Tag Archives: diamond select

May 12 2010

Ghostbusters: Stay Puft Marshmellow Man Bank by Diamond Select

This thing has been out there for quite a long time now, and I’ve had it in my basket at various e-tailers more than a few times, only to wind up cutting it in favor of something else. But as my collection of Mattel’s Ghostbusters figures has grown, my desire to own Mr. Stay Puft in plastic form has become more and more pressing. Today when I saw him on the shelf at TRU, I decided this was the day to get him.

I’m really not a fan of this type of packaging. Staypuft comes in a cardboard tray and twisty tied to the back in a rather flimsy manner. It looks ok from a presentation standpoint, and you certainly get the complete idea of what you’re getting, but the obvious drawback is that the toy is exposed to the elements. Granted, he’s just a big hunk of plastic, so there’s really nothing on him that can break, but out of the seven that were on the shelf, only two were without some kind of serious scratching or rubbing. One of them looked like a herd of cats had played with it. Sure, I was able to get a good one, but it makes me really happy that I didn’t order him online and have to get one sight unseen. The back panel shows off Diamond’s other Ghostbuster’s toys, nearly all of which are the Minimates, which I have zero interest in. The Slimer bank looks nice, but ultimately, the only reason I bought Stay Puft was to go with my figures, so Slimer is a pretty easy pass.

As the package says, Stay Puft is a bank. Ok, actually, you practically have to get him off the package to see the word bank hiding behind his head, so you might miss his actual raison d’etre. While I have no interest in keeping coins in him, his true purpose is still significant, as it points out that this guy is not a figure, but rather a hollow statue. His articulation is limited only to his head, which is designed to twist off so you can get to the money you put in. I suppose you can also fill it with Fluffernutter. His arms are fitted so they could technically swivel, but mine don’t want to and I don’t want to force it.

The sculpt here is obviously simple. After all, it is based off a cartoon style marshmellow man, so you can’t expect a whole lot of detail. They really nailed his appearance, but I doubt it was much of a challenge for Diamond’s sculpting wizards. My only complaint about the sculpt is they didn’t make any attempt to hide the coin slot, which is right on the back of his neck tie. I can’t really hold that against Mr. Puft, since he is a self proclaimed bank, and at least its on his back and not on the top of his head or anything.

I paid $20 for Stay Puft, which I guess isn’t too bad. He is pretty big and pretty nice for what he is. Considering the much smaller Ghostbusters figures from Mattel are sold at the same price point, I can’t complain too much. Ultimately, he definitely serves the purpose I bought him for as he displays real nice with the other figures. Sure, he’s not in scale with the Mattel figures, but he’s sizeable enough to make for a good stand in. Even if Mattel does ultimately release a Stay Puft, I doubt it would be much bigger than this guy.

Apr 20 2010

Battlestar Galactica: Stealth Warrior Cylon by Diamond Select

I’m old enough to have been a fan of the original Battlestar Galactica and for the first three seasons of the new series, I thought it was a one of the best sci-fi series of all time. After that it went into the crapper faster than shit through a daggit. I’m not going to go into the tortured mess that the show finished as, but suffice it to say I barely made it to the end, and I shouldn’t have bothered. But none of that really has anything to do with today’s post. The fact of the matter is, I loved the Cylons from the original series, and I really liked the retro-style Cylons that were briefly seen from time to time in the new series.

I have no intention of collecting a bunch of Battlestar Galactica figures, but I’ve been jonesing for one of the retro-style Cylon figures ever since I first saw them. On my recent trip to Toys R Us, I found one hanging on the peg and grabbed it up really fast. Now, the one I’m looking at today is the TRU Exclusive Stealth Warrior Cylon. I really didn’t even notice that until I got him to the checkout. I’d have preferred the regular flavor, but since he’s basically just a darker version of the same figure, and they didn’t have any others, I was happy enough with what I got.

The packaging is serviceable, but nothing special. Its a bland card with a huge bubble. As big as the figure is, there’s still a fair amount of unused space in the bubble. The Battlestar Galactica logo and the figure’s name are both printed inserts. There’s an embossed sticker on the bubble to show its a TRU exclusive. Nothing terribly exciting about the presentation here.

The retro-style of this figure comes from the use of what is essentially the old style Cylon head from the original series. The body is redesigned to be bulkier and less streamlined than the Centurians from the new series, but still a lot more machine like than the suits of armor used for the original series Cylons. Portions of his arms and legs are little more than robotic framework and he’s got all sorts of exposed hoses and hydraulics. His backpack is a nod back to the original Cylons and I really dig the array of ammo clips he has circling his waist. The result is a retconned predecessor to the new Centurians from a pretty cool mix of old and new, all of which is executed really well through an amazing sculpt.

The Cylon’s articulation is exceptionally well done as it makes not only for great poseability but really accentuates the overall design. The head moves from side to side, the arms feature balljoints in the shoulders, hinged elbows and swivel cuts both right above the elbow and at the wrists. The legs have hinges in the hips, double hinges in the knees to give his legs a chicken-like appearance, and hinges in the ankles. There are simulated functional hydraulics in both his biceps and the back of his lower legs.

The figure comes with only one accessory, an old style machine gun. I’m still kind of iffy on the choice to have the Cylons use conventional firearms in the series, rather than the lasers. I realize it was by design to add more realism to the show, and I suppose its really just a matter of taste. Either way, the machine gun is nicely detailed, but there’s a bit of a disconnect in its design, since it obviously wouldn’t fit any of the ammo clips hanging around the Cylon’s waist. It makes me think he was intended to come with a second, larger weapon.

Mr. Stealth Warrior Cylon cost $13.99, which is a pretty good price considering he’s pretty big and has loads of detail. I’m not one to usually just buy one or two pieces from a figure line, but in this case, I just love the figure’s design so much that I couldn’t resist. Eventually I’d like to pick this guy up in the regular chromed variety as well as the gold version too. Ah, now if only Diamond made some that were to scale with my Doctor Who figures. I guess I’ll just have to settle for a Star Trek crossover.

Mar 7 2010

Star Trek: Captain Kirk and Electronic Command Chair by Diamond Select

I’ve had my eye on this box set for a while now and the only thing staying my hand was the fact that I already own the Kirk figure, so I knew I’d be buying it just for the Command Chair, or to have two Kirks to recreate “The Enemy Within” or “What Little Girls are Made Of” or whatever other episodes happened to include a duplicate of the Captain. Well, this week I found it at TRU for only $15 and I decided that it was finally time.

Let’s get Kirk out of the way first, because he’s really old news to me as this is the exact same figure that was released by Diamond Select on at least two previous occaisions. I picked up this figure when it was offered by Diamond Select the second time around and double packed with Uhura. Its a good thing too, because the quality on the Kirk that came with my chair isn’t really up to par. His head sculpt and paint apps are fine, possibly even a smidgen better than on my carded Kirk, but his arms look kind of dirty and there’s some additional smudging on his back, some of which has come off, and some won’t. The rubbery uniform shirt doesn’t fit as well as it does on my other Kirk figure and it makes the ball joints on his shoulders look prominant and awkward like its obvious that the sculpted sleeves on his arms aren’t part of the “shirt.” The figure isn’t a disaster, but I can’t help but wonder if Diamond Select held back some of the poorer figures to bundle with this chair.

In case you don’t already have the Kirk figure, he sports the same excellent articulation as the other Classic Trek figures. There’s a ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders, swivel cuts in the biceps, hinged elbows, swivel wrists, swivel at the waist, the legs rotate at the pelvis, the knees are hinged, and there are swivel cuts in the thighs and just above the boots.

On the other hand, the quality control on the chair itself has a few issues too. The left arm piece feels like it could pull off given just a bit of coaxing. But what really sucks here is the paint and overall finish of the piece. The seat is full of scratches, which are thankfully masked so long as you have a figure sitting in it and the back has gray paint misting all over the black part. But the real eyesore is that the arms and front right hand corner of the base looks like they’re scuffed and worn. Maybe Diamond Select was going for recreating an exact replica of the chair prop after having been stored in a warehouse at NBC for 35 years, but I doubt it. If I bought this thing off of Ebay, I’d swear that someone banged it around, had their kids play with it, and then sealed it back up in the box. It just doesn’t look new.

Its a real shame, because other then that the chair is really, really cool. Besides the fact that Kirk looks great sitting in it (and I mean my other, cleaner, better Kirk figure), the control panels on the arms look very show accurate and the electronics are wonderfully done. The chair comes in a “Try Me” mode, so to get the full functionality you’ll have to take it out of the package and flip the switch on the bottom. You may also want to top it off with three fresh AAA batteries, although mine still had some life left to them.

Pressing the rear right panel activates a voice clip and the left rear panel activates a corresponding sound effect. The sound effect will not change until you hit the other panel and play a different voice clip. I like it better than if they each just fired off random clips. Each of the panels on the armrests also light up as the dialogue and sound effects are activated and the left panel even flashes between red and green. Oh yeah, if you hold down the right button for three seconds and let it go, you can hear the entire prologue to the show and the lights will stay lit for a short while afterwards. Very cool.

There are a total of eight phrases and eight contextual sound effects:

  • “Chekov, arm photon torpedoes.” [Torpedoes firing]
  • “Resume course to our next destination, Mr Sulu.” [Impulse engines]
  • “This is Captain James Kirk of the USS Enterprise.” [Computer bleeps]
  • “Lt. Uhura, open a channel to all decks.” [Intership comm whistle]
  • “Security alert to all decks, Kirk out.” [Red alert claxon]
  • “Kirk to Engineering, Mr. Scott report.” [Explosion]
  • “Position report, Mr. Spock.” [Computer bleeps]
  • “Prepare to attack. All hands to battlestations.” [Phasers firing]

While I’m disappointed by the overall quality control on this set, I can’t say I’m sorry I picked it up. I love the electronics, and its still a decent enough display piece. I’m just surprised that Diamond Select would ship out product in this poor condition. Plus, considering the accessories for these figures have already been sculpted, it wouldn’t have killed them to toss in a phaser and communicator. Although I did run into some similar QC problems with my Captain Picard and Command Chair, but I’ll save that for another time. At around $15 at TRU and many E-tailers, I’m still going to recommend it as a pick up.

Mar 6 2010

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Kirk and Spock 2-Pack by Diamond Select

The original Star Trek film isn’t all that highly regarded these days and I guess that’s pretty understandable. Watching it now it comes across as overly drawn out and there’s precious little action to help push it along. But if you put the film in its proper context, it really was quite the movie-going event. I’m just old enough to remember going to see it in the theaters, and I can still remember all the hype around it. This was the first time the cast of a very popular, but cancelled, TV series was reunited with a huge budget, and with the iconic ship newly designed. It was also released at a time when Star Wars had intensified the popularity of Sci-Fi movies. And while the special effects may not seem all that impressive today, watching it and realizing that all that visual splendor was done without the aid of today’s sophisticated computer effects, I can’t help but be in awe.

While definitely more cerebral and less action orientated than Star Wars, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a pretty heavily merchandised film. I can still remember the Happy Meals that McDonalds dedicated to the film, and it had its own line of 3 3/4″ action figures and toys. Playmates later added Motion Picture figures to its own collection in the 90’s, and now Diamond Select has paid tribute with this 2-pack of Kirk and Spock donning their Motion Picture uniforms and equipment.030610A

Fans of Diamond Select’s 7″ scale Star Trek figures will be happy to know that the same quality went into these sculpts. The likeness of Shatner and Nimoy are nicely recreated and yet different enough from the ones they used on the Classic Series figures to make these unique. What also makes these figures unqiue is their uniforms. The style was only used for this one film before being retired for the burgandy tunics that were introduced in The Wrath of Khan and used throughout the rest of the original crew’s movies. Now, while I’m a big fan of the uniforms that replaced these, I do think these were pretty good designs for the time, albeit not all that flashy.

The two uniforms are sculpted almost identically. The only difference is the resculpt in the shoulders and collars. Kirk has a slight turtleneck thing going on as well as two rank insignia epulettes, whereas Spock has a stitched “V” pattern and a slightly raised collar with a notch in the front. The uniforms are sculpted with all the stitching and slight wrinkling for detail, the Starfleet insignia is part of the sculpt, as is the large belt buckle that supposedly served as some kind of sensor or identification device. Both figures seem to use the exact same hands, with their left hands balled into a fist and the right sculpted to hold their phaser weapons.

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There is a really strange error in the mold used for my Kirk figure’s legs, which cause them to both bow in the same direction. He can still stand alright on his own, but he looks kind of funny, like he’s swaying. At first, I thought this issue was unique to my figure, but since then I’ve seen quite a few examples with the same thing going on. Its kind of strange since both figures seem to use the exact same legs, and yet Spock doesn’t have this problem.

While these figures are in the same scale as Diamond’s Classic Series Trek figures, they unfortunately do not share the same level of articulation. Like the Classic figures, they have ball jointed necks and shoulders, swivel cuts in the biceps, hinged elbows, swivel wrists, legs jointed at the pelvis, as well as hinged knees and ankles. They are missing the swivel in the waist as well as the swivel cut in the thighs and again in the shin.

The paint apps on these two figures vary quite a bit. My Spock figure is perfectly fine, although there isn’t that much here to mess up. His uniform is entirely gray, but the rank stripes on his sleeves are nicely painted in gold and the detail work on his belt buckle and insignia are both fine. Kirk, on the other hand, has a bit of slop. The Admiral’s uniform is slightly darker than Spock’s with the center of his tunic painted white on the front and back. The white portion has a lot of swirled brushwork and some smudging on the front and a bit of slop on the borders as well. At least the rank stripes on the sleeves are well done.

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These figures come with two sets of accessories. Each figure gets one phaser and the wrist communicator used in the film. The wrist communicator is really nicely done, and I like that they made it a separate piece, rather than sculpting it into the figure’s arm. Its a cool piece of Trek history since, like the uniforms, this is the only time they were ever used. The phasers are pretty good and are the same style that were used for Diamond’s Wrath of Khan figures, which is film accurate. A tricorder for Spock would have been a nice bonus.

This set is readily available at many E-tailers for cheap. I picked up my set for only $12.99 and despite the flaws, I’m pretty happy to have these figures in my collection even if the overall quality isn’t up to par with Diamond’s other Trek figures. I think Diamond was wise not to pursue the original Motion Picture with an entire run, as I don’t think they would be all that popular, although I wouldn’t have minded seeing another 2-pack with Ilia and Decker, since they were characters unique to the film. A Spock in space suit would have been pretty sweet too.

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