Tag Archives: star trek

May 4 2013

Star Trek: Starfleet Phaser (2009 Movie) by Playmates

Today’s feature is going to be a quickie, because I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do. No, I mean actual STUFF, not just drinking. I set about to think up something quick and easy and then I remembered that we’re less than two weeks away from the premier of Star Trek Into Darkness. A quick dig through one of my Toy Closets and… voila… I found this little beauty from the original film. Playmates certainly had their share of stumbles handling the toys for the first Abrams Trek movie, but their hand phaser was not one of them. This thing is definitely a cool little toy. Let’s take a look!

TK001

The hand phaser comes sealed in a clamshell with a cool, curvy bubble. It’s not collector friendly by any stretch, as you’ll practically need a phaser to cut it out of there, but it is very nice to look at. There’s also a “Try Me” hole that lets you pull the trigger, but because of the moving parts, you can only try it in vaporize mode. Still… pretty nice. The 2009 Phaser is one of my least favorite of all of Starfleet’s hand phaser designs, but that doesn’t mean I dislike it. It certainly reflects the alternate Abrams timeline in which Kirk’s dad dying prematurely suddenly gave Starfleet engineers a collective chrome fetish. It borrows a bit from past phaser designs, and it does manage to capture at last the profile of a Classic Starfleet phaser while tossing in a whole lot of originality.

DSCN1067

DSCN1068

In hand, this phaser looks pretty amazing. The chrome finish looks good, and apart from some plastic seaming on the top, it doesn’t look overly toyish. The size is also a pretty comfortable fit in my hand. All too often Role Play toys tend to go too big and chunky or undersized to better fit into kid’s hands. Damn toy companies pandering to kids, with their tiny hands! It’s the extremely light weight that betrays this piece as an inexpensive toy, as there’s virtually no heft to it at all. One side looks totally clean, while the other features some exposed screw heads, the copyright stamp, and the “Hey asshole, don’t throw your old batteries in the garbage” icon.

DSCN1069

The thing I like least about this phaser design is the switch-gimmick. Setting aside the toy talk for a moment… The engineering on the design uses two different emitters: A red one for vaporize and a blue one for stun. The emitters sit on opposite sides of a revolving piece, so when the user switches from one setting to the other, the appropriate emitter snaps to the front. They made a point of showing this in the film and when they did, I wanted to stand up and scream, “WTF??? Pause the movie… I need to see that shit again!” The design goes out of its way to be more complex than it needs to be, and much like the old Automatic vs Revolver debate, it seems like it’s just something extra to malfunction on the weapon. There’s nothing worse than when you’re in a shootout with some Klingons and your phaser jams. Now, I’m no 23rd Century weapons engineer, but I can’t see why it would be necessary to do this over the old elegant phaser design.

DSCN1071

DSCN1072

Anyway, getting back to the toy… Playmates’ phaser replicates the moving emitters… sort of. If you have the phaser in the stun position, you can press a button on the side of the handle to automatically switch to the vaporize position. You cannot, however, switch back unless you manually re-position it. It seems like it should have been easy to make it work both ways, but whatever.

DSCN1075

The rest of the electronics feature an activation wheel on the top. Rotate it toward you and the panel lights up a bright greenish yellow and the phaser makes a nice, loud activation sound. This one is my favorite of the toy’s FX. The trigger activates the emitter light and sounds depending on which setting you have it on. The red light is very bright, and while the sound is loud, it sounds a bit abbreviated. I think that’s because the Abrams phasers shoot pulses and not sustained beams. I hate that, but in fairness to Abrams, I think that shit started during The Next Generation. Pulse phasers are evil, they just don’t feel like Star Trek to me. The stun setting on the toy is all around crap. The light is really dim and it sounds like the phaser is either malfunctioning or farting.

DSCN1077

Even with its flaws, this phaser is a pretty cool toy. I think it originally sold for around $15, but chances are you can still find it on clearance at your local Toys R Us. One of the TRU’s here still has an endcap of these and the figures. Hell, even the local Books-A-Million, in their bizarre transformation into part book store and part toy store, still has these. None of this stuff sold well because there probably hasn’t been a kid since the early 70’s that said, “Hey let’s get our phasers and go outside and play Star Trek.” Sad but true. But this phaser is still a wonderful piece for convention cosplay and a nice addition to any Trek arsenal on a budget, particularly if you want to display all the designs. Now, if you’ve got a little extra gold-pressed latinum to spend, Quantum Mechanix made a remarkably nice prop replica of this piece for under $100, which can still be found at various e-tailers around the InterWebs. (If you have a little more money to spend, they also make a $10,000 Enterprise model!) I don’t own their phaser, but I got a chance to hold one at a convention. The static model doesn’t feature any FX or moving parts, but it does look and feel really nice in hand.

Apr 21 2013

Sunday Funday: Star Trek “Countdown to Darkness” Comic Prequel

During the build-up to the 2009 JJ Abrams Star Trek movie, I was one of the haters. Star Trek is something that is nearly sacred to me and the idea that it should be “rebooted for the masses” pissed me off. I’m not saying it is necessarily a bad thing for Nerd Culture to become popular. I love the fact that The Avengers is the top third best grossing movie of all time, but the property shouldn’t be compromised or beaten into submission to make it palatable to the average joe, and that seemed to be the mission statement behind the Star Trek reboot.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the movie a lot, but I find it ironic that it had the most baggage of any of the Trek movies to come before. Sure, it helped to have seen “Space Seed” before watching “Wrath of Khan,” but it wasn’t at all necessary to enjoy the movie. Abrams’ Trek, on the other hand, spun a tortured plot in order to shoehorn Spock Prime into the movie and make the reboot part of the story. Star Trek and Doctor Who are two of the major staples of my Nerd diet, I’m used to timey-wimey multiverse shit, and even I thought the story behind Abrams’ Trek was a jumbled mess. Nonetheless, the movie did very well, but I think that’s because the average movie goer experience may have started with “What the hell is going on?” but that confusion was quickly swept away by “Ooooh, lens flare! Oh, snap. He’s hiding that green bitch under his bed! Oooh, people are shooting and shit is blowing up!” I think a clean break would have been better. But in the end, I bought tickets, I bought the Blu-Ray, I bought some of the toys, and I am very excited for the sequel. So, congratulations, Abrams. You win this round.

count4

Which brings me to how I spent a chunk of my weekend… reading IDW’s four-issue mini-series, “Countdown to Darkness,” a series designed to build up to the new movie. Normally, I don’t read movie-comic tie-ins. There are way too many unread comics on my nightstand to add more. Besides, generally speaking they just aren’t that good. But the rabid supporters of the first movie would have you believe that if you read the comic prequel, “Nero,” you could have better understood the story. Yes, folks, the alleged “reboot for the masses” required you to read comic books prior to seeing the movie to fully understand what was going on! Brilliant! But this time, I thought I’d give it a whirl, because it was only four comics and most importantly a friend of mine lent them to me so I didn’t have to buy them. So how is Countdown to Darkness? How about Countdown to my Ass!!! This thing sucked on every level.

count1

Where to begin? It’s years after the events of the first movie and the Enterprise has logged some time doing all the boring shit that we don’t want to see in a movie, like scanning gas clouds and mapping stars. They wind up at an undeveloped planet that’s inhabited by bug people and protected by the Prime Directive. Their mission is to scan it and move on, but Kirk is tired of sitting around and decides to beam down to look at stuff. I realize that Kirk has always played it fast and loose with regulations, but he usually does so for very good reasons, not because he’s tired of sitting on the bridge. It makes this Kirk look like a whiny, spoiled brat who is willing to risk violating the cornerstone of Federation Law just because he’s bored. It’s a different Kirk, fair enough. But if I’m going to see movies about him, I need to like him, and I don’t like the Kirk in this book. Hey Starfleet, this is what you get when you recruit your commanding officers from drunks in bars.

count5

Of course, they wind up getting in the middle of a Civil War between two factions on the planet only to learn that the former Captain of the former Enterprise, Robert April, is stirring up the shit and that he’s in league with a femme fatale gunrunner, who happens to be the daughter of Harry Mudd. This is not professional comic book writing, this is late night Internet fanwank in its most basest of forms. But I’m more concerned with the continuity established here. There was another Enterprise 20 years before this one… and in the flashback panel it looks exactly the same as the one in the movie??? And I loved Robert April. I read two of the novels he appeared in. “Final Frontier” and “Best Destiny” were awesome. Now he’s a shitbag and we’re treated to snotty little Kirk lecturing him. Sigh. Anyway, April and Mudd take over The Enterprise and offer it up to the Klingons as compensation if they agree to name April the Governor of the planet and run it as part of the Klingon Empire. Holy shit, what? What? WHAT????? At that point, I had to stop and coif an entire tumbler full of Jameson.

count3

The real reason this mini-series got any notoriety is that it promised a sneak peak at the Abramsverse Klingons that we see ever so briefly (and tiny) in the trailer. The smart ones will just look at the cover to issue number four and be done with it. But, no. By now I’ve suffered through three issues of this dreck, featuring the whole rogue Captain who disagrees with the Prime Directive, which we’ve seen a hundred times before. Might as well keep going! In issue four the Klingons finally show up. They’re wearing battle helmets, they bluster, and they (*gasp!*) betray April. Kirk and Spock storm the bridge and Scotty resolves everything by rebooting (oh sweet irony!) the Enterprise so that Kirk can turn tail and warp away. April is in custody, Starfleet tells Kirk to dump him at a Starbase and forget about the entire thing, and in the last panels we’re treated to John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch in the film) accessing a computer in London. If that last bit is the only reason that this whole god-awful mess is an actual tie-in to the movie, it would be a crime for people who bought the comic for that very purpose. On the other hand, I hope it is the only tie-in, because if any of this other bullshit works its way into the movie, I’ll be seriously pissed off. Ultimately, I imagine that Harrison’s motivation for his terrorism will be because he disagrees with The Prime Directive and that will be the tie-in. We’ll see!

count2

Ok, so let’s quickly talk contributors. I’m not going to rag on writer Mike Johnson too much. I don’t know how much of this mess was forced on him by Roberto Orci to shoehorn it into a prequel, but I suspect it was a lot of it. Then again, Johnson’s resume doesn’t have a lot of noteworthy books in it. But hey, I guess you have to start somewhere. Besides a story that reads like bad fan-fiction, most of the dialogue just doesn’t suit the characters. Indeed, really the only writing that I found worthwhile was April’s monologue about The Prime Directive in issue four, as it was actually extremely well-written and even quotable. But even in the face of a good argument, Kirk just dismisses him as being crazy because he’s been away from Earth too long. HUH? And then just a few pages later he tells Spock that April made some good points. HUH????? Everybody wants to serve under Captain Indecisive… No way that’s going to get us killed at some point! At least it’s good to know this will continue to be the creative team behind IDW’s Star Trek ongoing book, as they will be adapting Original Series scripts into the Abramsverse. I can save a lot of time and money by not reading that book. Of course, if anyone is reading Ongoing and wants to convince me otherwise, feel free to have at it!

count6

As for the art, it’s passable, but nothing spectacular. There’s little resemblance in most of the portraits, but Kirk in particular looks nothing like Chris Pine to me. Some of the backgrounds are ok, particularly the bridge, but the Enterprise itself looks like minimalist garbage and if we see a Bird of Prey in the film, I hope to hell it doesn’t look like the piece of shit drawn in the comic. But, hey… lens flare! There’s plenty of lens flare! Just try comparing this book to some of the stuff coming out of Marvel and DC right now and it looks like hack work by comparison. It’s not to single out this book, I find it’s the case with a lot of IDW’s books (not including GI JOE). Hey, IDW… you need to open up that checkbook and get some noteworthy artists on the payroll! I usually pride myself on my comic book chops, and while the name David Messina was familiar, I couldn’t place him. A quick trip to Wiki reminded me that… yep, he did “Nero” the mini-series leading up to the 2009 Trek film. Apparently, he also did some Angel comics and… I shit you not… a bunch of “erotic parodies” including one of Harry Potter. Folks, it’s going to take half a bottle of Jameson to wash that out of my brain.

Ok so Sunday Funday wasn’t all that fun today. Unlike 90% of the Internet, I really don’t enjoy hating on stuff, but there was just nothing to enjoy here, and I’m kind of pissed at myself for taking the time out from reading the good stuff on my pile and detouring into this drainage ditch of a mini-series.

Ah well, I’m still really looking forward to the movie next month!

Images used are the copyright of IDW Publishing and are reproduced here for review purposes only. If you love comic books, support the artists and writers by BUYING them, either digitally or in print. Better yet, buy them in print and support your local comic shop too!

Mar 12 2013

Star Trek Starship Legends: USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (“Wrath of Khan”) by Diamond Select

Science fiction has given us countless space faring vessels over the decades. Many have been one shot wonders, while select few have come to be considered iconic. But for my money there has never been a space ship more iconic, more graceful, or more beautifully designed than the Constitution Class Refit Enterprise. The ship made its debut in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but it wasn’t until Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that we really got to see the ship in all its glory, both trekking through the stars and slugging it out ship-to-ship in a bitter fight to the death. If I were to use one word to describe this incarnation of the Enterprise, that word would be “noble.” I can’t say exactly why, but she has a glorious nobility to her that has always embodied the values of Star Trek to me. And now, I finally have the Starship Legends version of this ship in my collection. Yep… too bad it’s a piece of garbage. Now would be a good time to remind you of my colorful language disclaimer. Ok, let’s do this… Set phasers to maximum disappointment. 

DSCN0467

We’ve recently seen the Starship Legends packaging for the Enterprise-D and the Bird of Prey, so this Enterprises’ box should look pretty familiar, although it is a lot more compact and while the other ships came completely assembled, the WoK Enterprise requires you to attach the warp nacelles. This worried me at first, as I like the option of storing the ship in the box. Fortunately, the nacelles can be easily removed again for storage. You get that same blue starfield deco, which looks ok, but doesn’t really convey the Star Trek franchise to me and the combination of the Classic Series font and the image of Kirk in his Classic Series uniform just feels out of place for a ship based on the feature films. The box is fairly collector friendly, although the two pieces of the stand are sealed under plastic, so you will have to tear them up to get those pieces out. Still, you can do it with minimal damage and return everything to the box, which is a good thing, because this is a toy that I’m not anxious to display.

dstwok1

dstwok4

dstwok3

Let’s start with the few good things I have to say about this Enterprise: First, let’s talk about the sculpt. The sculpted detail on this piece is bewilderingly awesome. From the tiny panel lines to the faint Aztec pattern, Diamond obviously did their research and meticulously etched it all into the hull of this toy. Second, let’s talk about the hull’s finish. I wasn’t too sure how much I’d like the pearlescent finish on the plastic, but in person, it really brings out all that detail in the sculpt. If you manipulate the ship in your hands and shift the light around its surface, it really brings out all of those amazing and intricate little patterns. Lastly, there’s the lettering. The lettering on the ship all looks crisp and clear. From the large and obvious printing on the top of the saucer section to the minuscule “United Federation of Planets” on the sides of the saucer and the sides of the primary hull. The lettering is excellent. That’s it, folks… the rest is all downhill from here.

dstwok2

The quality of the plastic on this piece is downright terrible. It feels flimsy and cheap like a ten dollar model kit. There’s a huge gulf separating the quality of this plastic and the stuff used for Diamond’s most recent Bird of Prey. If you silhouette this ship against a light, you can practically see right through it. Seriously, I can see my fingers right through the saucer section! That’s bad enough, but when you activate the lights, they bleed through the flimsy plastic hull and make for a terrible effect. But we’ll get to the electronics in a bit. I’m not done harping on the shitty plastic yet. The top rear of one of the nacelles looks like it was repaired with some kind of gloppy glue and it looks like crap. That right there is a complete absence of quality control. If I purchased this second hand on Ebay, I would accused the seller of shenanigans. Seriously, Diamond? You’ve got to be kidding me with this shit.

dstwok13

dstwok11

The paintwork on the ship is also pretty bad. There’s bleeding and slop all over the place and the deflector dish is painted black. Yes, black. Holy fucking shit on a tribble, why in the name of all the holy mother-fucking Gamesters of Triskelion would you paint the goddamn deflector dish black? Looking at it, it’s hard to imagine it wasn’t a decision that was made to deliberately ruin the whole thing, especially since this the toy is designed to light up.

dstwok10

dstwok8

Which brings me to the electronics. I could take this opportunity to bitch that there’s no option to display the ship with just the lights on, like there was with the Enterprise-D or the Bird of Prey. But that’s ok, because the light effects are so terrible, I wouldn’t want to. They basically just come on in sequence with the sound effects. Diamond made no effort to simulate actual running lights or any of the Enterprise’s on screen lighting effects whatsoever. The back of the bridge lights up, the impulse engine lights up, the area around that shitty black painted deflector dish lights up, and the interior of the warp nacelles light up. Virtually all of the lights that you see are actually just bleeding through the cheap plastic. The ship doesn’t look that great as it is, but it looks worse with the lighting effects illuminated. That’s quite an achievement.

dstwok16

dstwok11

dstwok14

The sound is a mix of sound effects and voice clips from the movie. I suppose I could bitch about the fact that most of the quotes are taken from instances that don’t actually take place on the Enterprise, but this thing is such a mess, I’m going to give it a pass. Here’s the rundown on the audio…

  • Kirk: “Fire!” [ship phaser effects]
  • Khan: “From hell’s heart, I stab at thee!”
  • SFX: Warp
  • Kirk: “I don’t like to lose.”
  • SFX: Alert Claxon
  • Khan: “Let them eat static.”
  • SFX: Impulse
  • Khan: “Fire!” [ship phasers effects]
  • SFX: Hand phaser(!) … What. The. Fuck?
  • Khan: “Times up, Admiral.”
  • Kirk: “Lock phasers on target and await my command.”
  • SFX: Ship Phasers
  • Khan: “Time is a luxury you don’t have.”
  • SFX: Explosion
  • Kirk: “Kirk to Spock.”
  • SFX: Transporter Effect
  • Kirk: “I don’t believe in a no win scenario.”
  • Kirk: Khan scream! 

Wrath of Khan is a highly quotable film, so there’s some good material here, and I’m also a huge fan of the film’s sound effects. The transporters and the phasers sound particularly good.

dstwok12

I took a lot of issue with the stands included with The Enterprise-D. Well, the stand that comes with this ship is in some ways better and in some ways worse. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the stand itself is unbelievably cheap. The other stands featured two sides coming up from the Starfleet insignia base, making up a triangular cross-section, whereas this one only has one, making it seem like a totally deliberate way to shave a couple pennies of cost out of this thing. When I first took it out of the box I  literally thought I was missing a piece. I mean it really is insulting and shameful to have a stand this shitty for a $60 collectible. On the plus side, the ball joint will actually hold the ship upright, which I attribute mostly to this Enterprise weighing a lot less than the Enterprise-D. There is an extra battery cover, which can be swapped out so the bottom of the ship doesn’t have the hole in it for the stand. It seems like a nice bonus, but than I realize the hole for the stand is the least part of this ship’s problems.

dstwok9

I have had nothing but good experiences with Diamond Select and Art Asylum in the past, which is probably why I’m so incredibly surprised and irritated over what a terrible ship this is. It’s so far beneath the other releases in the Starship Legends line, that it feels like it’s some kind of terrible and cruel joke. It just fails on so many levels that it’s almost inconceivable that Diamond would have the nerve to pack it into a box and sell it for $60. SIXTY DOLLARS!!!! Even at a third of the price, I couldn’t have been happy with this thing. I just look at it and think, what a waste of money! Even the novelty packaging Enterprise model that holds my 2009 Star Trek Blu-Ray is better quality collectible than this unfortunate piece of garbage.

dstwok7

Computer, initiate destruct sequence… I’m going to get some Romulan Ale and drink to forget.

This Feature was Re-Shot on 4/23/15

Feb 2 2013

Star Trek Holodeck Series: “A Fistful of Datas” Collector Set by Playmates

You didn’t think you’d escape a week of Toy Closet Finds without some Playmates Star Trek loving, did you? DID YOU??  Truth is I can’t turn around in that damn closet without knocking over a towering skyscraper of Star Trek figures, so by doing just one feature this week, y’all are getting off way too easy. Besides, the last two Saturdays were Star Trek, so I’ll just keep the ball rolling. Oh yeah, while it wouldn’t be FigureFan without a stray cat hair in my photos (it’s practically my watermark!) things got a little out of hand today and I’d already had more than a few Jamesons before the shoot, which meant I didn’t notice until it was too late. Enjoy!


Hey, look! It’s the Holodeck Series! I haven’t done any of these before! But first, let’s wax nostalgic about the Holodeck for a moment. When I was a teenager, “The Next Generation” was destination television for me every week, and every time a Holodeck episode came up I would flip the hell out because I thought it was a waste of a slot and I’d have to wait another week and hope for something better. Now, in my old age, I’ve mellowed a lot on these episodes, and while some of them are still terrible, others are not so bad. Next to the Sherlock Holmes episodes, “A Fistful of Datas” is probably my favorite. It may have to do with my love for westerns; it may be because it tugged at my nostalgic love for the Classic Trek episode “Specter of the Gun;” but in the end I think it’s because it’s a fun episode that makes really good use of Worf and Troi it’s one of the few episodes with Alexander that I can stomach.

The set comes in a compact little window box and is branded under the general “Star Trek” line. The front window displays the three figures Worf, Alexander, and a Holographic recreation of Data (ok, so it’s really two and a half figures!) and each of the figures are held in a tray against an illustrated backdrop that shows part of the “Ancient West” town and part of the Holodeck grid. As always, there’s a foil sticker with an individual collector number. The back panel of the box has a blurb about the episode, a shot of the figures against the backdrop and shots of three other boxed sets available in the line. I’ll point out here that Sheriff Worf was available as a single-carded figure, but if you wanted the other two in this set, I’m pretty sure this was the only way to get them. Bastard points go to Playmates for forcing us to double dip!


Starting off with Data, we get a Holodeck recreation of our favorite Starfleet android as a crazed gunslinger. The head sculpt is pretty good, and possibly better than my regular Data figure. He has the little added mustache and his hat is removable, which I was not expecting. As for the rest of the figure, the sculpt is very simple but it does hit all the right points. His black coat bellows up a bit behind him and reveals his holstered gun on his left hip. He’s an Ok figure, but he does seem a little lacking compared to Worf.

Yes, Worf is clearly the star of this set as Playmates put the most work into him. That probably has something to do with the fact that he was also a single-carded release. The head sculpt is excellent, and while the hat isn’t removable, that just means it doesn’t constantly fall off like Data’s does. Worf’s outfit consists of a detailed kerchief, a vest with buttons and his sheriff badge, and a buttoned shirt with the flap hanging down. The proportions are also a lot better than previous Worf figures. I love this figure!

Last up is Worf’s son, Alexander, which is just a static piece. I expected him to be a throw-away, but Playmates stepped up on the sculpt here. He’s wearing a miniature version of Worf’s outfit right down to the vest with the little deputy badge. I also get a chuckle out of the fact that he’s the only one in the set holding a gun and he looks like he’s ready to gleefully murder someone with it.

The paintwork on all three figures is quite excellent. I don’t know why, but I love the high gloss paint that Playmates uses. It makes them look so toyish and 90’s. Feeling nostalgic for the 90’s is a scary thing. The contrast between Data’s muted grey and black outfit and the brighter browns and reds of Worf and Alexander’s makes for an appealing set and I’m particularly impressed by the paintwork on the little Alexander figure. In terms of overall coloring and paint, this is some of Playmates best work on the Star Trek line.

The three figures in this set are like an illustration of the evolution of action figure articulation. Worf features most of the points we’ve come to expect from Playmates Trek figures. His arms rotate at the shoulders, swivel at the biceps and have hinged elbows. His legs swivel at the hips and have hinges in the knees. He can also swivel at the waist and his head turns. The only thing really missing here are the thigh swivels that began to appear late in the line. Data, on the other hand has the five basic points (neck, shoulders and hips) plus swivels in his biceps. He does have a waist swivel, but his coat prevents it from working, and it severely limits his hip articulation too. Last up is Alexander, which as I already mentioned is just a static figure. I don’t have a big problem with Alexander just being a display piece, but Data’s limited articulation really irks me. He should have at least had elbow and knee hinges.

The sad thing about this set is you get zero accessories. Granted, Playmates’ accessories usually suck, but if you want Worf’s accessories you need to buy the single-carded figure as well. Or you can buy Troi as Durango and give her stuff to Worf since she can’t hold any of it anyway. You do, however, get a display stand with an illustrated sticker to match the backdrop. The idea is you cut out the backdrop and stick it into the slot on the stand. If you’ve ever picked up any of Kenner/Hasbro’s Star Wars Cinema Scene sets than you already get the idea.

I have no idea how much this sold for originally, but I recall picking up mine at a Trek Convention for $10 and you can’t go wrong there. The lack of accessories is a downer and Data’s sculpt and articulation doesn’t jive with the work put into Worf, but all in all this is still a cool set representing a fun little episode.

And that’ll put this week of Toy Closet Finds in the bag. I’ve still got a bunch of unearthed treasures from my trip into Narnia, but the rest will have to wait, because I’ve also got a bunch of new receivings piling up and begging for attention. Next week I’ll be doubling up on some new Lego, new TMNT, and new Transformers. See y’all on Monday.

Jan 26 2013

Star Trek Starship Legends: USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D by Diamond Select

As I mentioned last Saturday, the fine folks at Diamond Select have taken pity on those of us who missed out on their Starship Legends line by reissuing the ships with some minor tweaks and refreshed packaging. I was quick to jump on board and pre-order the “Wrath of Khan” Enterprise and the “Next Gen” Enterprise-D. I’ve got a little while to wait on WoK Enterprise, but 1701-D showed up at my door this week in a giant slab of a shipping box. I’ve been jonesing after this thing for a long while now, so I couldn’t wait to get her inside and open her up. This is a big ship, there’s a lot to talk about, and there will be some bumps along the way, so sit tight and engage your inertial dampeners…

The huge window box is actually not quite as big as the Bird of Prey’s package, but it is deeper. It’s the same style of blue cloudy star field deco only this time you get a shot of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, with arms crossed, staring out approvingly at you, as if to say, “Well done on buying this ship.” That makes me happy. After all, deep down don’t we all really just want approval from Captain Picard? The Star Trek logo is in “The Original Series” font with “The Next Generation” below it. Wait… they can’t do that… can they? I’ll confess the mixing of the two generations looks weird, like it’s a knock off package or something. The front panel of the box is cut out to show the bulk of the ship, while still hiding the two pieces of shit stands in the lower right corner. There’s a “Try Me” hole in the window so little bastards can run down the batteries when they see it at their local comic shop. The back panel of the box shows a shot of the model with a couple of paragraphs on the series and the ship. It also seems to take great pleasure in chronicling the fact that the mightiest ship in the Starfleet, the Flagship, was destroyed by a small rogue Bird of Prey after Picard gave Riker the keys and Troi crashed it into a planet. Cue Picard Facepalm.

The ship is packaged fully assembled. You just have to clip the wire ties to get it off the tray, and that’s where the fun starts. I honestly didn’t expect to have anything bad to say about this thing, and yet we’re going to start off with one major annoyance. As expected, the ship comes packaged in “Try Me” mode and to get the full effect of the electronics you need to switch it over to “Play Mode.” Unfortunately, the switch is inside the battery compartment on the bottom of the Star Drive section. Some may argue that’s a good thing because the ship doesn’t have a switch exposed on it anywhere, but it didn’t bother me so much with the Bird of Prey. Anyway, this situation sent me scrambling throughout the house to find one of my tiny screwdrivers, which by now I should keep in a very prominent place, but I can never remember where I left it. After about ten minutes of swearing under my breath and rummaging through every junk drawer and catch-all I have in the house, I got my hands on it only to find that I couldn’t budge the screw. Diamond obviously used some kind of self-sealing stembolt (Right? Get it?) to secure the hatch down. I went back to searching until I turned up a pair of vice grips so I could get enough torque and break the seal on the screw. After that it was easy. I also noticed the super shit batteries they put in here, so I’m going to have to go get a couple of packs of the best AAA batteries I can find for the Enterprise and Bird of Prey so they don’t shit battery goo all over the inside of my precious ships. But wait! We’re not done yet! You also need to take off a second battery cover on the top of the Saucer Section right over the main Shuttle Bay and flip a switch under it in order to get the Saucer Separation SFX to work. Yes, the Enterprise is also powered by three additional button batteries in the Saucer. This cover is slid back by inserting a thin implement into a notch and pushing back. It’s a jarring ordeal because I had to apply just a bit more force than I was comfortable with. Keep in mind, as annoying as this all was, it’s just something to deal with during the initial unboxing and not something that’s going to really spoil the enjoyment of the model once you’ve done it. Ok, now that I’ve put everybody to sleep with exciting battery talk, let’s look at the ship.

I was expecting a lot of detail, but I’ll confess the finished sculpt still exceeds my expectations. The Enterprise-D has a lot of surface space, and every bit of it is covered with panel lines. I mean, damn, you can practically see every single plate of tritanium-duranium alloy that went into the hull’s construction. The Escape Pod hatches are sculpted, the ridges on the Shuttle Bay doors, even the little docking hatches on the sides of the Torpedo Bay launchers. If Art Asylum left any details out, I sure as hell can’t find them. There is a little more assembly seaming on this ship than was evident on the Bird of Prey. It’s mostly noticeable along the aft edges of the ship and where the back of the neck meets the front two pieces. They aren’t terrible, but worth mentioning.

The paintwork compliments the sculpted detail wonderfully. Every window is painted onto the ship’s skin from the random windows of crew quarters to the line of panels that runs across the wall of the Conference Room and even the viewports of Ten Forward. The Escape Pod hatches are painted tan and you’ve got a darker grey on the Shuttle Bay doors and the Phaser Array strips. The lettering is all crisp and hugs the hull better than what I remember seeing in the test shots. Of all the tiny details, I think the one that impresses me the most are the tiny scoring lines that run along the perimeter of all the Phaser Arrays. Holy shit that’s cool!

The Saucer Section is secured to the Star Drive Section with some of the most insanely powerful magnets I think I’ve ever seen in a toy. Separating the ship is as easy as pulling them apart. When you go to connect them up again, the magnets will aggressively grab at each other and do the rest. Connecting and reconnecting the two sections give you a sound and light show, which we’ll talk about in a little bit. Obviously reconnecting the two halves of the ship will lead to rubbing on the surface so I’ll probably avoid doing it to excess. I’ll point out here that Diamond stamped a bunch of large type copyright information inside the area where the Saucer Section connects to the neck. It’s annoying and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there on the original release.

The Enterprise comes with two display stands and they are the biggest pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. They’re basically the same style of thin, opaque plastic pieces as the one that came with the Bird of Prey, only these feature the ball joint under the connection points and are sculpted with the Starfleet “Comm Badge” style insignia. They look cheap, but that’s not the problem I have with them. While the Bird of Prey used a fixed connection that works perfectly, these stands use ball joints and they work well until you manipulate them a couple of times and then they fail miserably. The ball joint just can’t handle the weird weight displacement of the ship and it constantly wants to drop the ship forward onto the Saucer Section. They will work fine if you want to pose the ship in an upward climb, but forget about getting it displayed parallel to the surface its standing on. You see those two side shots of the ship? Well, the stands won’t do that anymore. Hey guys, what the hell is the point of a poseable ball joint if it can only hold the ship in one position???  I’ve tried gumming it up with blue tack, which didn’t work.  I may try some nail polish next.

So two stands? Yes, The complete Enterprise displays on either stand by plugging it into the hole closest to the Deflector Dish. You can also display the Enterprise separated by plugging the smaller stand into the middle hole of the Star Drive section and using the larger stand for the Saucer Section. While I doubt I’ll ever display the ship separated, it’s very cool to have this option. The instructions show a plug that can be put into the hole of the Saucer Section to cover it up when you are displaying the ship as one piece. It’s a great idea, but sadly no such plug was included in my box.

Ok, let’s talk electronics and we’ll start with the lights. By pressing and holding the concealed button just below the main Impulse Engine on the Star Drive section, you can put all the lights into “Display Mode” and they’ll stay lit until you press it again. You get red LEDs in all three Impulse Engines and the front of both Warp Nacelles. Blue LEDs light up in the front Deflector Dish and in the strips around the Warp Nacelles. The lights are all bright and gorgeous, particularly the fronts of the Nacelles. There’s one more light, a white Bridge light on the top of the Saucer Sections dome. Alas, this one bleeds through the paint and plastic around it quite a bit. I can sort of convince myself that the light bleeding through is just the light reflecting off the hull. Yeah… sort of.

The sound effects and voice clips aren’t quite as loud and clear as the Bird of Prey’s SFX, but they’re still pretty good. The sounds and voice are activated by pressing the top dome of the Saucer Section and the lights will come on when the sound is activated. One thing I do not like at all is the way the blue Nacelle lights blink to match the speech or sound effect. It’s just like the lights on the top of a Dalek when it talks. What is the point of this, Diamond? WHY? At least all the lights don’t do it. The sounds and voice clips play in the same order and if you hold the button down it’ll run through everything in one long sequence. All of the voice clips are from Captain Picard himself. Here’s what you get…

  • “Open a hailing frequency. This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard.”
  • “Energize.” [Transporter SFX]
  • “Scan for life forms.”
  • “Shields up! Red Alert!” [Red Alert SFX]
  • [Phaser Alarm. Phasers Firing.]
  • “Make it so.”
  • [Warp Drive Engaging]
  • “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” [Replicator SFX]
  • “Dispersal pattern Sierra and fire!” [Torpedoes SFX]
  •  “Transferring command to the battle bridge.”
  • [Impulse Flyby]
  • “Continual fire, all phasers!” [Phaser Alarm. Phasers Firing]
  •  “Damage report!”
  • “Warp 9, Engage!” [Warp SFX]
  • “Let’s make sure history never forgets the name… Enterprise!”

I could have done without the Earl Grey quote, but I adore the way the sequence ends with Picard’s memorable battle cry from “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” The weapon sequences are so awesome that I really wish there was a way to select them specifically to avoid the following scenario: “Hey, wanna hear the Enterprise-D kick some ass?” “Sure!” “Ok, here we go.” [pushes button] “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot!” “Oh…”

Separating the Saucer section plays, “Prepare for emergency saucer sep” and engages the lights and sounds. Reconnecting plays the sound of the moorings locking down. Very cool!

If it sounds like I’m nitpicking the Enterprise more than I did the Bird of Prey, well that’s because I probably am. The Bird of Prey didn’t have as many issues. Besides, this is the goddamn Enterprise after all and I’m going to hold it to higher standards. My issues with some of the electronic SFX are fairly minor and in one case (the lights flashing in time to the voice) just a matter of personal preference. The stands, however, are just poorly executed and considering this is the second time this ship has been released, they should have been fixed. I’d much rather have a stand that gave me less display options but actually worked well. I would even have been willing to pay a little extra for a ratcheting stand. In terms of the ship itself, however, well it’s absolutely gorgeous. I love it so much that even with all the other hiccups, I’m still so very glad that I finally own it. When you consider what the old Playmates Enterprise-D goes for these days, picking up this Diamond version is a no-brainer. At $70 shipped, it’s just worth every penny, horrible stands and all! Now if only I can find a place to display it so I don’t have to put it back in the box.

And that’s going to wrap me up for this week. Tomorrow is my day of rest and I’ll actually be continuing to clean out and organize one of my bottomless toy closets. Next week is going to be a complete run of some of the stuff I find so it should be an interesting mish-mash of who knows what!

Jan 24 2013

Star Trek Starfleet Academy: Picard, Data, and Worf by Playmates

I’ve got some social obligations today, folks, which means that I can’t stay home and drink, I have to go out and drink. It’s jarring and unsettling, but people tell me that spending too much time at home drinking among crowds of fake plastic people is not good for my psyche. As a result, I was looking for something quick and dirty for today’s feature. I’m going to parse out three figures from a recent Lot of Playmates Star Trek that I recently bought on Ebay just because nobody was bidding on it and I wanted to give these guys a good home. It was basically a bag of about 20 loose figures with no accessories and a handful of stands, most of which didn’t even match the figures in the Lot. I don’t usually like to buy Playmates Trek loose because they’re so damn cheap when they’re new and carded, but then the ones we’re looking at today I would have probably never picked up any other way.

Yes, the Starfleet Academy line! Somehow Playmates thought that even after scraping the bottom of the barrel for questionable releases like Vedek Bareil (DS9) and that smug Benzite dickhead from “A Matter of Honor” (TNG) they still just weren’t making enough Star Trek figures and so they had to think outside the box and create this kind of Expanded Universe sub-line featuring our favorite Next Gen crewmembers as Academy Cadets. Jim Henson’s Trek Babies? The packages boasted “All new Starfleet Crew Members as young cadets!” C’mon, Playmates, it was hard enough to get kids to play with Star Trek figures without exposing them to this terrible idea. I’m the biggest Star Trek whore ever and even I didn’t want to buy these. Anyway, some of these figures came on a “Starfleet Academy” cardback with a CD-ROM game and the typical crappy Playmates accessories, none of which came with mine. Cadet Data was released a couple of years later (along with Cadets Troi and Crusher) as part of the generic “Warp Factor” series. I did get a single figure stand from the series, which is actually kind of cool because it’s made to look like the Academy badge complete with the Golden Gate Bridge. Too bad it’s molded in purple plastic with yellow paints. Oh, Playmates.

Let’s start out with this guy. I swear I thought this was Riker, but a little research tells me he’s actually “John” Picard. I’m not going to quibble about the likeness, but it is somewhat of a novelty to have a Picard figure with hair. He’s wearing a “Standard Starfleet Issue Flight Training Suit” which I have to reluctantly admit is kind of cool. It’s grey and has the same black shoulders and collar as the regular uniforms, which makes it a little Starfleety. There are also holes near the belt and arm, which I presume was for tubes or something.

Next up is Cadet Worf and ain’t he just adorable? I’ll actually concede that Playmates did a pretty good job sculpting his likeness as a younger Worf, even though he still has the beard. Unfortunately, Worf is wearing what Playmates calls “Starfleet Night Recon Gear” which makes this figure all kinds of stupid. What the hell kind of night recon gear involves wearing the brightest white gloves and boots I’ve ever seen? Even the bulk of the outfit is light grey and the only thing appropriately dark is the belt and cross strap. I’m guessing that Worf was the victim of a lot of hazing, with him being the only Klingon at Starfleet Academy, and some of his peers thought it would be funny to give him arctic gear and tell them it was for night recon ops. I’m also guessing that those pranksters were later found behind one of the lecture halls with their spines removed.

And last up is Cadet Data. I understand that it’s canon that Data graduated from Starfleet Academy, but I honestly can’t imagine how that worked since he was constructed to be super strong and remember every piece of information that he was exposed to. Maybe the idea was to have him spend time interacting with other cadets rather than just download every course into his neural net and get his commission. Anyway, since Data doesn’t age, he looks pretty much the same as his other figures. I might even go so far as to say this figure’s head sculpt is better than my regular Data. I have no idea what his outfit is supposed to be, but I have to say, this is my favorite figure of the three and the fact that his gear doesn’t have a Starfleet insignia anywhere on it means that I can use him as Lore or even B4. YES!

And there you have it. I doubt I’ll ever circle back to pick up complete versions of these three figures, but being the nutter that I am, I won’t discount the possibility that the other cadet figures won’t show up here at some point in time. Looking at incomplete figures really aggravates my OCD, but there are a bunch of figures in this Lot so chances are I’ll pick out another handful of them to check out next week.

Jan 19 2013

Star Trek Starship Legends: Klingon Bird of Prey by Diamond Select

Hey guys, I like me my Star Treks. You’ve probably figured that out by now. One of my great collecting regrets was selling off my fleet of Playmates’ Star Trek ships about 10 years back. They were fairly solid representations of the ships and damn if they haven’t gone up in value. Woops. Bad call on my part! Another regret I’ve had was not jumping on board with Diamond Select’s line of starships as they were originally released. Fortunately, that’s no longer a problem, because 2013 is going to see a slew of re-releases of many of the Diamond’s proud fleet of Enterpriseseses, and I’m not missing out on them this time around. But before we get to the Enterprise, we’re going to kick things off with a look at Diamond Select’s newest release, and their first crack at an alien ship: The Klingon Bird of Prey!

This now iconic ship design was first introduced in Star Trek III, it practically starred in Star Trek IV, and it subsequently appeared in every “Original Crew” movie produced since, including Generations. This particular release, however, is based on the ship’s appearance in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. What’s the difference? Christopher Plummer’s goddamn voice, that’s what.

Word is that Diamond has revamped the packaging for this year’s releases, but seeing as I don’t own any of the past releases, I have no frame of reference. There are things I like about it and things I don’t. It’s a freaking massive window box, but with a wingspan of about 19-inches, the box housing this ship has to be big! The front of the package has a kind of weird trident design cut out to show you some of the detail on the ship’s hull. The box’s deco is a blue cloudy-star motif, which doesn’t really fit Star Trek for me, and I would have much preferred the movie font over the old classic font because it just better fits the context of this ship.


There’s a decent blurb about the Bird of Prey on the back, which correctly points out that the configuration of this ship was applied to various classes from small scouts to larger warships. Oddly is proclaims that the BoP was equipped with photon torpedoes, disrupters and… phasers? It’s been a long time since my days of pouring over the stats in FASA Star Trek ship catalogs, but I’m pretty sure I never saw mention of a phaser bank equipped on a Bird of Prey, but I’m guessing that occurred sometime in the Next Gen era. Anyway, it took me a while to get all the twisty wires off the ship and free it from its tray, but I’m very happy that the ship comes in one piece and doesn’t need to be assembled. The stand does have to be fitted together, but it can easily be taken apart and the whole shebang can be returned to the box for storage.


The ship itself is gorgeous. I always used to think the Playmates version looked good enough (well, at least until I looked at it recently), but damn this thing looks phenomenal. There isn’t a square inch of this thing that doesn’t have some kind of sculpted detail. There’s pipes and vents and all kinds of windows. Hell, it’s easy to get lost in the intricate panels of the wings alone. I’ve misspent a lot of time in my youth sketching the Bird of Prey from various movie stills and FASA books and the like, so I consider myself intimately familiar with the design, and this model does it proud. Sure, close inspection reveals a few hiccups, like the hollow pieces on the back by the engines and a little bit of seaming, again on the back, but I’ve got to remind myself, this is a $60 display piece and not a studio model.


The coloring uses a mix of the base green plastic with all sorts of swirly brush strokes to convey weathering, different colored materials and panels. The red feathered coloring on the undercarriage of the wings is particularly nicely done, as is the brushed metal look of the black and silver grills of the engines. The Klingon writing and markings are all tampos rather than stickers, which goes a long way for both durability and realism. I’ve got nothing but praise for the paintwork on this piece. It looks weathered and battle hardened and awesome.


The Bird of Prey design has three basic wing configurations, and the articulated wings on Diamond’s model allows for all three. The landing mode features them raised up above the hull to allow for ground clearance; the cruising mode has them level with the ship’s hull; and finally the attack mode has them angled downward. Each wing moves independently of each other and the hinges are strong to keep them from flopping about. In fact, it takes a fair amount of effort to get them to move. I really dig the way the teeth interlock on the grills when the wings change position. That’s one delightful little detail that I never really noticed about the design.


And let’s not forget the electronics. The ship features lights, sound effects and a slew of General Chang’s hammy quotes from the movie, all accessed by a button cleverly concealed as a tower above the bridge. By holding down the button you can activate a “Display Mode” in which the powerful LED lights will remain lit. The ship has red LEDs in the rear engine and the front torpedo launcher, various yellow LEDs scattered about the ship’s windows, and a pair of green LEDs to simulate the wing-mounted disrupters. The disruptor lights are ridiculously bright!

The lights, sounds and voice clips cycle through randomly as you tap the button. Here’s the complete catalog:

  • Sound Effect: Cloaking Device Activating.
  • I can see you, Kirk. Can you see me?
  • Sound Effect: Torpedo Firing.
  • Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!
  • Sound Effect: Disrupter cannons firing.
  • I am constant as the Northern Star!
  • Warrior to warrior, you do prefer it this way, don’t you?
  • To be, or not to be.

I’m very impressed at how loud and clear the voice clips are. Sure, some may argue that Commander Kruge’s voice would have been cooler, but Chang certainly was a quotable enemy and as I mentioned in yesterday’s feature, he was one of my favorite things about “The Undiscovered Country.”

Ok, so the stand is kind of cheap looking, as it’s all cast in a smoky colored semi-translucent plastic, but overall I still like it for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it is easy to attach and remove the ship, which was always my biggest complaint about the Playmates ships. This stand has a simple peg that holds the ship securely and simply pops apart when you want to pick it up and handle it. Secondly, there’s no ball joint to fail making the ship droop. Finally, I actually enjoy the fact that there isn’t any flashy paint on the base. It’s a simple sculpted Klingon emblem, which is just fine. The quality of the ship speaks for itself and it doesn’t need to be upstaged by the stand. I can easily understand some collectors taking issue with the quality of the stand, but I’m fine with Diamond putting as much money into developing the ship as possible. The stand is perfectly functional and that’s all that I need.

Needless to say, I’m suitably impressed with my first Starship Legends acquisition. I had very high expectations and the Bird of Prey certainly lived up to all of them. While I will concede that the Bird of Prey has been way overused in Star Trek over the years, I still love and admire the design. I can remember being in awe of it when it first appeared in Star Trek III, and one of my favorite Trek photos has always been a double-page spread (in Starlog maybe?) of the soon to be doomed Enterprise facing off bow to bow against Kruge’s Bird of Prey. Diamond’s release captures all the greatness of this iconic design. It’s both ugly and graceful at the same time and wonderfully constructed. I knew when I bought it that it would probably be stored in the box, but now that I have it, I’m going to have to make room to put it out. It’s just too glorious and epic not to be on display… at least until next week, when my Enterprise-D arrives.

Jan 18 2013

Star Trek Classic Series: General Chang by Playmates

Since tomorrow we’ll be looking at Diamond Select’s take on Chang’s ship, I thought it would only be fitting to end this Trek Trifecta by spending some time on the General himself. Now, I have a real love-hate relationship with Star Trek VI. I won’t bother to point out it was better than Star Trek V because, well what isn’t? But, what I loved most about “The Undiscovered Country” was the Klingons. Not to knock Christopher Lloyd and his fun performance as Commander Kruge in “Search for Spock,” but Star Trek VI was released in an entirely different context. Sure it took place before The Next Generation, but for the first time Original Trek was able to take advantage of the rich characterization that Next Gen wove around the Klingon people and it really showed in this movie, not to mention the great casting. Christopher Plummer as Chang was awesome! David Warner as Gorkon… awesome!! Even William Morgan Sheppard as the Warden of Rura Penthe… awesome!!! The rest of the movie has some real cringe worthy stuff, like the whole Scooby Doo style mystery or any scene with Kim Cattrall. But seeing a great actor like Plummer don Klingon makeup for a Star Trek film really blew me away. And since neither Gorkon nor any of the other “Undiscovered Country” Klingons got figures, we’ll be content to look at Chang.

Chang was issued on Playmates’ “Classic Star Trek Movie Series” card. It’s an attractive card, but the inclusion of the Original Series Enterprise and font is pretty confusing and doesn’t really capture what this line is all about. I can’t recall the movie Enterprise appearing on any of Playmates’ artwork, which is rather a pity because it’s my favorite incarnation of the ship. Anyway, the Classic Movie Series was a scattershot sub-line that seemed to meander around and only offer collectors’ a frustrating cross section of figures from the various films. Case in point: Besides Chang, the only other figure released from “Undiscovered Country” was the shapeshifter Marta. I still find it amazing and insane that we got the entire bridge crew in their Original Motion Picture uniforms, but we never got a full set of the bridge crew in the uniforms they wore throughout the next five movies! Oh, Playmates!


And there is General Chang in all his Playmates glory. He isn’t exactly your typical looking Klingon as he’s bald and has pretty subdued ridges on his head. In fact, he’s easily the most human looking Klingon that we’ve seen since The Original Series. Still, you have to respect the eye patch… that thing is bolted right onto his face and that’s hardcore. The likeness is pretty good for a Playmates 4.5” figure, and the paintwork on the head is solid work.

Star Trek III taught us that Klingons in The Next Gen era wear the same battle armor as Klingons from the Classic Movie time, and yet “Undiscovered Country” went with a costume redesign. The new look is somewhat similar to the more familiar armor, but instead of being metallic, it’s more like quilted leather. Either way, Chang’s outfit is faithfully recreated on the figure right down to his ornately sculpted baldric and horned boots. I should also note that I’m extremely pleased with the proportions on this figure. Playmates didn’t go all wonky and give him a huge head or giant arms. He doesn’t look stylized at all, and there are no pre-posed shenanigans going on either as he features a pretty neutral stance.

Chang features fairly good articulation for the line. The arms rotate at the shoulders, swivel at the biceps and have hinged elbows. The legs have hip movement, which is unfortunately rendered inert by his sculpted tunic, and hinged knees. There’s no waist swivel, but Chang can turn his head.


No Klingon general is complete without accessories, and Playmates packed in a real mixed bag all molded in gold plastic. Hey, gold is better than neon purple, so I’ll take what I can get. Chang has his trusty disrupter pistol, which he can hold ok in his left hand. It’s actually the same mold that we got with Commander Kruge only without the cool add-on stock. Chang also has a communicator and a drinking glass, which no doubt contains Romulan Ale. The most puzzling piece in the assortment is Chancellor Gorkon’s walking stick. Maybe it’s a mantle of office for the Chancellor, but I never saw Chang with it after Gorkon died. It’s only purpose seems to be to mock me, as it will be the closest I ever get to a 4.5” David Warner figure (seriously, Playmates, I would have even settled for a St. John Talbot with a tiny cigarette). Lastly, you also get the very cool figure stand that comes with all the Movie Series figures.

I tend to think the “Classic Movie Series” features some of Playmates’ best efforts in their Trek line and General Chang keeps that tradition rolling along. The likeness is good and the paintwork is solid. In the end, he makes me long for more figures based on the Klingons from this movie and possibly even an assassin in Starfleet Spacesuit. When you think of some of the questionable one-shot figures that made it into the Next Gen figure line, it’s a crying shame that they didn’t treat the Classic Movies to a wider range of releases. But enough lamenting about what could have been, tomorrow we’ll end this marathon of Trek madness and take a look at General Chang’s Bird of Prey.

Extra Bonus: FigureFan Reads His Review Drunk. Wherein I drink, test a new microphone, scold my cat for trying to cough up a hairball, and offer some barely coherent commentary on Star Trek and my own review. This was never meant to see the light of day, but how often do I get a chance to add rare uncovered archival content? Enjoy! 

Jan 17 2013

Star Trek The Next Generation: The Nausicaan by Playmates

As I mentioned yesterday, it’s going to be Star Trek for the rest of the week. I’m sorry to do this to the crazy people fine folks who don’t like Star Trek, but I’ve got a lot of work to do this week (the kind that actually pays me the monies that keeps me supplied with Jameson and toys) so I’m dipping my bucket into the Playmates Star Trek well for a trio of quick and dirty features. It also gives me a nice build up to feature one of Diamond Select’s new Star Trek ships on Saturday. So into the huge tote of carded Trek figures I go and today I came up with… The Nausicaan. Let’s dive right in and rip open a 20 year old figure, eh?

There’s that wonderful Next Gen figure packaging. The design is the same aesthetic quality as when you hit an adult website and a thousand unwanted pop ups flood your screen. Ok, the card isn’t advertising Viagra or fleshlights, and it won’t warrant a frantic call for help to The Geek Squad, but it’s still screaming a lot of stuff at you. “NEW!” “ATTENTION COLLECTORS!” “Individually numbered!” “Playmates Skybox Collector Card!” “7th Season!” “Collector Series!” “As seen in the Tapestry!” Holy crap, my brain is exploding!!!! And that’s just the front of the card. The back has headshots of some other figures available. I have boxes full of these things and there are still figures I don’t have. How is that possible? You also get an advertisement for Deep Space Nine on the Super Nintendo and Genesis, an explanation of what all those oddly colored accessories are and a blurb about the Nausicaans and the enjoyable episode, “Tapestry.”

How would I describe a Nausicaan to someone who knows nothing about them? Well, it’s basically a Predator wearing a Weird Al Yankovic wig that hangs out in space bars and hustles people at space pool. Yeah, from a design standpoint, the Nausicaans were as derivative as all hell, but they sure looked impressive on screen, especially for a show where being an alien usually meant you had pointed ears, a wrinkled forehead, or just happened to be bald and painted blue. The Nausicaans were scary dudes, with tempers to match. I mean, anyone willing to murder someone over a game of billiards is just bad ass, and they seemed to take great pleasure in picking on Starfleet cadet pussies. For more information, let’s consult Mr. Nausicaan’s collector card. Hmm… no help there. It just gives a summary of Picard’s bar encounter (Sorry, Picard, you only got stabbed in the heart, we had to sit through an episode of you talking to Wesley about it in a Shuttlecraft. Clearly we suffered more from that incident). It also lists the Nausicaan homeworld as “unknown.” Wait, what? You have a bunch of aliens hanging around a Starbase and you don’t even know where they come from? If I were to venture a guess, I’d say Nausicaa and a quick look at the entry onMemory Alpha and I see that I’m right.

It couldn’t have been easy to capture all that ugliness in a 4.5” figure, but I’ll be damned if Playmates didn’t manage to pull it off. While the face sculpt is admittedly rather soft, the likeness is certainly there and he is one hideous bastard. There’s a cool little paint wash to help bring out the sculpted bits and his hair even has the little hairbands sculpted and painted into the front. I’m usually not a fan of Playmates’ willingness to play fast and loose with proportions, but in this case the Nausicaan’s big head kind of works and his giant burly monkey arms and ham-hock fists do as well. My only big gripe here is that one of his hands is held out at a weird angle, presumably to better hold his Dom-Jot stick, but in reality it looks like he’s trying to do something obscene with it.

It’s been a while since I’ve watched “Tapestry” but the Nausicaan outfit looks like the designer just couldn’t be bothered as it’s just a brown tunic and pants with some random black lines on it, a sash running down the middle and a belt. Still, I don’t think these guys were supposed to be in the Space Service or anything, so it’s probably not a uniform. Nope, this is probably your typical Nausicaan “I’m going to go slum it at the bar tonight so I’ll just throw something on” outfit. I’m sure Playmates did their best with what they had.

The figure features the basic Next Gen articulation. The arms rotate at the shoulders; have hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The legs rotate at the hips and have hinged knees. The Nausicaan can swivel at the waist and his head can turn a little, but his hair tends to get in the way.

The Nausicaan comes with a cadre of accessories, all molded in blue plastic. You get the serrated knife that he used to turn Picard’s heart into shish-kabab, you get a Dom-Jot stick, you get a tankard of booze and some kind of weird thing that looks like a tea pot. He also comes with a purple figure stand. [Unfortunately, I took the photos a couple days after opening him and my alcohol addled mind couldn’t remember where I put the accessories. All I could find was his sword and stand. Take this as a lesson, kids, don’t drink and blog.]

All in all, the Nausicaan is a pretty cool figure. The wonky proportions tend to work better for aliens like him and the sculpt is certainly solid enough. Surprisingly, The Nausicaans were given the action figure treatment again in Art Asylum’s 7-inch Enterprise line, which is sitting buried in a tote somewhere. I’ll really have to dig that sonovabitch out some day.

Jan 16 2013

Star Trek: Tosk and Hunter of Tosk by Playmates

It took me a good couple of seasons to really accept The Next Generation as the great show that it is, but Deep Space Nine? Well, that was love at first sight. While TNG was still cooking in it’s first season, I’d argue that Deep Space Nine was served ready to eat. Except for maybe “Move Along Home.” That episode was pure shit. If anything my adoration for DS9 may have tarnished a bit as later seasons of the show moved from the familiar one-off episodes formula to the focus on story arcs. Nonetheless, it produced a ton of great characters and aliens, many of which never got their proper due from Playmates’ 4.5” line. WHERE’S MY MICHAEL EDDINGTON, YOU BASTARDS??? WHY DID YOU USE THAT PLASTIC TO MAKE THE TRAVELER INSTEAD???

Today’s figures are both from the excellent episode “Captive Pursuit” (Season 1, Episode 6), a story that serves as a prime directive example of why I loved DS9 right out of the gate. Besides being thoroughly entertaining, “Captive Pursuit” serves to establish a lot of Chief O’Brien’s character; it introduces us to a brand new and bizarre alien culture from beyond the wormhole, and illustrates just how blurred the line between right and wrong can be when operating on the frontier in a non-Federation system. We get to see both Sisko and O’Brien struggle with moral ambiguities and the idea of doing what’s right even if it means diplomatically wrecking a First Contact scenario. Great stuff!

As an example of just how out of control Playmate’s juggernaut of 4.5” Star Trek figures eventually became, here we’ve got two figures from the same episode, released under different series. Tosk was released as part of the Deep Space Nine line, while Hunter of Tosk came out under the generic Star Trek moniker. I pity anyone who collects these figures MOSC and has to worry about cataloguing them according to priorities and series. The packaging for my Tosk figure is long since gone, but I’m tearing open The Hunter for this feature, so at least I can give you an in-package shot of him. The Hunter comes with his own Pog… oops, I mean “Space Cap.” [Comic Book Guy] Oddly, enough the “Space Cap” reads:  “Hunter of the Tosk” and is at odds with the card itself, which more properly reads: “Hunter of Tosk.” [/Comic Book Guy] Either way, I preferred the Skybox Collector Cards to the Pogs. Let’s start off with Tosk himself.

Despite the overly stylized designs of many of Playmates’ figures, Tosk features a spot on likeness to the actor in makeup from the episode. The rest of the body is just a textured jumpsuit with black piping, and his exposed skin around his neck and his forearms is sculpted with scales. For what is essentially a very simple figure, I really love the way he turned out. In fact, I’d go so far as to say Playmates nailed Tosk far better than they did some of the major characters.


Tosk features all the necessary accessories. You get his neck collar and leash, his crossbow-style blaster, and HOLY CRAP I FINALLY HAVE A RAKTAJINO MUG!!! I’ve got a lot of DS9 figures, and I’m pretty sure this is the first time I got a Raktajino mug when the truth is almost every figure should have come with one of these! Sorry, Tosk, that’s going to Chief O’Brien or Dax… or maybe Kira or Sisko. Sure, all of Tosk’s accessories are molded in blue plastic, but somehow it doesn’t bother me all that much here. Tosk also comes with a figure stand, which is a basic disc with an illustrated wormhole sticker on it, and a Space Cap.


The Hunter, on the other hand, is a solid figure, but I’m not as impressed with his head sculpt. It’s not bad, it’s certainly on par with most of Playmates’ efforts, but when compared to the likeness on Tosk, The Hunter’s portrait just comes up a little wanting.  The uniform, on the other hand, hits all the right points. The two-tone red is great and the detail sculpted into the belt and bandolier strap is solid work.

The Hunter’s gear is appropriately sculpted in grey plastic. Amazing but true! He comes with the same crossbow-style blaster as Tosk, a clip-on wrist computer, and his removable helmet. Yeeeeah, about the helmet. The sculpt would be accurate to the prop used on the show, but it’s all oversized to fit the figure’s oversized head. I guess it looks ok, so long as you don’t actually compare the figure with a screen capture from the episode. I do like the choice of a sticker for the visor. The Hunter also comes with the same figure stand as Tosk.

Both figures feature the same points of articulation. The arms rotate at the shoulders, have swivels in the biceps, and hinges in the elbows. The legs rotate at the hips and have hinges in the knees, they can each swivel at the waist and turn their heads. All in all, not bad for 90’s Playmates.


While I would like to go back in time and enslave the Playmates factory workers into satisfying my list of wanted DS9 figures, the truth is there are just some things that I need to learn to let go. Thankfully, Tosk and The Hunter aren’t among them. I love this episode and I’m particularly thankful to get this pair of figures from it. For a while, I secretly hoped The Hunters might turn out to be Dominon Shock Troopers , but sadly we never did see them again. At least I have my figures and they turned out pretty well. In fact, I’ll likely pick up two more Hunters when I can find them loose and cheap.