Tag Archives: Alien Resurrection

#4138: Call

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

CALL

ALIEN: RESURRECTION (KENNER)

The Alien movies are neat on a number of different levels, and one of the more interesting aspects of the franchise is that it didn’t really have much in the way of a cohesive vision.  Each subsequent entry in the story being helmed by a different crew of creators made something patchwork, with each entry unique to itself, for better or for worse.  There are, however, through lines on the movies, some obvious ones, having to do with narratives, timelines, and even returning characters, and others less so.  One of my favorite running gags has to do with each entry’s resident synthetic, and the advancing alphabet of their names, starting with Ash, progressing to Bishop, skipping a movie, and then getting to Call.  Heck, they even kept it going with Prometheus, which had David, but then Covenant gave us Walter, and it kind of ruined it.  I don’t wanna talk about that, though, because it just upsets me.  So, we’re jumping back to Call, the focus of today’s entry!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Call is another of the six standard figures released by Kenner in 1997 to tie-in with Alien: Resurrection.  She’s one of two “humans,” though that’s sort of a relative term for both her and Ripley, so I guess maybe there’s actually no humans in the line-up at all?  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and she has 5 points of articulation.  She’s structurally very similar to the previously reviewed Ripley figure, which makes a degree of sense, them being in the same line and all.  The height of the figure is due to her rather extreme posing; were she standing straight up, she’d be closer to 7 inches, so, I guess if you were so inclined, you could try to slip her in with your NECA figures, what with them not doing a Call and all.  Of course, stylistically, I don’t know that she’d really fit.  She’s got that aforementioned pre-posing, which comes with it a sort of lack of use for the articulation, which mostly is just there for some minor tweaks to help her stand.  And that’s good, because standing can be a bit iffy for her.  Finding that center of balance takes some doing, for sure.  Her pose is I guess sort of similar to Ripley, but just slightly tweaked for variety’s sake.  She’s only got one gripping hand, instead of two, but hers is at least meant to actually hold something, so that’s an improvement.  The head sculpt doesn’t look *unlike* Wynona Ryder.  Certainly there’s some of her in there.  A better paint job might help, for sure, but she’s aided by having hair that actually looks about right, unlike Ripley.  She’s wearing the one jumpsuit she wears for the whole movie, which I suppose does make sense.  She wears a vest over it in the movie, which isn’t here, but it’s close enough, I suppose, and its got some nice sculpted detailing. The paint’s perfectly fine, if not anything to write home about.  Very basic on the head, with some nice accent work on the uniform.  Call is packed with two guns (which she can only hold one at a time), a pair of arm blades (because maybe she’s also a Predator?), a crawling face hugger (which actually makes a lot of sense, since she gets attacked by one in the water sequence), and a chest burster.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The story of how I got Call is, if you can believe it, the exact story of how I got the Ripley figure I reviewed two weeks ago.  I never really sought any of them out, but a few years ago, this pair was donated to the Farpoint Charity Auction, and my dad got them for me.  Both of them have been sitting unopened for a while, but I finally did the thing and opened them.  Of the two, Call actually works a bit better, I think.  Apart from only being able to hold one gun at a time, she does interact with her accessories a bit better, and she’s generally more in line with her movie appearance.  With no other Call out there, this one’s really the only option, if you *really* need a Call, and also, she’s not terrible.

#4130: Ripley

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

RIPLEY

ALIEN: RESURRECTION (KENNER)

Perhaps my favorite movie of all time is Aliens, which is, quite frankly, a bit surprising when you find out that the movie that introduced me to the franchise and got me super invested in it to the point of wanting to see the other movies and own the toys and stuff was…Alien: Resurrection.  It’s…well, it’s not a great film.  It’s not really even a good film.  Honestly, “film” seems like a stretch.  I don’t really buy into the distinction between “film” and “movie,” but Resurrection might be able to make a good case.  On the toy side of things, the original Alien film had gotten a little bit of toy coverage from Kenner upon its release, but it didn’t go over very well, and so all subsequent toys were canceled (including a whole line of 3 3/4 inch figures, put out many years later by Funko and Super 7, launching the ReAction brand).  Because of this, Alien’s sequels, Aliens and Alien Cubed, didn’t get toys at the time of their release (though Aliens got a toyline from Kenner in the ‘90s).  The first Alien movie to get a proper toyline in conjunction with its actual theatrical run was Alien: Resurrection, and oh boy, am I looking at one of those figures today.  So, let’s look at the eighth clone of Ellen Ripley, Ripley 8.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ripley was one of the six standard figures that made up the Alien: Resurrection tie-in line, released alongside the movie in 1997.  Though billed on the front of the box as being part of the “Hasbro Signature Collection” (whatever that means), the back of the box still lists Kenner, so, you know, it’s all very confusing, but that’s really just the whole Kenner/Hasbro deal in the ‘90s.  We just all decided to pretend we didn’t know they were one company masquerading as two, like some sort of strange Andy Kaufman bit.  Ripley (who is just listed as “Ripley” on the box, with neither first name, nor number) is described by the packaging as “Warrant Officer, Alien Expert,” which is…not really her in Resurrection?  I mean, I guess she knows the Aliens pretty well, but clones being different people and all, she was most certainly never a warrant officer.  The figure stands just shy of 6 1/4 inches tall and she has 5 points of articulation.  None of the articulation on these figures was particularly useful, and Ripley really showcases that.  It’s all pretty much just there for minor tweaking of the one single pose she can really pull off.  In terms of scaling, she’s got a real lunge in her pose there, so it throws off the overall height, but she’s ultimately closer to the usual 7-inch set-ups than 6-inch.  Which, you know, with the Kenner Aliens line being very much a 5-inch line, is odd to say the least.  The sculpt is, as noted, rather pre-posed, with sort of a guns akimbo, wide-stance sort of thing.  Her sculpt is…fine?  The likeness is an okay Weaver likeness, though I’m not really sure it quite gets her specifically from Resurrection.  I think the hair really throws it off, ultimately.  Ripley has a couple of outfits in the movie, but this one is the one she spends a good chunk of the movie in, and is, rather amusingly, the one that’s also worn by Hillard during the journey through the ship.  Weaver saw Kim Flowers’ outfit and asked for one like it, and that’s the one that wound up as an action figure.  The paint work on this figure is generally good for the era and style.  It’s mostly just base work, which is rather clean, but she does also get some decent accenting, and a wash on her outfit to make it look appropriately grimy.  She’s packed with a pair of rifles, an egg, and a queen burster.  Oddly, the hands aren’t really sculpted to hold the guns, so they have these extra guards that wrap around the backs of the hands.  Why not just make the hands properly hold them?  Because shut-up, that’s why.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was just shy of 11 when I saw Resurrection, and really loved it at the time, so you’d think I’d have tracked down some figures, but, even though I looked at them a few times, I never actually did buy any of them.  Since then, I’ve had this sort of odd relationship with the movie, where every time I watch it, it’s worse than I remember.  So, I wasn’t really ever planning to buy any of these.  But, then she got donated to the Farpoint charity auction, and my dad knew I didn’t have her, so…you know, here we are?  She’s been sitting on my shelf unopened for a couple of years now, and I finally decided it was time to crack her open for the review.  She’s honestly not a bad figure from a technical stand-point.  Very much dialed into the style of the era, and all, but in a world before the likes of NECA, she’s not really bad.