Figure:
Spock
Wave: Galaxy
Series Wave 1
Body style: new styled Starfleet uniformed male body
Personally I
love the 3 ¾” scale. This scale has immortalized countless
action figures throughout time. Among the most famous lines
that utilized this scale are G.I. Joe and Star Wars.
Recently, other companies have tried to jump in on the
action such as Hasbro’s Marvel Universe line and Mattel’s DC
Infinite Heroes line. Star Trek though is by far not a
“Johnny come lately” with regards to using this scale. Mego
did a short lived line when the Motion Picture was released
even going as far as releasing a replica bridge playset.
When Galoob first started the TNG license they too went to
the trusty 3 ¾” scale producing two waves and a few
shuttlecraft playsets. Many of the Trek items in both of
these lines fetch a pretty hefty price today on the
secondary market. Its no wonder then that Playmates (who
have never done the 1/18th scale in their
previous Trek lines) also chose to produce figures in this
scale for the upcoming Trek movie.
The Galaxy
Series, as Playmates has dubbed it, contains 10 figures from
the upcoming movie that each contain a bridge piece that can
be added to the separate bridge “playset.” From the back
of the cardboard, it seems as if 18 figures will be needed
to complete the bridge. In addition to that, 3 more pieces
will be needed to complete the transporter “playset” which
brings up to a grand total of 21 build-a-playset pieces.
Hopefully this means that we’ll be seeing plenty more
figures from the Galaxy series in the future.
The first
figure I’m going to review is Spock. Being a Heroes fan and
collector of the Mezco line, I have already seen Quinto made
into plastic form. His figure from the Heroes line was
decent but didn’t really capture the essence of Quinto as
much as I would have liked. Playmates on the other hand has
seemed to succeed where Mezco did not. Even at this small
scale I can see Quinto’s likeness clearly. After looking
through most of the figures on the rack at Toys R Us, I
would say Spock’s likeness is the best by far.
The new
packaging style is very unique in its design. It has a wide
bottom to accommodate the bridge pieces but tapers off to a
much narrower size towards the top. A huge Trek delta can be
easily seen at the bottom right hand corner with the
characters name, accessories, and bridge piece being labeled
on the left hand side. I for one would have liked the
packaging to be a bit more colorful being that most kids are
attracted to such things (I too was lured by any figure from
the early 90s that utilized neon colors….strangely they are
still some of my favorite toys). It would have been cool if
the delta pattern that is contained on the loop of the
blister that is currently black would have instead been
colored to match the characters division coloration. It
might have added some much needed color but still would have
retained the blackness of space feel by keeping the
backboard the same. There really isn’t much in the way of
customization for the packaging outside of a small slip of
cardboard in the front with the character’s name on it and a
sticker that designates the bridge piece on the front of the
blister. There are two types of backboards, one that
displays the bridge playset and one that displays the
transporter playset. Outside of that he back of the
backboard is identical on every figure. One of my biggest
complaints about the way the figure is packaged is the use
of twist ties over rubber bands. On a 3 ¾” scale figure,
twist ties becomes too obvious and cumbersome. Most
companies today either use a tighter inside blister or
rubber bands to secure their figures. Not only are the
twist ties unsightly on these figures but they are huge as
well. Way too much knotting can be seen behind the figure
and really detracts from the overall presentation. My final
thought on the packaging is that the accessories are
prominently displayed through the “window” so that the best
parts are highlighted. Even though I think the packaging
could be better, I overall like the design and feel.
Being that
this is the first wave Playmates is doing, an all new sculpt
for Spock was created. I haven’t bought and opened all the
figures from this wave but it seems as if there is a
standard male Starfleet body sculpt that is used. From the
initial pictures that I saw online, I thought that the
figures torso was too boxy for my tastes. Holding the
figure in my hand, the overall look is not nearly as bad as
I had previously thought, but is actually pretty good.
Since obviously I haven’t seen the movie as of yet I can
only assume that the uniforms are longer fitted t-shirts.
Trying to portray in plastic form something that drapes
straight down has always been a challenge. I though AA/DST
did a great job with their initial TOS releases but for its
purposes Playmates has done a decent job as well. The rest
of the sculpt is pretty good. The arms match the shirt in
that both are pretty smooth but convey some detail. The
legs are really the most detailed part of the figure because
they have the most detail. The boots are really sculpted
nice and are really well done. Areas surrounding the points
of articulation are a bit bulky. I’m not sure that’s how
they are in the movie but it’s a possibility. On the other
hand those areas could have been bulked up to accommodate
the type of articulation used. For the most part I think
Playmates has done a pretty good job on capturing the
uniform. Like I said before, I was skeptical at first but I
think in the end it turned out pretty nice.
The
head/face for Spock is probably the best part of the
figure. Strangely the head is connected to the neck on
these figures much like DST’s current connection type. I
find this strange because mostly every other action figure
line uses a ball and socket joint between the head and the
neck and has the neck connected to the torso of the figure.
I guess its just the way Trek has been done in the past and
is kept for this era of figures. The likeness itself is
really good with very small details such as the ears and the
lines in the hair. The most important part is that it
captures Quinto really well.
The Spock
figure has 14 points of articulation. Only three of those
POAs (neck, and legs) only have one way motion. I was
really worried that Playmates was going to go the cheapo
route and do all the POAs with one way motion much like DC’s
Infinite Heroes has done for the most part. I’m really glad
they are utilizing the ball joint much like the Star Wars
line does for the majority of its figures. I think it just
gives the figure more range of motion that’s really needed
in today’s action figures. It also disguises the cuts of
the POA better than the traditional styles and it really
works well at this scale. I do think the knee joint is cut
just a smidge too low but I think it was done to retain the
striping detail in the pants. My only other complaint is
that I think the crotch is a bit too wide and a different
cut should have been used. I think the reason why Playmates
chose this style was to maximize the figure’s ability to sit
in the chair that came with him. If this is indeed the
case, then I can live with the decision.
The paint
applications to this figure are not perfect, but is pretty
good for the 3 ¾” scale. There are few parts that have a
bit of overrun such as the hair but everything else seems to
be pretty tight. The eyes are correct, the delta is near
perfect and even the bootstraps have a bit of gold on them.
I should also note that all of the figures I picked up today
(4 in total) all looked good. To be completely honest, I
didn’t see any of the figures out of the 3 cases that I
looked at that I would pass up. The first 4 that I picked
up for the ones that I did buy were all the ones that I
would end up eventually buying. There are no paint washes
that are applied to any part of the figure. My bottom line
is this: Is this figure painted as nicely as say the DST 7”
figures? Probably not. Is this figure painted just as well
as other 3 ¾” lines? Yes if not better.
One can get
easily spoiled with the level of detail present in the DST
Trek line. The accessories with Spock are OK for this scale
size but could have been slightly better. However they are a
far cry from the old purple plastic phasers with plastic
beam attached that Playmates was known for in some of its
previous lines. The new phaser has a lot of detail but the
paint job is a little sloppy and detracts from the overall
look of the gun. The utility belt is a cool accessory that
adds to the diversity of the figure. It sculpted
communicator is painted a little better. It would have been
cool if the communicator was removable from the belt (I’m
sure it would have been easily lost though). Spock also
comes with an extra hand that is giving the Vulcan salute.
The attachment is almost identical to the AA TOS wave one
hands. The figure also comes with a delta stand that has a
clip on the back. The clip if left on can be worn on the
shirt or on a pocket. The clip’s ability to be removed is
ingenious because now you have one piece that can have dual
functions to satisfy both the collectors and the kids. The
final two pieces are the bridge pieces. Spock comes with
some sort of station (science?) with a chair. The chair is
really well done and has a lot of detail in it. The station
is a little less impressive and has a sticker for all of the
displays. I was very worried that the display would be made
out of a cardboard slip so I’m extremely happy that
Playmates went with the sticker option.
It’s unfair
to judge these figures against larger scaled figures. I
think that the detail, accessories, and paint applications
might be able to stand up next to larger figures but they
still aren’t going to be able to beat what can be done with
say a 7” figure. Judging this figure next to other 1/18th
scaled figures, and I think the Spock figure really holds
its own. Next to say Star Wars figures it’s a little under
scaled but the detail, paint, and points of articulation are
all on the same level. The sculptors only have so much to
work with being that the costumes used for the movie consist
of a t-shirt, pants and boots. Other lines like Star Wars
have much more diversity of look and the sculptors can add
so much more to the figure. Honestly looking at this Spock
figure I ask myself what else would I have done to make this
a better figure? My conclusion is that there isn’t a whole
lot that I would add. Maybe a different cut for
articulation here, maybe a little bit better representation
of the form fitting uniform top, but outside of that there
isn’t much. Overall I very much like this Spock figure and
I really like the overall scale. Personally I think it
matches up with the best of the 3 ¾” market right now.
Positives:
Good paint applications
Build a bridge concept
Great likeness
Detailed accessories
Good types of
articulation
Negatives:
Under scaled
Paint apps on accessories
not as strong
Packaging could have been
more colorful
Use of bulky twist ties
Four of out five pips.
As Always,
**I
apologize for some of the pictures being unclear. Mark is
usually the wizard behind the pics and my skills haven’t
matched his yet!!**
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