow.
Consider this - Mattel wants you to pay $30 for a 12" almost statuesque
rotocast DC figure at mass market. And this - the same retailer selling
the 18" Hellboy 2 rotocast figure for $60, is selling this Alien for
just $37. This is one of the best values I've seen in ages, and while
the use of the same sculpt as the 7" figure helps, you have to admit
that it's pretty impressive that they were able to do this figure at
that kind of price point.
Things to Watch Out For -
As I mentioned, I had one Hell of a time getting the legs attached
without any gap. I finally did it using boiling water for a minute on
the hard pegs, and I was able to force them on.
Overall - ***1/2
Don't get me wrong - this is an outstanding figure, and is currently
the best 18" action figure we've gotten this year. I'm betting he's
going to be one of the best action figures we get all year, especially
at this price point.
Unfortunately, I had those few paint issues that hold him back from the
perfect four stars. I can't give him that rating with the white paint
splotches on the tail - it's just too obvious. Still, I'm betting that
this is not a consistent issue, and odds are that you'll get one
without the problem. Take away the minor paint complaints, and you get
a full four stars from me.
NECA is also doing a great job in this first half of the year of making
themselves a contender for the Best Company of the Year. With this
Alien and the exceptional TMNT figures, they already have two major
feathers in their cap for 2008. Both this Alien and the comic based
Turtles are figures that fans have been craving for a long time. I'm
certainly thankful that NECA stepped up and too the risk, getting them
out there for us.
Score Recap:
Packaging - **1/2
Sculpting - ****
Paint - ***1/2
Articulation - ***
Accessories - Bupkis
Fun Factor - ***1/2
Value - ****
Overall - ***1/2
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