XENOMORPH WARRIOR

ALIENS (NECA)

Hey, remember how I love the movie Aliens?  You know what’s even better than an awesome movie?  An awesome movie with awesome toys!

NECA’s been more than happy to deliver on the cool toy front in the past, and now they’re doing it with Aliens.  The second series of their Aliens line is set to be released in the next month or so, and in anticipation of its release, I’ll be taking a look at the line so far.

Up today, it’s the first release of the titular creature, the Alien!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Alien, or as he’s referred to on the packaging, the Xenomorph Warrior, was released as part of the first series of NECA’s Aliens line.  The figure is based on the design of the Xenomorph in the second film in the ALIEN franchise.   The Xenomorph is made to be in scale with the 7 inch line, making the Xenomorph about 8 inches tall.  The figure features 38 points of articulation.  I believe that some parts of this sculpt were used on one of NECA’s previous Xenomorph figures, but I can’t be too sure, since I don’t have them all to compare.  So, I’ll be looking at this figure as if it were a brand new sculpt.  The sculpt on this figure is extremely impressive.  There’s a ton of fine details and lots of little layers that really ad to the figure.  The coolest thing about this figure is how massive it is in comparison to the rest of the figures in the line.  He really towers over the marines, and his articulation also allows him to get into some really deep stances.  The head is an incredible sculpt, and even has a working jaw to allow the use of the Xenomorph’s signature inner mouth, which slides out pretty easily.  While the sculpt is nothing short of amazing, the figure’s paint does leave a little to be desired.  There’s a bit of contention amongst Aliens fans regarding the proper coloring of the creatures.  While black is definitely the predominant color, whether it should be accented by brown, blue or silver depends on who you ask.  Silver is more faithful to the original movie, and the prop costumes in Aliens were accented using brown (to evoke a cockroach, according to Stan Winston), but they were lit so as to look blue in many scenes.  NECA plans on releasing the Alien in all possible colors, but for the first release they seem to have gone with the prop suit look.  Unfortunately, they seem to have gotten a little carried away, leading to the brown accent being a lot less of an accent.  It’s really heavy handed, and kinda makes it look like the Xenomorph’s been rolling around in the mud.  It doesn’t ruin the figure, but it does prevent it from being as good as it could be.  The Xenomorph features no accessories, though of his fins on his back is removable, in case you want to put the head back a bit more.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like the others in this wave, I preodered the Xenomorph as soon as I could.  While it’s not a perfect figure, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.  NECA seems to have acknowledged the issues present with this figure, and has addressed them on future releases of the Xenomorph.  At the end of the day, it’s still a great figure, even with its issues.  Any decent Aliens fan will probably end up with a few of the various xenomorphs from the line, so at worst, this guy can be placed behind some of the others, hiding some of his paint flaws.