I liked Ridley Scott’s Prometheus
a whole lot the first time I saw it.
It is by no means a perfect movie. I’m
honestly not even sure I can call it a great movie. But it is
a massive spectacle with a bunch of interesting characters, some
beautiful cinematography, and some interesting themes. I am still
thinking about Prometheus and what was actually going on in
that movie.
But we’re not here to talk about the
movie, we’re here to talk about the toys.
NECA definitely snuck up on me with
this one. I had no idea they had the license or that there were even
going to be toys. Then they just showed up on the company’s
Facebook page one day and I knew I would be buying them. The
first series includes this figure and an Engineer in a pressure suit.
We’re getting a figure of Michael Fassbender’s David in the next
series and I sure hope NECA is planning on producing the giant
face-hugger from the end of the movie, not to mention one of the
dickhead geologist after he’s gone all monster.
First Glance: This is a
large figure, as it should be. It is in scale with NECA’s other
offerings in the 6” scale. I was excited the second I saw these
guys in the store (I’m speaking of this one and the Pressure Suit
version). The mask looks an awful lot like Morpheus’.
Articulation: NECA
doesn’t really have any kind of standard articulation or number of
joints, but their work more than any other toys feel like they really
plan it to be as utilitarian and aesthetically pleasing as possible.
Head – ball joint
Shoulders – ball joint
Biceps – swivel
Elbows – swivel/pivot
Wrists – ball joint
Waist – ball joint
Hips – ball joint
Thighs – swivel
Knees – pivot
Ankles – ball joint
The head is weird. I’ll talk about it
more in the Sculpt section, but the fact that the giant proboscis is
tucked into the… uh… chest armor… thing… doesn’t interfere
with the movement as much as you might think.
The rest of the articulation is
somewhat limited by the bulky armor pieces, but this figure can do
pretty much everything the Engineers in the Navigation Suits in the
movie could do. He can look like he’s running, he can recline, he
can stand. Unfortunately you can’t take his head off because
of all the wires and doodads connecting his torso and his head; so he
can’t be decapitated. Also, his head can’t explode.
Side Note: I will
refer to this figure as “he” throughout this review even though I
strongly suspect the Engineers are androgynous or maybe even
hermaphrodites.
The wrists and ankles aren’t full-on
ball joints, they’re simply mounted on pegs with rounded ends so
they have a degree of motion in every direction. Also, the waist is a
similar situation – not a full-on ball joint, but a nice rotational
range of motion.
All of the points of articulation blend
very well with the sculpt.
Sculpt: Wow. Just wow.
To have this small model of Giger’s Navigator is awesome. Because
regardless of what you might think of Prometheus or any of the
other parts of the franchise that Alien spawned, this is the
Navigator from Alien. I mean, not the same character, but this is the
suit. And it’s awesome.
The head is so reminiscent of Morpheus’
helm from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman that I wonder if Gaiman and
artist Sam Kieth drew their inspiration from that original Navigator.
Anyway, there is a whole lot going on here. There is plenty of fine
detailing on the facial portion and on the helm. The proboscis looks
almost spinal and is possibly the creepiest portion of the figure. I
like very much how it disappears down into the chest portion. There
are also several small tubes and wires connecting the head to the
torso. They are a soft but sturdy plastic and I’m not too worried
about them breaking or pulling out of place.
The arms and legs of this guy are
creepy. Overall this suit really does look like one of the familiar
aliens from the franchise, more so than the actual alien at the end
of Prometheus, as a matter of fact. The lines and detailing on
the limbs are very nice and flow well around the joints.
Coloring: The color
design is basically uniform across the figure. The base is a glossy,
almost metallic black. There is a sort of silver wash all over. It
doesn’t necessarily correspond to the details of the figure, but it
also kind of does. I can’t quite explain, but the pictures do. It
looks really good.
Flair: The chest piece
is actually a soft plastic that flexes around the abdominal joint and
the proboscis from the helmet. It looks very much like a xenomorph
torso with the ribs and spine and everything. The plastic is
flexible, but not so soft it doesn’t hold the proper shape and
display all of the bony extrusions nicely.
The back of the piece appears to be some sort of life support pack. This is where the wires and tubes coming out of the head go.
Accessories: The
Engineer does not include any accessories. I understand why. It’s
because he’s freaking huge and has a lot of little sculpted-on
stuff. But it would have been cool to have a decapitated head.
Packaging: Blech. It’s
a clamshell. Although I will say even if NECA didn’t already make a
habit of putting their figures into clamshells, these guys probably
would have come in them. The art is nice and for the first time ever
I remembered to take a picture of the credits for the figure:
Nice that NECA does that.
Value: I feel pretty good
about paying $17.99 for this guy. He’s big, he’s massively
detailed, and he is well articulated.Obviously Ash is not included. He's just there to show you how big this guy is.
Overall: I can’t
imagine a way this figure could be better. I mean, within reason.
Before Prometheus even existed I wanted a figure of the
Navigator. Granted, I wanted the chair, too. But here he is. Yeah –
they made pricey model kits and stuff, but I wanted an actual toy.
And maybe, if we’re lucky, NECA can find the resources to put
together the chair. That would be rad.
5
out of 5
I got mine at Toys R Us, but I have
been to a couple more since then and they seem to be sold out of
Prometheus figures. I would imagine they will get more in, but
if you see one I’d go ahead and buy it.
Phantom
Troublemaker vs. 31 Days of Halloween
If you’re new here or haven’t been
keeping up, this is where I give my thoughts on SyFy’s “31 days
of Halloween” programming. Obviously I haven’t seen everything
I’ll be talking about, but that’s kind of what the internet is
all about – talking out of your ass.
Each day I will cover the schedule from
the time my post goes live (usually 11 AM) through the following 24
hours. On Fridays I will cover the whole weekend, which is a huge
pain in the ass but also kind of fun.
Enjoy!
11:30 AM – 3:30 PM – Alphas
– SyFy has made a bit of a big deal out of Sean Astin joining the
cast of this show. I wonder if that’s done anything for ratings. I
like Sean Astin and all, but he’s more of a, “Oh, look – it’s
Sean Astin,” kind of guy than a, “Holy shit! Sean Astin is in
this! We have to watch now!” kind of guy. Especially if a
show isn’t very good in the first place.
Halloween score – 1
Quality score – 2
3:30 PM – 5:30 PM – Queen of the
Damned – This is
a marathon of SyFy’s new Original Series about drag queens that
dress up as vampires and zombies and stuff. Not really, but I’d
watch that before I’d watch this shitty movie.
Halloween score – 5
Quality score – 2
5:30 PM – 8:00 PM – Hannibal
– Did you know they’re making a show about Hannibal Lecter? Yep.
And it’s from Bryan Fuller, who made the excellent Pushing
Daisies, wrote some of the best
episodes of Heroes,
created Dead Like Me,
and least importantly but most impressively adapted Mike Mignola’s
Amazing Screw-On Head
into one of the best cartoons I’ve ever seen. He also created the
reboot of The Munsters
(Mockingbird Lane)
that I took a lot of shit for defending back when it was first
announced but pretty much everybody that has seen it has said it’s
great. So fuck you guys that gave me shit. This show is so cool NBC
has cancelled it already and it hasn’t
even aired yet. It’s premiering as
a sort of movie thing on October 26th.
You think Firefly
was so rad for only getting one season? Mockingbird
Lane only got a pilot,
motherfuckers.
Oh – Hannibal is pretty good.
Halloween score –
4
Quality score – 4
8:00 PM – 9:00 PM – Alphas
– “God’s Eye” – This is what they’re spitting in for
creating such a lousy show. I’m kidding. I don’t think Alphas
is that bad. Honestly, for all I know it could be great now. I just
hated the episodes I watched back when it first came on.
Halloween score – 2
Quality score – 2
9:00 PM – 11:00 PM – From Dusk ‘Til
Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money – I already said I’d
give this another chance. Get off my back, SyFy.
Halloween
score - 4
Quality score – 2
11:00 PM – 12:00 AM – Alphas
– Repeat.
Halloween
score - 2
Quality score – 2
TUESDAY
12:00 AM – 2:00 AM – From Dusk ‘Til
Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter – The more I think
about it, the more positive I am that I really liked this one.
Ziggurat.
Halloween score – 4
Quality score – 3
2:00 AM – 4:00 AM – Drag Me to Hell
– Fucking RAD movie. Classic Sam Raimi. I can’t believe they
aren’t showing this in a better time slot.
Halloween score – 5
Quality score – 5
4:00 AM – 8:00 AM – Paid Programming
– I don’t know why, but I thought it would be really funny to
just put a Limp Bizkit video here:
Halloween score – 1
Quality score – 5 (for paying the
bills)
8:00 AM – 11:00 AM – Hot Set
– This show is good enough to warrant more than a tangentially
related music video. But here’s one anyway:
Halloween score – 3
Quality score – 3
Come back tomorrow for my recap of the
sexy and spooky return of the Sexiest Band In The Whole Muthafuckin’
World!
-Phantom
No comments:
Post a Comment