Tag Archives: star trek

Mar 20 2010

Star Trek The Next Generation: Shuttlecraft Goddard by Playmates

Well, looky here, I just picked up a new Shuttlecraft Goddard from Ebay and I’m vowing that this is the last time I’m going to have to buy this friggin toy, as this makes the third one I’ve owned. I first bought it back when it was released in ’92 and it got misplaced in a move some three or four years later. I bought another one off of Ebay to replace it a few years back, but I was never really happy with its condition and I eventually passed it on to someone else in a trade. This time, I picked up another brand new one, never opened, and I’m hanging on to this one. I absolutely love this thing.

The Goddard was the first toy in the Next Generation line that Playmates released to interact with the figures. Eventually there would be a bridge and an engine room and a transporter, but the first time I saw this shuttle sitting on the shelf in the store, I thought it was the coolest thing ever and I had to have it. Sure, you have to be willing to accept that it isn’t really to scale with the figures, but it still works pretty well.

Throughout the course of the Next Gen series, the shuttlecraft went through a bunch of redesigns and there were also different classes of shuttles, from the one person Shuttlepods (which this toy is closest in scale with) to the full fledged shuttles. I believe the design for the Goddard was first shown in Season Two or Three and was a lot more angular in design than the shuttles initially used.

The box is pretty cool. Its bright and colorful and it shows off the toy, both illustrated and with actual photographs. The back panel shows the various features and the front has an open window to allow you to use the electronics’ “Try Me” function. Like the figures, the shuttle is also numbered on the front of the box to make it appeal to collectors. The shuttle comes pretty much assembled in the box. The only thing you need to attach is the rear loading door. It comes with a cargo pallet to load into the back, a schematic sheet, an instruction sheet, and two sticker sheets.

Scale aside, this toy is pretty faithful to the design used on the show. There’s a lot of stickers to put on it, and they’re all pretty important because the toy is pretty spartan looking without them. You have to apply all the registry markings and there are a lot of stickers that take the place of paint apps. So, needless to say, there’s a lot of pressure to get them all placed just right. While it was pretty cool to be stickering one of these babies again, I was really letting the explatives fly as I was trying to get some of them on. I still haven’t been able to place all the stickers for the control panel because its so hard to get my man hands into the compartment and get them placed correctly. I’ll either have to get some tweezers to sneak the last ones on or take the whole friggin thing apart.

The only really unorthodox thing on the toy is the fact that it has wheels. Granted, they’re concealed beneath the ship, so they don’t get in the way of the sculpt. I imagine they were added as a play feature.

The front windshield opens up like a hatch, which of course the real shuttle didn’t do. This is just another play feature to provide easy access to the pilot seat, just like the hatch on the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon toys. Because of the scale down, there’s only one seat, although most figures will fit in there, so long as their sculpts don’t preclude them from sitting. There’s also a three-point safety harness to secure the figure in place.

The back cabin of the shuttlecraft is equipped with two fold down seats, each with safety belts and a cargo pallet that can be slid in and out on tracks. I’m really not sure what the pallet is supposed to be, but it looks like sensor equipment or some other kind of device. Again, because of the scale down, the back cabin is pretty limited and its tough to even get a couple of figures to sit on the seats because its so crampt back there. Its not even big enough for a figure to stand up inside.

The Goddard has two electronic features, which are activated from the top two buttons. One sounds the engines and lights up the nacelles and the other sounds the phaser fire and also lights up the nacelles. I’m pretty sure that on the show it wasn’t standard for these shuttles to be equipped with phaser banks, but I do recall them adding them on occasion, so we’ll let that slide. Besides which, the firing phasers sound really cool. The nacelle lights are neat, but the effect could be better. Most of the light comes out at the front of the nacelle, rather than illuminating the entire blue strip.

The Goddard isn’t difficult to find, although if you are going to buy one, I really recommend that you spend a little extra to get an unopened one. If the stickers aren’t applied well, or if they’re worn, it really effects the look of the toy. Furthermore, the battery compartments in these Playmates toys were really prone to leakage. I can’t tell you the number of the tricorders and phasers I’ve gone through because of corrosion and whatnot. If the scale really bothers you, or you don’t collect the figures, this toy is still a really nice stand alone display piece for your shelf.

Mar 17 2010

Star Trek: TNG Captain Montgomery Scott by Playmates

You’re going to see a lot of vintage Playmates Star Trek figures cropping up in my posts over the next couple of weeks. I started collecting these 4″ figures back when they first came out. I was in my early 20’s back then and these were technically the first figures I ever purchased as a collector and not as toys to play with. I picked up a lot of the original two waves of Next Gen figures and was just starting to pick up a few of the Deep Space Nine figures when I stopped for whatever reason. I think it was probably because I was saving money to move out of state. Now, about 18 years later, I’ve decided to work on finishing this collection.

Scotty was one of three original crew members to appear in The Next Generation TV series, both Spock and McCoy showed up in different episodes, but McCoy just had a cameo and Spock’s two-parter was ok, but a little contrived and tiresome for me. Scotty’s episode “Relics”, on the other hand is one of my favorites. The crew finds a derilect ship with Scotty stuck in the Transporter’s pattern buffer. They save him, but he soon finds out that in the future he’s a bumbling fossil (and apparently an alcoholic) until his out-dated ideas save the day. We all learn a lesson about not treating our elders like worthless retards and Picard makes a rather audacious gift of one of the Enterprise’s shuttlecraft to Scotty. Wow, is he really allowed to do that? This episode also had the balls to show the classic Enterprise bridge exactly like it was in the old series… made of gray cardboard! Simply awesome.

I really liked the packaging on these figures. The background is so colorful and follows through with an overall animated look. And holy shit did Playmates advertise a lot of crap on these cards, all screaming at you in yellow bursts of text. Your Figure is Individually Numbered! Collector Card included!! Deep Space Nine figures coming soon!!! PLAY THE GAMES ON THE SNES AND GENESIS!!!! The front of this card is like a Las Vegas billboard.

Yeah, that numbering thing was an interesting tactic Playmates used to sell these figures as both collectibles and toys, but billing these figures as collector pieces was a joke. Hey, my Scotty is only 134,264 of I don’t know how many made. And that’s probably a low number. The fact that almost 20 years later you can buy these things mint and carded for under five bucks (Scotty cost me $4.99) just pours salt in the wound. But I don’t care. I love that these figures are dirt cheap and that I can pick them up making impulse buys on Ebay.

The Playmates 4″ figures are notorious for being highly stylized and almost caricatures of their subjects. In many cases, the figures almost look like animated versions of their live action couterparts. Its a design element that really turns some people off, but for the most part, I think it works pretty well. As the series went on, the figures slowly began to shed this curious appearance until by the time you got to Deep Space Nine and Voyager, the figures were a lot more like direct likenesses.

Scotty is a pretty good balance of the Playmates signature look. Its a really good sculpt with a nice likeness of the aged James Doohan. I particularly like the gray two-tone paint apps in his hair. He can also easily double as a classic film version of Scotty since he’s wearing the same basic outfit that he wore in Star Trek V and VI. The only real difference is this version is wearing one of the Next Gen style comm badges instead of his old insignia. His vest is really nicely done and sculpted complete with his little tool pocket and zipper.

The articulation here is pretty good. His head rotates at the neck, his arms rotate at the shoulders, he’s got swivel joints in the biceps and hinged elbows. His legs are jointed at the hips and have hinged knees. Scotty doesn’t suffer from being overly pre-posed like some of these figures.

Scotty comes with a bunch of accessories, but if you are familiar with this line then you already know they are mostly shit. Sorry, that may sound harsh. The sculpts on the accessories are actually ok, but they’re always molded in some obnoxious color plastic, in this case orange. I’m not going to go through the various engineering tools he has, but most of them are repacks of the tools that came with figures like Geordie and Data. Truth is I usually dump these figures into a bag and I have no interest in digging through it to get to Scotty’s, but you can see them in the packaged image. Scotty also comes with a Dilithium Crystal, a Starfleet style figure stand and a collector card. I loved the collector cards! These reminded me of the old Star Wars cards I used to get in Wonderbread. Christ, I’m old.

I don’t know why its taken this long to add this figure to my collection. He’s awesome, cheap, easy to find, and from one of my favorite episodes. And even though I display these figures loose, its a cool luxury to be able to buy them carded and be the first to open them up.

Mar 7 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mar 6 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Mar 3 2010

Star Trek First Contact: Space Suit Picard, Deanna Troi and Dr. Crusher by Playmates

A short while back I took a look at some of the Star Trek Warp Factor Series of figures by Playmates. These were the oddball scaled 5″ figures that came out on the heels of Playmates more extensive 4″ line. Today I dug out a three more figures in the 5″ scale, this time released for the film First Contact. Now, these figures go really well with the Deep Space Nine figures previously shown, mainly because they are in the same scale and all of their uniforms synch up with the same style. Well, except Picard, since he’s wearing a space suit. I guess we might as well start with him.

While I have a slew of the Warp Factor series still in package, I don’t have any unopened First Contact figures to shoot pictures of. Suffice it to say, the packaging is a standard bubble on cardback. The First Contact logo was used at the top of the card, while the back panel had a generic blurb about the film, showed off all the figures in the series, and detailed the accessories that came with the figure on the card. Each figure also came packaged with a mini-poster of the warpship Phoenix in flight.030310A
There were actually two versions of Picard in this line. One had him in his regular duty uniform and one in this space suit. I really tried to find the one with him in his uniform, but god knows what tote it wound up in, or if I even still have it, so we’re going to have to settle for this version. I really want to like this figure, and while I don’t hate it, it has way too much working against it to really make me happy.

My biggest problem with Space Suit Picard is that his suit really doesn’t look all that much like the one warn in the film. Its sorta, kinda, maybe reminiscent of it, but not nearly close enough for a figure in this larger scale. In fact, it almost looks like Playmates based this figure off of a prototype or design shot or storyboard with a vague idea of what the suit design was going to look like. And then there’s the helmet. Ugh. The painted over visor looks terrible and the fact that there’s a fugly seam running right down the middle of the helmet in the most visible place on the whole figure really makes me wonder what Playmates was thinking. There isn’t even a Starfleet insignia anywhere on this suit, so with the helmet on, you’d have no way of even knowing this was a Star Trek figure. It just looks like generic space guy. Now, the helmet is removable, and underneith is a damn fine head sculpt of Patrick Stewart. In fact, its way too good for this otherwise sub-par figure.

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The articulation on this figure also sucks. You get all five points of articulation from a vintage Star Wars figure… only in 1997. The shoulders and upper legs rotate, as does the head. That’s it. Its bad enough on its own, but when you consider that the other two figures we’re going to look at in this line have an excellent 13 points, it really feels like Playmates just phoned this one in to be done with it.

Thankfully, the ladies make out a little better…

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Yeah, in terms of articulation and overall accuracy in  body sculpt, these figures are much better than Picard and his space suit. Both Troi and Crusher are wearing the same uniform, and if you look closer, you can see they’re actually wearing the same body too. In fact, this is the exact same body that Playmates used for the Jadzia Dax figure. I’m aware that all three actresses had different builds, but I don’t have a big problem with Playmates reusing the same female body, particularly since the uniform looks good and the articulation is excellent. In addition to the swivel shoulders and upper legs that Picard had, the ladies also have swivel cuts in the biceps, waist and thighs and hinged joints in the elbows and knees. Technically, their heads can turn, but their sculpted hair prohibits it. The head sculpts on Troi and Crusher are passable. I think Playmates got Troi’s likeness down a little better than Crusher’s, but both are ok.

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Unlike the Deep Space Nine figures, which came with only big components to the Defiant, these figures come with actual weapons and equipment. Unfortunately, in keeping with their smaller 4″ Trek figures, Playmates decided to mold their accessories in ridiculous colors. Troi comes with an equipment satchel, a phaser, a PADD, all of which are solid bright red plastic with no other paint apps. Oh yeah, she also comes with a shot glass, because after one scene from the film, Playmates seems convinced Troi is an alcoholic. Dr. Crusher comes with a hypospray, a tricorder, and two other pieces of medical equipment, all of which is bright orange. These brightly colored accessories were bad enough with the smaller scale figures, but its really unacceptable with these larger figures. If Playmates didn’t want to spend money on paint apps, they could have at least molded everything in gray or silver. Also, like the smaller scale Trek figures, these come with pegged display stands fashioned to look like the comm badges. These are actually pretty nice.

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Ironically, the poorest figure of the bunch has the best accessory. Oh, Picard still comes with a red phaser, but he also comes with a compression phaser rifle that is not only nicely sculpted, but its actually molded in black and has silver paint apps. So, at least we have one decent accessory to pass around.

While I know I have more of these figures floating around, I know I don’t have a complete set of the First Contact releases. Although, now that I have them dug out of storage, I wouldn’t mind completing the set. For the most part, these are decent enough offerings, accessories notwithstanding, and they can still be had for very little latinum if you shop around enough.

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So, why all the Playmates stuff lately? Well, part of it stems from having dug out a bunch of these figures and the fact that I’m sort of rediscovering them. I actually plan on looking at some of the 4″ scale figures in the near future as well. But if you’ve been following the industry news lately, it really looks like Playmates is in some serious trouble. There aren’t many companies that could afford to take the kind of hits they did in 2009, what with their two major product lines (Star Trek and Terminator Salvation) flopping. They’ve put their number one property, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on hiatus, cancelled a line of wrestling figures that were shown as recently as Toy Fair, and now it looks like they are turning over their distribution to Diamond Comics. So, while I’m really not happy with Playmates lately, I have to admit, once upon a time, they gave me a lot of pleasure with their figures and I guess I just wanted to remind myself of that.

Feb 26 2010

Star Trek: Warp Factor Sisko, Dax, Chief O’Brien and Jem’hadar by Playmates

I spent some time digging some random shit out of totes today, and I came up with some figures that I had almost forgotten even existed. The Star Trek Warp Factor series. I still have fond memories from the 90’s of hunting down Playmates 3 3/4″ Trek figures, mostly from The Next Generation, but I had forgotten all about these larger scale figures and so I thought I’d take a look at some of them here today. My totes are really badly sorted, so lets just go with the random four I came up with: Captain Sisco, Chief O’Brien, Jadzia Dax, and a Jem’hadar.

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These figures come on pretty nice cards, although the cardbacks on these seemed to be really vulnerable to creases and… yep, warping. Ha! I own quite a few of these figures still on the cards and I don’ think there’s a really good one in the batch. The front does a good job of showing off what you’re getting and the back panel has a bio card for the character and a few pictures of other figures. If I recall correctly, this line cast its net far and wide across the corners of the Trek universe, and no franchise was spared getting the Warp Factor treatment.

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The sculpts on these figures are not bad at all, or at least not bad for Playmates standards. Let’s face it, most of their 90’s era Trek figures went more for a stylized look rather than realism and these figures are no different. I think Sisco’s sculpt is the best, they really captured his likeness well, and after that its a close race between O’Brien and Dax. I think Dax gets a little edge here because O’Brien’s noggin seems way too big. Either way, they’re all pretty good. The uniforms look good and I like how they took the time to sculpt O’Brien’s sleeves rolled up a bit. I do think they could have made Dax’s spots a little clearer. The Jem’hadar’s likeness is ok, but then he’s just a generic alien. He does have a cool tube coming out of his neck to pump in doses of that white shit that they were addicted to. It also looks like he has flowers molded on his uniform. Weird. Either way, I really hate this figure because  he’s pre-posed, but I’ll get to more on that in a minute.

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The articulation on these four are a really mixed bag. O’Brien and Dax come out on top. Their heads rotate, their arms rotate at the shoulders, have swivel cuts in the biceps and have hinged elbows. Their legs rotate up at the groin, have swivel cuts in the thighs and are hinged at the knees. Not bad, not bad at all for figures of this vintage. Sisco is curiously missing a lot of the others aritculation, which is surprising. He’s got no arm articulation below the shoulders and no swivel cuts in the thighs. He looks really bad standing because his legs are pre-posed in a ridiculously wide stance. The reason here is so that he would look better sitting down (more on that in a minute) whereas neither Dax or O’Brien can be seated without spreading their legs really wide like they’re doing some kind of freaky yoga. Seems like you can’t have it both ways with these figures.

The Jem’hadar’s articulation is useless. He has all five points of articulation that a vintage Star Wars figure would have, plus a hinged elbow in his left arm. What the fuck? Why? If you’re going to put a hinge in one arm, why not the other? What’s worse is that his right arm is bent really tight and all I want to do is straighten it. He looks like he’s made to be holding a weapon that he didn’t even come with. Oh yeah, he can swivel at the waist, which none of the other figures can do. His legs are bent a little at the knees and one foot is bent so you can pretty much pose him in a slight action stance, but nothing else.

You would expect big figures like these to come with all sorts of cool gear, like tricorders and phasers, or disrupters, but no, Playmates decided to give each one a big accessory and stiff them on everything else. Sisco comes with his Defiant command chair, Dax comes with the Defiant’s helm station, O’Brien comes with an engineering station and the Jem’hadar comes with some weird control columns, which makes me hate him even more. Sisco’s chair is easily the best of the bunch, but it pretty much has to be since the only decent way to display him is sitting in it. But hey, at least he looks really great sitting in it. Its also made entirely of plastic and not some half plastic, half cardboard construct.

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Yeah, because Dax and O’Brien’s console stations involve you folding cardboard cutouts to make up their stands, which works ok, but still feels kind of cheap. And while O’Brien’s was easy to make, you practically have to be an Origami Wizard of the First Order to get Dax’s to come out right. Don’t get me wrong, the plastic portions of these consoles are very cool, especially with the beautifully detailed stickers applied to look like the controls. Although, I’m thinking the stickers should have come pre-applied because without them the carded figures look like they have random hunks of plastic next to them. Oh yeah, and keeping consistant with his shitty figure, the Jem’hadar’s consoles suck. They don’t even lock together or anything so they just wind up toppling all over the place. I hate this fucking Jem’hadar figure.

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I appreciate what Playmates was trying to do with these consoles, but using cardboard on part of them was just half assed. I would have rather either paid a few dollars more to get a proper console, or just got some fucking phasers and other shit instead. Remember the 3 3/4″ figures and how much shit they came with? Sure most of it was molded in some crazy color like neon orange or purple, but at least they had accessories. Dax and O’Brien would have been excellent if they had just come with some weapons and accessories. And with a little better tooling and articulation, Sisco would have been able to stand without looking like a total jackass. As a result, even the best figures of this bunch leave me disappointed. Still, I’m kind of intrigued now to check out some more of these.

Feb 21 2010

Star Trek: Hot Wheels USS Enterprise and USS Reliant by Mattel

I’ve always been a fan of the starship designs in the various Star Trek series, but the original films were always my favorites. Designs like the Motion Picture Enterprise, The Reliant, The Excellcior were all just so cool. Its obvious that the various toy companies who have held the Trek license over the years have had different ideas on how to market these massive vehicles and I can appreciate the problem. When they make them really big (like Playmates or Diamond Select has), they become pricey as well as difficult to collect and display, and apart from the lights and sounds, these ships don’t really do anything to make them exciting toys. Its not like they have any moving parts or firing missile launchers and there’s no way to make them in scale to interact with figures. On the flipside, in the 90s Micro Machines tried to shrink them and make them highly collectible, but in turn they lost a lot of their detail. Not to mention the bendy plastic meant storing them often resulting in the bad kind of warping. It was like Star Trek meets MUSCLE figures. There was the Johnny Lightning line, too, which was a pretty good size, but poor distribution made them almost impossible to find.

Well, here comes Hot Wheels, of all brands, to try their luck at the franchise with a small selection of collectible plastic and diecast metal ships. Hey, if Matchbox could make Voltron toys back in the day, why not Hot Wheels and Star Trek? The initial waves include the Original Motion Picture Enterprise as seen in the first three Trek movies, The Reliant, as seen in Wrath of Khan, the Enterprise-D, as seen in The Next Generation, and a Klingon Bird of Prey as seen in just about every film that had the Klingons in it. They are supposedly releasing one of the 2009 Movie Enterprise, and while I’ve yet to actually see it in stores, it has been up for sale at a few online retailers. The Romulan ship from the new movie is also scheduled as Coming Soon, but I’ll gladly buy anyone reading this an icy cold Coke if that ever happens. There’s simply no way that mess of a ship design could be rendered in plastic and diecast on this scale. It just wouldn’t work.So far, I’ve picked up both the Reliant and the Enterprise.

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All in all, I think the scale on these is about perfect. The Enterprise measures about five or six inches long, making them almost twice the size of the Johnny Lightning Starships. They’re just big enough to show off the finer details. The Enterprise’s primary hull is diecast and the rest is plastic, while the Reliant’s saucer section is diecast and the rest is plastic. The diecast is just enough to give these models some heft and the plastic used is quite good and sturdy and not cheap and bendy.

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There aren’t a lot of paint apps on these, but that’s because both ships are pretty uniform in color. The Enterprise does have some greyish blue near the deflector dish and where the nacelle struts enter the primary hull. I’m not a big fan of this two-tone as its not screen accurate, but it doesn’t look bad, either. Both ships have some paintwork on their warp and impulse engines and shuttle bays. The lettering and numbering on the hulls is inked directly on and it is clear and crisp.

The Enterprise and the Reliant are both in scale with each other, but that’s not the case with all the ships. The Bird of Prey seems a bit oversized, although to be fair, there were supposed to be various versions of that exact same design. The Enterprise-D, on the other hand is way out of scale with these two. It should be much bigger. This was a big deciding factor in me not picking up either of those ships.

All the ships come with plastic black stands with a Starfleet insignia. The stands connect with the ship with a ball and socket so that the ship can be positioned in a number of directions. Its a nice touch, but I’m not sure it was really necessary with ships this small, since you can easily pick them up, take them off the stand, or just move them around.

Ultimately, the only downside on these models is the price… $14.99 is just really, really steep. I realize diecast is expensive, and these are pretty nice models, but I just can’t equate one of these being worth fifteen bucks, and I think that sentiment will sink this line before it gets too big. In fact, I honestly doubt we’ll see any more of these released past the new movie Enterprise, as it seems like a lot of retailers are clearancing these out. I can’t say as I’d be devastated, since I’ve been picky in the ones I’ve purchased thus far, but it would be cool to see The Excelcior or the Constitution Class Enterprise released before the line dies.

Feb 21 2010

Star Trek (2009): 1:6 Scale Captain Christopher Pike by Playmates

I don’t pull a lot of punches when talking about Playmates these days. Sure, their Ninja Turtles are awesome, and sure the 1990’s 3 3/4″ Star Trek figures were great for the 90’s and even today still have their special charm. But these days, generally speaking, they suck as an action figure company. I have, in the past given them some props when they deserved it, but nevertheless, they spend an awful lot of time at the business end of my whooping stick. Well, when Toys R Us started clearancing out their Trek figures, I decided to pick up one of the 12″ figures. I only wanted one, so I wasn’t going to get Sulu or McCoy, and Kirk was out because he looks like he has the head of a 13 year old boy. It came down to either Alpha Spock or Captain Pike. Considering Pike was more indicative of the series as a whole, as he had the Starfleet uniform and equipment, and seeing as how a Pike figure is a pretty unique item, I went with Pike. Imagine my surprise to find that this is a pretty nice figure.

Normally, I care nothing about packaging unless its an exclusive or a 12″ figure. I just like to put my large scale figures back in their boxes for storage and display. And with that said, Playmates has some very nice packaging for these 12″ figures. Its got a simple, nice big window to show off the figure, some photos and blurbs and the like. But I’ll be damned if this packaging didn’t piss me off as I tried to open it. Unlike any sane or rational company that has their boxes open from the top or bottom, these open from the side. Once open, you can slide the inner tray out and start cutting the figure free from the gaggle of twisty ties and clear rubber bands that hold him in. Even if you do get him out without damaging the package, you’ll soon notice that the stand is trapped under a sealed blister on the back of the tray. Bastards! I suppose I could cut it out with a razor, but considering Pike here will spend most of his downtime in the package, I’m leaving it in place for now.

Ok, so lets get the head sculpt out of the way. It looks pretty good… if only it were supposed to be someone other than actor Bruce Greenwood. Its a good sculpt on its own, there just really isn’t that much of a likeness. The graying paint apps around his sideburns are a nice touch, though, and actually the sculpted hair on the whole is pretty good. All the paint apps on my figure’s face are quite good, with no noticeable slop. This is certainly passable for a mass market release, but what does upset me a bit is that the sculpt on the figure is noticeably different than the one pictured on the back of the box. There’s no attempt at chicanery here, since you can clearly see what you are getting through the window, but obviously something happened between the initial prototype sculpt and the final figure. For a thirty dollar figure, I think they could have done a little better in this department. But at least it doesn’t look downright silly, like Kirk’s head.

The outfit is fairly simple but very good. His gold Starfleet shirt is very close to movie accurate, and complete with rank fringe and an insignia that are actually sewn in and not just stickers like some of Playmates previous 9″ scale Trek figures. The pattern on the shirt adds an authentic, quality feel to the shirt and while the black undershirt is faked by being sewn in around the collar, you could barely tell unless you were looking for it. The pants… I’m not too sure about. They’re brown, and I’m almost positive they are supposed to be black. I own the movie on Blu Ray, I should probably know this, but I’m sure someone out there can confirm or correct me on this point. The boots are rubber with some nice little details on them.

For a mass market figure, the articulation on this guy is not only excellent, but rather surprising considering it is a Playmates product. Its not quite at the same level of Mattel’s recent twelve-inchers used in their Ghostbusters and DC Movie Masters lines, but its close… oh so close. The main thing missing here are the floating plates that create enhanced shoulder movement in the upper chest. Now keep in mind, folks, Mattel’s figures retail for sixty dollars and Pike was half that price at his initial offering. Either way, I’m very happy with the articulation here, but then I don’t buy a lot of figures in this scale, so I may not be as picky as the next guy. His hands are molded to hold his equipment, and they do that quite well.

Pike isn’t loaded down with accessories, but he definitely comes with all the essentials. He has a phaser, a communicator, a utility belt that holds them both and can be removed, and a pegged figure stand in the guise of the Starfleet insignia. The phaser is absolutely fantastic. I have the Playmates prop roleplay toy for reference, and it really is like they shrunk it down for this figure to use. Obviously, there are no electronics or moving parts, but the sculpt and paint apps are excellent. The communicator is ok, but nothing special and it doesn’t open. For the price point, a tricorder would have been welcome, but I can’t recall him using one in the movie, so I won’t gripe too much.

With the general level of quality exhibited by this figure, its hard to believe its put out by the same company that did the shitty 3 3/4″ and 6″ Star Trek figures or pulled the now notorious, “fuck you, you’re never getting a complete playset” bridge scam. At the $30 price point, you are probably getting what you pay for. At the $14.98 clearance price, I feel like a got a great value. Its really too bad the head sculpt on the Kirk figure is so bad, otherwise I’d pick it up in a second at the discounted price, although I must admit, I’m really tempted to go back for either Alpha Spock or the Quinto version. Either way, its just really cool to have a Captain Pike figure in my collection.