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Just in case you don't know
these three lovely ladies, here's a quick re-cap. Barbra is the young
blonde
who was visiting the cometary with her brother in the original Night of
the Living Dead. The see an odd man coming toward them across the
grounds, and her brother jokes with her "They're coming to get you,
Barbra...". Sure enough, he was right.
If you don't know who Maureen
Robinson
is, then shame on you. Played by the veteran actress June Lockhart, she
was the first and finest 'space mom' from the classic television series
Lost In Space.
Finally, there's the vampire
chick from the classic 1957 movie Blood
of Dracula.
Pretty much a female version of I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was A
Teenage Frankenstein, the plot is wholly forgettable. The trailer
claims you'll have nightmares for the rest of your life - I wouldn't
bet on it. However, the sorta vampire, sorta werewolf monster is a
classic.
Packaging - Maureen
**1/2; Barbra, BoD ***
The packaging for Barbra and the vamp has graphics from both the film
and of the actual figure, allowing you to pretty easily compare. They
are also both done in the now standard fifth panel style, and are
completely collector friendly. You won't have to damage anything
getting them out, and putting them back is very easy.
Maureen's
box is a little different. There's actually a reason for this, but it's
still an inferior box. The cardboard used is quite thin, and she's held
in place inside with a bunch of twisties. You can still get her out and
put her back, but it will take more effort, and the box and insert
aren't going to hold up to a lot of shelf (or storage) wear.
The
reason they did this is because they released some other characters in
this series several years ago, including Dr. Smith, and I'm sure they
wanted the style of box to match.
Sculpting - Maureen
***1/2; Barbra ***; BoD **1/2
Call me crazy, but I think all three of these ladies have excellent
head sculpts hiding under less than stellar paint work. The trick is
seeing past that paint, to the potential underneath.
Maybe
it's just because I haven't seen the show in years, but I really see
Maureen Robinson in this portrait. From the lips to the shape of the
eyes and face, the cut of the hair and especially the nose, I think
they captured her extremely well. Yes, there's some paint issues that
can make it difficult to appreciate just how good the sculpt is, but
we'll get to those in a minute.
Barbra is also quite good,
although I'm deducting a little for the thicker, tootsie roll
appearance of the hair, especially near the ends. She has a very slack
appearance to her expression, which is very appropriate for her
appearance on the couch, while she was still in shock from her
brother's death and the zombie attack. She's also quite pretty, a
rarity in female sixth scale figures.
The Blood of Dracula vampire
figure takes a hit here for a couple reasons, one not obvious from
photos.
The
basic sculpt is still fairly accurate to the source material, although
the nose and teeth look a little off to me. Remember, this was a crazy
chick vampire who had more than a little werewolf in the mix, and that
wide eyed, Russian mail order bride eyebrow, over-bite look is indeed
how she appeared. As I mentioned, the nose looks a little off, the head
is a smidge too large for this petite body, and I wish the hair had a
bit more detail (more like Maureen's), but with a repaint I think the
head would score extremely well.
Beyond the smaller aesthetic
issues, there's one large issue that is not apparent in photos. Someone
didn't check the final fit of this head sculpt on this body, because
the stiff long hair won't allow the head to stay attached. Move the
head slightly, especially toward the back or sides, and it pops right
off the short neck connector. That's a huge fail that could have been
easily avoided with either slightly re sculpted hair, a thinner neck
(so
the head could sit lower on the connector), or a longer interior
connector.
Maureen and Barb stand about 11
1/2" tall, and the
vamp, with her poofy hair, comes in about a quarter inch taller.
They'll fit in fine with most male sixth scale figures, including those
already produced in these series.
Paint - Barbra ***; BoD
**1/2; Maureen **
They should make a movie about the Beast of Bad Paint, who rises up and
tears out the beating hearts of small toy companies every where.
Not
all the news in this category is terrible though. Barbra turned out
pretty well, with straight eye, flossy lips, and clean eyebrows and
hairline. I like how they did the light wash on the hair to bring out
the detail, and while she looks a bit zombified herself, that's
appropriate to her appearance through most of the film, where she's in
total shock.
She does sport the annoying lip
line, where they allowed the paint to pool. That's becoming a pet peeve
of mine.
The
vamp has fairly clean cut lines, but her skin is a bit gloppy, as
though dirt or crud got into the paint at some point. She also have a
couple rub marks, one on her eyebrow and one on her forehead, that hurt
her overall appearance. And while most of the cut lines are clean, she
does suffer from some paint bleed into the whites of her eyes.
Maureen
is the big disappointment here, and really screams out for a repaint.
She suffers from a lazy eye, but it gets worse - the eye in question
(the right) also has a larger iris and pupil, giving it a terrible
googly eye appearance.
I do like how they did the wash
on her
hair, as it brings out the detailing quite nicely, but the hair line is
pretty poor, with skin color riding up into her locks.
Her head sculpt is nice enough
that I think a repaint would certainly be worth it, particularly if
you're a huge LiS fan.
Articulation - BoD **1/2;
Maureen, Barbra *1/2
All three figures come on the exact same bbi/Cy-girl style body,
complete with nipples. I'm not mentioning that just to get the extra
traffic that 'nipples' tends to bring, although one can't argue with
results.
I'm
mentioning it because it's actually an issue for the BoD vamp. Her thin
sweater tends to rub, giving her two small 'dots' on her clothes that
are tremendously obvious in person. And believe me, it's always
distracting. I know we're supposed to look you in the eyes, but when
you flip on the high beams, they tend to blind us.
However, I'm
not deducting anything for that, just mentioning it as you may want to
shift the sweater around a bit to avoid permanent marks.
The BoD
figure has the one big flaw here I already mentioned - her head won't
stay on. I complained in the Sculpting section, because it could have
been avoided by changing the sculpt slightly, but I'm also mentioning
it here because a longer neck connector, or narrower neck, could have
also fixed the issue.
Her other issues are smaller,
but still
there. The ankles on this body work well in boots, like Maureen's, but
not in heels. They tend to be too loose, and God are they ugly.
There
was a little looseness in some of her other joints, but nothing major.
This body can take some very good poses, given the right outfit and a
head that doesn't fall off.
Both Maureen and Barb had a much
more
serious issue - breaking wrists. Barb's right wrist was broken right in
the package, and when I opened the box and looked at Maureen, her right
hand fell off. I'm not joking.
I've heard a ton of complaints
that this is happening across all the female figures using this body
right now from Amok and ER. I didn't have the issue with the
BoD
vamp (and I moved her hands around quite a bit to be sure), but the
other two clearly have a severe problem. Breaking wrist pegs isn't
unheard of - God knows I've broken my share of Hot Toys
wrists -
but it generally requires some amount of force. Here, the hands are
practically falling right off.
The official word from the
company
was posted on a couple sites - "...In our latest release; the 12"
Maureen Robinson figure, there has been a few issues with the
manufacturing of the product. Please, whether you purchase the figure
fro us or any other retailer, be exceptionally careful with the hands
as they have a tendency to break. I am checking all the hands before
they ship from us but without knowing, you the customer, can attempt to
reposition the wrist and break it. My recommendation is before you
attempt to position the hand, carefully pull the hand and wrist pin out
from body and carefully move the hand up and down. DO NOT try and turn
the hand as it will break from the wrist joint. I apologize for this
issue and we are attempting to get more wrist in stock to replace
broken ones but it will be several weeks before we receive them in
stock. Thank you." Unfortunately, even touching the hands in the least
bit will cause them to break, so the instructions aren't particularly
helpful. Also, this isn't a problem confined to Maureen, as lots of
Barbra's have the same issue. Word is they are trying to get
replacements, but these are bbi/Cy-girl hands, so you may be able to
get your own replacements pretty easily. It goes without
saying (although I'll say it) that at $70, you shouldn't need
replacements.
Lest you think I'm being harder
here on a broken wrist than in the past, I point you to my recent
review of the Hot Toys
Predator Billy figure,
who also ended up with a broken wrist peg. He got just ** stars in this
category, and that was coming down from a better overall body in the
TrueType.
Accessories - Maureen, Barbra **;
BoD *
Amoktime
hasn't been exactly overloading these lower end horror figures with
extras, and these three ladies don't do much to break the streak.
Maureen
Robinson gets both her blaster and the funky holster. The blaster looks
great, even if it is slightly oversized, and probably fits well in her
right hand. Sadly, that's the hand she's missing, so I couldn't do much
to test it out.
The holster is truly bizarre. I
don't know what
form of hallucinogenic drug the production designer was doing when he
came up with this thing, but then Lost in Space was pretty well known
for some weird designs. It's a large plastic tube, with a candy cane
style stripe around the outside. The blaster fits well, and the tube
has a clip to attach to the belt, but it's sure to draw some sniggers
from those too young to remember the show.
Maureen was also
supposed to have a display stand, and it's even mentioned on the box.
Sadly, it's not present, and again they've posted official info -
"...the figure DOES NOT come with a stand. The reason for this is the
stands that were originally made had a severe warp in it that I felt
was not acceptable but we could not get the new one done in time to
ship with the figure so when the next figure(s) are produced, all those
that ordered a Maureen Robinson will be sent one. We are also getting
in replacement hands for her as well in the next few weeks..."
I
don't know how they plan on doing this, since most people probably got
her through another retailer. The stands may not be particularly good,
but for those that use them regularly, it's a downer.
The other
two figures do have their display stands, and the logo on both is about
as basic and cheap as you can get. They work, but they aren't something
you'll want to show off.
That stand is it for the BoD
vampire,
hence the pathetic score. Barbra does a little better, because she also
comes with a very well done knife. She clutched said weapon in her
hands in the film for awhile, although a baseball bat would have been
more effective against zombies. Great decision making wasn't her strong
suit anyway, helping to result in her fate as late night barbecue.
Outfit - Maureen ***; BoD; Barbra
**
None of the outfits are particularly complicated, and all three show a
nice attention to detail, with one glaring exception.
Maureen's
is the nicest of the three, and pretty appropriate for the cost and
character. She wears a pink sweater complete with little buttons
underneath the tunic, with well tailored pants and a good boot sculpt.
The oversized belt is consistent with the show, and works well with the
goofy holster.
It does come out of the package
a bit wrinkly, so
a shot with the iron is probably in order. It's also a bit more
lavender in color than I remember (I thought the outfit was very blue,
much like the dress you see on Barbra), but that could either be my
color blind eyes playing tricks, or my old man memory betraying me.
Unfortunately
for the BoD vamp, her tailor is a meth addict. The sweater fits well,
showing off her bosomy attributes, and the scarf looks great, but the
skirt rides much too high on the body. In fact, if it did ride lower on
the hips, it would look terrific - unbutton it in back and adjust it
and you'll see what I mean. You won't be able to button it in the lower
position though, as the skirt needs to be wider in the hips and tighter
in the waist to get the right look.
Then there's her shoes. I
don't know what you expect when you pay $70 for a figure, but I
certainly don't expect cheap, rubbery, non-descript shoes that Barbie
wouldn't be caught dead in. It's not that the style is simple, but that
these look like dollar store rip off Barbie quality.
Sadly these clodhoppers are on
Barbra as well. They look even worse, done up in canary yellow.
Barb
has a very straight, armless dress on, which matches both the film and
the style of the day. The yellow tie around her neck looks good, and
the quality of the stitching and materials is fine.
But a key
aspect of her costume is her coat, and it appears to have been tailored
by the same blind epileptic that worked on the vamp's skirt.
The
shoulders on the underlying body aren't very wide, but that hasn't been
taken into account here. The coat is tailored with a huge collar, wide
enough ti fit around the outside of her hair, although that's not how
anyone would wear it. I worked long and hard at trying to get the
collar under the hair and around the neck in a reasonable way, and I
was completely unsuccessful. The collar is so long, end to end, that
the coat wants to fall off her shoulders, and if you pop her head off
to tuck it up under the hair, the ends still run too far out. It also
means that like the BoD vamp, the head pops off every time you move it.
I'd
recommend going with the coat hanging half off her shoulders and back,
much like it is in the first full photo of her in this review. At least
that way you can capture the disheveled appearance she had after the
attack. I'd prefer a coat that actually fits, but you work with what
you have.
Fun Factor - *1/2
I suppose it's altogether possible that some little girl out there
might want one of these, but with wrists breaking and heads a poppin',
I don't think they'd get a whole lot of fun out of them.
Value - *1/2
Don't kid yourself - $70 is still a lot of money on the sixth scale
market. Sideshow sells figures like Captain Antilles or Ki-Adi-Mundi
from their Star Wars license (an expense license to get) for $70, and
fully armored Stormtroopers for $90.
There
are only two features here that elevate these figures about the $20 -
$30 mass market figure from someone like Hasbro: the head sculpts and
the license. The head sculpts, with a better paint job, would be
certainly better than the usual, and let's fact it, if you want a Blood
of Dracula vampire, this is the only game in town. You have to keep
something in mind though - just like 2am at a bar on Friday night, that
two bagger at the end of the bar didn't get better looking, you're
just disparate.
Things to Watch Out For -
I'd warn you to be careful with the hands, but I don't think any
warning will help. The two hands that broke were barely held in place -
the only way to not break them is to not touch them in anyway, and even
that might not work. They're going to need to get an awful lot of new
hands in stock for replacements.
Overall - Maureen **1/2; Barbra, BoD
**;
Take away the obvious huge issue of the breaking wrists (and it's huge
because it's so consistent and wide sweeping - if it were a one off
situation, it might be more forgivable) and lazy eye paint job, and
Maureen Robinson is not a bad figure. The head sculpt is better than
the paint allows for, and the outfit and accessories are decent. At
$70, she's too expensive, but I'm assuming the production run on these
was pretty low.
The
other two are far below her quality, sadly. The head sculpts are the
one saving grace here, keeping them from dipping even lower. BoD
suffers from a head that won't stay attached, an poorly tailored
costume, weak paint, and no accessories, all for a big price
tag.
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