Anybody that has been collecting modern
Doctor Who toys has been dying for a proper Rory Williams figure.
Barring the brief stints of Mickey Smith, Captain Jack, and that guy
that ended up with the computer interface in his forehead; Rory is
the first male companion since Turlough accompanied Doctor Five all
those years ago.
Forgive me for not including any
“expanded universe” companions. Someday I’ll get around to
listening to the audio productions. Maybe when Marc Maron stops doing
his podcast twice a week.
Anyway, Rory is definitely among the
top companions having been involved in the Doctor’s life since the
start of his eleventh incarnation and sticking around until the
recent run-in with the Weeping Angels in New York – just under
two-and-a-half years in our time and a longer tenure than some
Doctors’.
I like Rory a lot. I didn’t at first.
Nobody likes the schlubby guy who’s with the hot redhead. “What’s
up with that?”, everybody says. But two things won me over –
first was how real Rory was. He acts like we would act. He thinks
about what is going on, he’s concerned about life, limb, and the
wisdom of running after an alien into deadly situations. He is
thoughtful and realistic about things and that’s something we’ve
never really seen in a companion before. Honestly, it might have been
off-putting if not for Arthur Darvill’s portrayal.
Second, Rory’s devotion to said hot
redhead can’t be questioned. And he isn’t just mindlessly
absorbed and following her around the universe like a dog. It’s a
thin line, but he really established his character during the whole
“Doctor or Rory” thing. He is devoted to Amy Pond and doesn’t
care what you think about it. That’s good stuff.
It’s mind-boggling that it took until
after his character was written out of the show to get an action
figure, but now we have it as the swan song of the 5” modern Doctor
Who line. No further figures will be produced in this scale, making
this long-awaited release bittersweet. That may seem dramatic, but I
and many others have invested a lot of time and money in our
collections. After going so many years with no Doctor Who toys at
all, we dove headlong into the new, relatively easy-to-obtain
offerings. And now Character Options is switching scales; making our
collections obsolete and forever incomplete. We’ll never have a
5”-scale Oswin Oswald or Madame Vastra or Strax. Or – and this is
the one that galls me the most – a playset of the new TARDIS
control room. If we want those things, we are going to have to start
all over again with a new 3 ¾” line that will be an entirely
separate entity. Furthermore, according to CO we will not be seeing 3
¾” figures of things from before The Snowmen. Just adding
to the frustration is the fact that the Classic Doctor Who line is
continuing on at the five inch scale. Baffling.
But for right now we’ve got Rory and
he does round out the collection nicely.
First Glance: This might
not be the most exciting figure ever, but it certainly is Rory. I
wonder of CO is going to be able to maintain the same standards of
sculpting and articulation on a smaller scale.
Articulation: Rory
features the same basic articulation as most other Doctor Who
releases in this scale.
Neck – swivel
Shoulders – swivel
Biceps – swivel
Elbows –pivot
Wrists – swivel
Waist - swivel
Hips – swivel/pivot
Thighs – swivel
Knees – pivot
Rory’s head just barely moves. I
don’t know if it’s the design or just my figure, but I had a heck
of a time getting it to turn and was a little worried about twisting
it off. Not too worried, as this is a solid, durable figure.
I’m a little disappointed that Rory
doesn’t have the swivel/pivot shoulders we’ve seen on some of the
more recent releases from the line. I will say that his bicep swivels
work a little better. Some of the other figures have very narrow arms
and the bicep joints look awful when they’re anything other than
neutral.
His hip movement is somewhat restricted
by his low-hanging shirt and vest. Okay, well – really restricted.
This guy won’t be sitting in that comfy TARDIS chair.
Aside from the neck, the joints are all
tight and clean. Nothing sticks or is too loose. What poses the
figure can achieve will be held.
Sculpt: The figure is all
new parts. Even the hands. If you’re gonna go out, I guess you go
out with 100% new tooling.
The head is a fantastic likeness of
Arthur Darvill. It’s a bit serious while also looking slightly
bewildered. Obviously this works. All of the Doctor Who releases have
had a certain softness to them (appearance-wise, not material-wise),
but I think this works better than overly-sculpted features. It has
not only given the line’s humans a more uniform look, it also makes
them look more, well – human. And yes – I understand that the
doctor is not a human but Matt Smith is, so hush.
The vest and shirt covering the torso
are a separate piece. This makes them look much more real and gives
the figure depth. The details of both items of clothing are well
done. The shirt has buttons and folds and stuff. The vest looks
particularly good – the seams are stressed and have little wrinkles
running out of them and the thickness is neat. It’s funny – I
feel like this vest/shirt is one of the best-sculpted pieces I’ve
seen in the Doctor Who line.
The jeans look good. They narrow
slightly as they go down to the shoes, which are plain but also good.
Rory mostly wore moccasin-type hiking boots, so these work. The
joints on the legs blend particularly well.
Coloring: Mr. Williams
is fairly basic, but this line hasn’t ever made extensive use of
washes or highlighting.
The hair and eyebrows and eyes are
well-placed and the right shades were used. Nothing is off-center or
makes you feel like CO missed the mark a bit. The skin tone is also
solid.
The vest and shirt are pretty much just
blue and red. It’s worth noting that there is a variant of this
figure with a black vest and white shirt. I like this one better.
While I love the sculpt of the torso
piece, the paint job on the jeans is also notable. The timing is
interesting here, because I was just bitching about denim on action
figures in my John Constantine review the other day. They
almost always look shitty. But not Rory’s. The paint job on these
is fantastic. The wash was placed just well enough and is just dark
enough to give the right look.
The shoes are brown. What can you say
about a couple of brown shoes?
Flair: Nothing, really.
There’s no way in hell that vest/shirt is coming off without
ruining the figure, so no.
Accessories: Also
nothing. I cut this line a lot of slack because it’s Doctor Who,
it’s foreign, and what we do get tends to be very good. But if I
was being completely fair I would say that the lack of accessories is
not okay. He could have at least come with one of those cubes from
“The Power of Three”. My Idris figure came with, like, six
Time Lord soul cubes (or whatever).
I just realized I don’t think I ever
reviewed her or the junk TARDIS. Crap. I need to get on that.
Packaging: Just a regular blister card, which is pretty much my favorite kind of packaging. There's a bio on the back:
Value: $17.99 plus around
three dollars shipping (he came with some other stuff from
BigBadToyStore) is too much. Way too much. But seeing as you’re not
going to find another Rory figure in this scale anywhere, ever; I
guess you have to deal with it. Keep in mind that this is an import.
It’s what I keep telling myself.
Overall: Pricing aside, I
am very satisfied with Rory. He does round out my collection and is
the last figure I would consider essential for this era of Doctor
Who. He looks great.
4
out of 5
He’s available from pretty much every
online retailer for now, but I would recommend you go ahead and get
him if you even think you might want one. As the last
entry in the line I think he might be very hard to find sooner than
later.
Man, he'd be a perfect start for a Marty Mcfly custom. It's not like Mattel's doing one any time soon...
ReplyDeleteHa! Good call. It didn't even occur to em that there was more significance to the outfit they chose for the Rory figure. Obviously that's proven time-travel gear!
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