I know, I know… I promised when next I visited with NECA’s line of damn, dirty apes, I’d be looking at the Gorilla Soldier 2-pack. I’ll get to them soon enough, but today I wanted to take a detour because I just got Dr. Zira in and since I’m still undecided on whether or not I’m picking up Dr. Zaius 2.0, Zira may finish off Series 2 for me. But first, let’s talk movies! The thing about acting under a lot of ape makeup is that you can change actors without it becoming too jarring to the continuity. As a result Cornelius was played by the late, great Roddy McDowell for the first and third films, he was played by David Watson in Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Likewise, Dr. Zaius was portrayed by two actors in the first two films. Dr. Zira, on the other hand, was portrayed by Kim Hunter for not one, not two, but the first three films, right up until she was shot dead at the end of Escape From The Planet of the Apes. SPOILERS!!! Ah, Escape… it would be such a charming film if it didn’t teach young, impressionable chimpanzees that it’s alright to drink alcohol while pregnant. Anyway, now that I’ve marinated you in meaningless ape film lore, let’s check out the figure.

Hey, we’ve seen this package before! Yeah, it’s the same style of window box we saw with General Ursus and all the Series 1 figures. The boxes are sort of color coded to fit the character and there’s a some character art on the front. You also get the character’s name printed on the side of the box, which is a big plus in my book. The window allows you to see the figure and each of the accessories and everything is collector friendly, which is more than I can say for NECA’s old sealed clamshells. Sure, the incredible hit of plastic smell when you cut into those was pretty rad, but I’m still glad they abandoned them.

Woah… softgoods! I wasn’t expecting that! Truth be told, NECA is not a stranger to using mixed media in their figures. They did it most recently in their Bioshock Infinite line with Elizabeth and the two Motorized Patriots. In this case, Zira has a cloth skirt under her plastic one, which looks good and offers a little less restriction on the figure’s articulation. Indeed, for what is essentially a robed figure, Zira features a couple of neat ways NECA avoided restricting her articulation. The plastic sleeves have strategically placed cuts right by the elbows that allow her to bend her elbows without any problems. Couple that with the rotating hinges in her shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees and you get a figure that has a pretty good range of motion. No, she’s never going to be an action star, but there’s far more poseability here than I would have expected from the character. That having been said, this is still a figure of a chimpanzee psychologist from films in the 60’s and 70’s, so your excitement may vary.

I got a little ahead of myself talking articulation, but that’s not to say the sculpt isn’t good. I like the tribal embossing in her chest piece and the way her shoes are sculpted to fit her ape feet is really cool. Her robes are basically just smooth without a lot of texturing or sculpted wrinkles, but they still look quite screen accurate. At first, I thought Zira’s head looked over-sized, but I think it’s in line with the screen makeup used in the film. When I display her next to the other Apes it looks just fine. The detail here is every bit as good as what we’ve been seeing so far. Zira has a slightly surprised or perplexed expression which would be good for expressing the first time she heard Bright Eyes speak. The eyes are especially well done. There’s almost a spark of life in there. My only complaint would be a little mold flashing in her hair, which in all fairness should be easy to shave off.

Zira comes with some of the most off-beat accessories I’ve ever seen with an action figure. For starters, you get the paper airplane that George Tayler made in order to convince Zira and Cornelius of his intelligence. Yes, this accessory is actually a tiny piece of paper folded into a tiny paper airplane. Insane!

Next, and perhaps the least interesting, is the board that Tayler scrawled his name on, again to prove his intelligence.

Finally, you get a little cardboard portrait of Zira and Cornelius. The thing I love so much about this little piece is that NECA actually recreated the picture with the action figures, rather than just pull a still from the movie. I don’t know why, but this just makes me smile.

Zira is admittedly going to be the least exciting figure in this line for a lot of collectors, but that doesn’t make her any less welcome to me. She was a crucial character in the first three films and my Cornelius figure would never have been complete without a Zira to go with him. Another reason I was particularly pleased to finally get Zira was because she was surprisingly tough to find at the MSRP. I didn’t go for a case assortment because I didn’t particularly want to spring or a second Zaius figure. General Ursus was easy to get at the regular $20, but Zira was sold out at all my regular haunts and selling for upward of $30-35 where available. Crazy! I was finally able to track her down for $18.99 at Gamestop.com of all places. And after tossing in a $10 set of NECA figure stands, which I needed anyway, I was able to get free shipping to boot. It pays to hunt around, folks!

It’s been a while since I raved over NECA’s first series of PotA figures and it’s long overdue that I rave about the second batch too. I already did a lot of reminiscing during my feature on Series 1 Dr. Zaius, but suffice it to say the original Planet of the Apes films were a big deal to me growing up. I watched them whenever they were on TV and while nothing can beat the original in my eyes, the sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, still had merit, despite what a lot of people would have you believe. We got to see a different side of the ape society, or perhaps we just delved further into it. That is before the whole thing practically turned into a Doctor Who episode complete with telepathic mutants and a doomsday device. Well, like it or hate it, you can’t say this movie didn’t try. Hell, we even get to see the ape army in full mobilization with endless columns of horse soldiers, cannon, and infantry, and it is an awesome sight to behold. We also get introduced to General Ursus, wonderfully portrayed by the late James Gregory (and woefully underused), who joined the line up of familiar ape faces.

The packaging is right in line with what we saw with the Series 1 figures. Thankfully, NECA has ditched the sealed clamshell packaging they have been so fond of in the past. These sharp looking window boxes are designed to either sit on a shelf or hang on a peg and each box is colored to sort of match the coloring most associated with the character inside. I also love that they print the name of the character on the side of the box, as I currently have this series of figures boxed and lined up on one of my bookshelves. You also get a good look at the figure and his accessories, which are spread out on the tray. Naturally, everything is collector friendly too!

I didn’t have to get Ursus out of the box to start appreciating the beautiful sculpt NECA did on this guy, but in hand it’s even more impressive. Yes, there is some parts recycling here as he shares the legs of the Gorilla Soldier with just a wee bit of tweaking to the sculpt.  I’ve recently re-watched BTPOTA, although I didn’t pay particular attention to Ursus’ pants. Either way, I’m fine with the reuse as it looks good and seems appropriate and the legs do feature a complete repaint.  The arms and torso, however, all new as The General is sporting his amazing armored coat. I’ve always loved the design of this thing as it looks medieval with its little segmented plates, making the evolution of Ape Armor seem all that more unique. NECA went crazy with this thing, crafting it out of soft plastic and layering it onto the figure’s torso. Each plate is wonderfully defined and are also sculpted onto the shoulders and biceps. The brass studded gorget and the arm bracers all look great too! I can’t even describe the paint used on the armor jacket. It’s like a gun metal gray with a wash to resemble weathering. It contrasts nicely with the matte used on the rest of the outfit.

As if not to be out-classed by the uniform, Ursus sports an amazingly sharp head sculpt. I think the details in the face are better than anything we’ve seen in Series 1, and that’s saying a lot because all of those portraits were superb. The General’s helmet is sculpted as part of his head, but the flaps are cast in soft plastic and fall down about his shoulders. It’s hard to make out the paint apps unless you get the figure under really bright light, but those deeply set eyes are indeed painted and there’s also some subtle brushwork inside the mouth.

I expected Ursus’ bulky outfit to curtail his articulation, but that’s certainly not the case. The soft plastic used for both the jacket and the helmet’s hood don’t inhibit movement in the slightest. Let’s run down all the points! You get swivel hinges in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles. There is also a generous ball joint in the neck and another hidden in the torso. He’s a fun figure to pose and play around with and I dare say if NECA ever decided to grace us with some POTA horses, Ursus would be able to mount it pretty well.

Moving on to accessories, The General comes with two guns and a spare right hand. The extra hand is a vaguely pointing hand that looks like it’s meant to hold something. It might be the same one that came with the Gorilla Soldier (you may remember I lost that hand) so I may give it to him and see if it’ll let him hold his truncheon because Ursus really doesn’t need it. I also found it very difficult (and painful) to get on.

The pistol is a simple piece and it fits comfortably in the holster on Ursus’ right hip. He can also hold it pretty well in his stock right hand.

I expected the rifle to be a repack from the Gorilla Soldier, but it’s an entirely new piece of Ape weaponry. Incidentally, I love how all the Gorilla’s firearms in the films look like they were crafted as a Junior High School wood shop project. Anyway, this thing appears to be some kind of Ape assault rifle with an extended magazine. The problem here is that neither of The General’s hands are really sculpted to hold it very well as it has a very wide grip and a rather unconventional design. I was able to make it work, but not as well as I would have liked.

It’s good to see that this line is still going strong into Series 2. General Ursus was certainly one of the figures I was most excited to get and he doesn’t disappoint. NECA delivered an admirable sculpt and great articulation. And while The General isn’t the most colorful character around, NECA still managed to do some impressive things with his paintwork. Hell, just messing around with Ursus on my desk for an hour or so has transported me back to those wonderful Ape battles my brother and I used to have with our POTA Mego figures! I really want some Ape Protesters for the General to break up. And hey, if only NECA made a two pack of Gorilla Soldiers so that I could increase my ranks… Oh yeah, they did… and I’ll check them out next week!

So far, NECA’s first series of Classic Apes figures has been great and I saved the one that I was anticipating the most for last. Today I’m checking out the Gorilla Soldier. While I grew up watching the PotA movies, it wasn’t until I was a lot older that I finally realized that there was a hierarchy to the apes. The Orangutans seemed to be the main bureaucrats, the chimps were the scientists and naturally the gorillas were the military. These guys terrified me plenty when I was a kid, and yet I always bemoaned the fact that I only had a single one of the Mego gorillas. Yup, even way back when I had a longing for army building! Ah, but I’ve spent a lot of time waxing nostalgic while talking about these figures, so let’s jump right in.

There’s the packaging. We’ve seen it twice before so I don’t have a lot new to add. It’s an attractive and collector friendly window box and it’s color coded to the character. You get some character specific art on the front corner of the box. The back has the same art we’ve been seeing all along, but Gorilla Soldier has his own special little blurb just like the other characters.

Just look at this magnificent bastard! He’s gorgeous!!! I can’t argue with that sculpt. This fellow comes clad in his standard issue ape fatigues, which consist of a black padded vest, black gauntlets, tall boots, and dark purple pants and sleeves. The vest and gauntlets are sculpted with a cool quilted leather look to them and the rest of the outfit has convincing folds and wrinkles. The whole ensemble is capped off with a brown baldric slung over his left shoudler with sculpted pouches, presumably holding ammo. I would suggest he could have been a bit taller and bulkier, as I don’t recall Dr. Zaius being nearly as tall in comparison to the soldiers, but either way the sculpt is excellent.

And that applies to the head sculpt as well. Unlike the previous figures, this guy is aiming or a more generic portrait, which freed NECA up to do a little more of their own thing. The two previous head sculpts in this series were quite good, but this one is particularly exceptional. The myriad of creases in the face and the copious amount of hair are all sculpted with sharp detail and a slight wash helps give it some added depth. He’s also got a great set of penetrating eyes.

So, one of the little issues I have with this guy comes with the articulation. It’s basically identical to what we saw with Zaius and Cornelius. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, and ball joints in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips and have rotating hinges in the knees and ankles. The head is ball jointed, although the sculpted mane of hair does limit that joint quite a bit. He can also swivel at the waist. What’s here is good, and was certainly enough for a bureaucrat and a scientist, but I would have liked a little bit more for the soldier, who is begging for some more extreme action poses.

The Gorilla Soldier comes with two accessories. First, you get a little billy club for beating inferior humans into submission. The club is designed so it can hang on a hook at the bottom of his baldric, which is a very good thing, because neither of his hands were sculpted to hold it very well. It may seem like an oversight, but my guess is NECA decided to favor hands for the rifle, and short of giving us a swappable hand, they probably made the right decision… oh wait… NECA did include a club holding hand. It wasn’t until I was putting the figure away in the box that I noticed the spot in the tray where the extra hand fits. But where’s the hand? WHERE THE HELL IS THE HAND? So, based on how hard it was to get the figure and gun out of the tray, I’m guessing it went flying somewhere and I never even noticed. Maybe it will turn up. Maybe not. It seems as if I’m having really hard luck with losing extra pieces lately.

The rifle is a pretty good likeness of the weird ape guns that were used in the movie. It’s not very detailed, but then neither were the props seen on screen. It does have a strap so you can sling it over his shoulder or across his back. Nice! But he can also hold it in both hands, which does make for some nice poses.

A few potential improvements aside, the Gorilla Soldier is still a grat figure and I still intend to go out hunting in some brick-and-mortar stores to find one or two more. From the first reveals I thought NECA and the Classic Apes would a perfect match and this first series hasn’t dissuaded me. This trio of figures has stroked my nostalgia and plugged a hole in my collection that I didn’t even realize existed. Series Two should be coming along soon, with Zira, General Ursus, and a second version of Dr. Zaius. There’s also a Gorilla Soldier 2-pack with some new sculpting and new accessories. We also know that NECA has the likeness rights to the late Charleton Heston as they have revealed a Mego-style figure of George Taylor. Surely, they’re going to give us one for the 7-inch line too, right? RIGHT??? I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

It’s time to check out another figure in NECA’s first series of Classic Planet of the Apes line and I’ve decided to go with Dr. Cornelius. If you missed the my first review in this series, I’ll direct you back to that for a lot of nostalgic prattle about what this franchise meant to me when I was a kid. The first figure, Dr. Zaius was a character I loved to hate. Cornelius is the polar opposite. He’s George Taylor’s compassionate lifeline in a world that has turned into A MADHOUSE!!! AAAAA MAAAAAADHOOOOUSE!!!!!! Besides a general affection for the character, Cornelius was originally played by one of my all time favorites, the late Roddy McDowell. Until someone ponies up with a Peter Vincent figure, Cornelius will have to represent Roddy on my action figure shelves. Ok, let’s check this chimp out…

We saw the packaging last time and I don’t have much new to say about it. You get a collector friendly window box with a deco matches the character and it has a nice vintage vibe to it. I dig the character art on the front and the painted scene on the back. The front window shows off the figure beautifully and the side of the box is even lettered with “Planet of the Apes” and the character’s name so you can store them in a bookcase. All in all, this is packaging perfection.

And there he is, mild-mannered chimp scientist, Dr. Cornelius in all his glory. It’s crazy how iconic these ape costumes have become for me. I’d rank them right up there with the Classic Star Trek uniforms, but then that should come as no surprise since I grew up playing with both Mego Apes and Mego Star Trek side by side with each other. NECA did a beautiful job recreating his outfit. The leather tabard at the top of his shirt is nicely textured and the wrinkles in the shirt and pants are just right to make the sculpted cloth look convincing. I think if I had one gripe it would be that the shirt should come down just a bit farther, but then I could be remembering the costume wrong. Oh yeah, check out the chimp-feet-shoes. Love them!

The portrait here is quite good, although I think it may be a smidge below the total homerun that we saw with Dr. Zaius. I think the two main issues I have is that the hair is a little too tightly coifed and the face is a little too dirty. Keep in mind, these figures are important to me so I’m being ridiculously picky. Once again, I like that this looks more like the actual character than an actor in a chimp mask and it’s all around great work.

Remember the Sacred Scroll that came with Dr. Zaius? Well, you get the same thing with Dr. Cornelius. Here’s the one disappointing thing with this figure. While it’s nice to have two scrolls, double dipping on the accessories in the same wave of figures seems like foul play. Surely there was some sciencey stuff that could have been included with Cornelius instead.

Cornelius features solid articulation. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles. You also get ball joints in the wrists and a ball joint in the neck. He’s a scientist… he doesn’t need to be able to bust out in crazy action poses, so what’s here is plenty good.

Two apes in and I’m still totally digging on NECA’s Classic PotA figures. I may have nitpicked a few things here and there, but that’s just because the property is really important to me and I hold NECA to some mighty high standards. The truth is that this is an outstanding figure and one that I’m totally happy with getting. Sure, at $20 he feels a little wanting in the accessories, but even with a hit remake movie in the cinemas, these figures are directed at a niche market of collectors, so I’m fine with whatever NECA needed to charge to get these apes into my hands. Next time I swing back to this line I’ll wrap up the first series with a look at the Gorilla Soldier.

I’m beginning to resent the fact that I have to toss the “classic” moniker on so many things from my childhood that I talk about these days. Sure, it’s nice that so many properties are being reimagined and garnering new fans, but it makes me feel horribly old. But I’m going to let that go, because it’s Monday… it’s a new week… and I finally got Wave One of NECA’s damn dirty apes. I’ve been waiting for these things to come in over at BBTS forever and we’re almost at the point where NECA seems ready to ship Wave Two. Maybe they have already… I don’t know. What I do know is that NECA’s got some great plans for this line including a Gorilla Soldier 2-pack. (YES, PLEASE!) and this is one of the few brand new action figure lines out there that I’m totally losing my shit over. Sometimes I get asked why I often call my posts “features” rather than “reviews” and it’s because sometimes you get so much nostalgic blathering mixed in that it goes beyond being just a figure review. Some people seem to like it, some people hate it. Either way, today is going to be one of those times…

There’s the packaging. It’s a window box very much in line with what we’ve seen from some other 7-inch scale figures on the market these days. Hasbro’s Star Wars Black and Funko’s Legacy Game of Thrones both come instantly to mind. Each box is color coded to the character, so Zaius is a sort of light brown and is printed with a leather like texture. The window shows off the figure splendidly and there’s an illustration of Zaius at the lower left hand corner of the front. The back of the package has some great artwork including the Statue of Liberty on the beach… OMG… SPOILERS, DUDES! All in all, this is a nice clean presentation and it’s collector friendly… I dig it.

So, why am I so damn excited over these figures? Because Planet of the Apes was a huge thing to me when I was growing up. They seemed to show the movies every other Sunday afternoon and I always watched. But more importantly, Mego’s old Planet of the Apes figures were handed down to me from my uncle and they were among my very first action figures. I have a strong bond with this license and when I heard NECA was doing it, I was quick to jump on board. The first wave includes Dr. Zaius, Cornelius, and a Gorilla Solider. Today I’m starting with Dr. Zaius…

And there he is out of the package and looking damn sharp for a close-minded chimp bureaucrat. Jesus Christ, I hated this guy in the original film and I still do. That’s really a testament to not only the way the character was written, but by the smug way Maurice Evans portrayed him. When I was a kid I loved these movies because they had apes riding on horses and shooting people and it was scary as all shit. As an adult I can appreciate the wonderful analogy to that age old battle between fundamentalist dogma and science. Zaius pissed me off because he was so damn closed minded he just would not listen and even when he couldn’t help but see the truth he was willing to ignore it for the sake of the status quo. Hey, I’ll be the first to admit that the subsequent Apes sequels jumped the shark, but the original 1968 classic is just damn brilliant and I still find it frightening because every time I watch it I still can’t help but put myself in the place of George Taylor. What’s that? Oh yeah, I’ve got a figure to review…

For starters, the sculpt here is outrageously good. I usually hold NECA to a pretty high standard, but I think they’ve outdone themselves here. Granted, the outfit isn’t the most exciting thing around, but as the equivalent of an Ape business suit, I like what they did here. The sculpted wrinkles look convincing and there’s some little bits of stitching here and there as well.

Ah, but as good as all that is, just look at that amazing portrait! The head sculpt is sharp and stunning. The makeup in the movie was pretty impressive for its time, but this sculpt goes beyond it and feels more like a sculpt of the character and not the actor in makeup. It was an interesting way to go and I approve because it looks absolutely fantastic while capturing the regal and smug nature of this particular Ape. All the little creases in his face are present and I really dig the way the hair on his head is sculpted separately to hang down over the forehead. I dare say that Dr. Zaius has never looked this good.

Sitting in meetings and defending the status quo doesn’t really require a lot of articulation, but NECA still provided a good amount of poseability here. Possibly even more than I had expected. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles. The legs are ball jointed, as are the wrists. I’m not sure what’s under his clothes, but there’s some useful jointing in the torso as well and a generous ball joint in the neck.

Zaius comes with two accessories. You get his cane and one of the sacred scrolls rolled up in its tube. Both are very simple accessories, but that doesn’t make them any less welcome. The cane can be held in either hand and the scroll container has some nice paintwork to make it look like it has a wooden finish.

It’s hard for me to remember the last time I waited this long to get some current release figures into my hands. I don’t have a local source for them (although I hear tell they may be turning up at Barnes & Noble, so I may go hunting for more Gorilla Soldiers this week!) and so I was at the mercy of my e-tailer, which took a while to get them in. It was, however, totally worth the wait. It’s fun for me to think back to the Mego Zaius figure that I had some 30+ years ago and now to have this beauty in hand. It’s a work of art to me and this is one figure that I’m going to keep on display and cherish. What could be better then that? Knowing that I have two more to open. Next week, we’ll check out Cornelius!