Tag Archives: Dreamworks

#3510: Ultraman – Defender of the Universe

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

ULTRAMAN — DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE w/ JACK SHINDO

ULTRAMAN (DREAMWORKS)

“An evil space virus, Gudis has invaded Earth, producing horrifying giant mutant monsters which threaten to wipe out all life on the planet.

All might be lost if not for ULTRAMAN….Defender of the Universe. Towering 20 stories high, only Ultraman can save the world from the Alien Intruders.

However, earth’s polluted atmosphere is deadly to Ultraman, so to fight on this planet, he must share the molecular structure of a human – Jack Shindo.

Jack is a member of UMA. an international fighting force whose mission is to protect the world from hostile aliens.  But when the battle seems hopeless for UMA. Jack uses his secret Delta Plasma Pendant to transform into Ultraman.

Can Ultraman save the earth against the alien intruders? He must, for he is our only hope.”

Ultraman is a Japanese property, and has almost always been produced in Japan, but there have been a few periods during the franchise’s history where outside groups try to throw their hat in the ring.  In 1990, the South Australian Film Corporation partnered with Tsuburaya Productions to produce Ultraman: Towards the Future, a 13-episode English Ultra series.  Keeping with the series’ move away from usual Ultra production channels, the accompanying toys came not from Bandai, but instead from DreamWorks, who put out a line featuring the main Ultra, Ultraman Great, and the monsters he fought. I’m taking a look at Ultraman today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ultraman — Defender of the Universe was released as part of DreamWorks’ 1990 Ultraman toyline. Despite the show getting a subtitle to differentiate it from the others, the line got nothing of the sort, nor did the main character get his full name.  So, it’s all just Ultraman.  The Ultraman figure stands about 8 inches tall and has 6 points of articulation.  He’s not exactly very mobile, since his construction is largely rotocast, and that limits what can be done with articulation.  He gets very basic movement, but is largely stuck in the pose he’s been sculpted into.  This Ultraman was based on Great’s design from the show, which was itself pretty close to the original Hayata design.  In the show, Great had a spandex suit, a notable shift from the usual rubber suits of the Ultras, but for the figure, his proportions and more sculpted musculature makes him look like he’s back in the same rubber suit as the others.  His proportions are a bit more cartoony, almost in line with the likes of vintage Masters of the Universe.  It’s definitely a departure from the usual Ultra stuff, but it’s certainly got its own vibe.  The paint work isn’t terrible; he’s definitely on the fuzzy side for all of the edges for the silver, but that’s kind of expected for the rotocast set-up.  All of the key details are there, though, and coverage is pretty even.  Though Great has no accessories of his own, he does include his human counterpart, Jack Shindo.  Jack stands about 2 1/2 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  He’s technically *far* too tall for proper scaling with Great or any of the accompanying monsters, but he’s at least enough smaller to sell the idea.  Any smaller and he’d pretty much just be a Micro Machine.  His sculpting is pretty basic, but honestly not so bad for the scale.  He’s got paint on the head and hands, with the rest being molded color.  My figure is the blue suited version, but there’s also a red one.  Jack also got his own accessory, a small gun to hold.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

In my early days of Ultraman collecting, I recall seeing this guy a few times, always loose, and I kind of wondered what his deal was, but I never actually got one.  Later, I found out what his deal was, but I still didn’t get one, because…well, I’m actually not entirely sure on that one.  This one was quite literally thrown at me, so it’s hard to miss that, right?  Yes, he was traded into All Time as part of a rather sizeable collection and owner Jason “handed” this one over to me because he knows I like Ultraman.  I do like Ultraman, so he’s onto something there.  He’s goofy, but I do really dig him, and it’s cool to get Jack, since alter egos are a rarity for Ultra tie-in lines.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#1601: Puss ‘n Boots

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

PUSS ’N BOOTS

SHREK 2 (HASBRO)

“The fairy tale continues as everyone’s favorite ogre faces his greatest challenge of all — the in-laws in Shrek 2.  Shrek and Princess Fiona return from their honeymoon to find an invitation to visit Fiona’s parents, the King and Queen of the Kingdom of Far Far Away.  With Donkey along for the ride, the happy couple ventures off on a whirlwind of new adventures with a host of new fairy tale characters to lampoon along the way.”

Man, remember when the Shrek franchise *wasn’t* totally overplayed?  What a time that was.  Seriously, the summer that Shrek 2 hit theaters, I don’t think any of us could have foreseen the juggernaut on the horizon.  But, in retrospect, perhaps we should have.  The first film, being a somewhat sarcastic twisted fairy tale, was initially aimed at a slightly older audience.  As such, the action figures were produced by the more collector-oriented McFarlane Toys.  For the second go-round, the sights had definitely shifted, and the license was handed to the more kid-friendly Hasbro.  They were actually pretty sensible about it, and gave their best shot at creating a line that was at least somewhat compatible with McFarlane’s stuff, just adding in some of the second film’s newly added characters.  As undoubtedly the breakout hit of the film, Puss ’n Boots was of course amongst those figures released.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Puss ’n Boots was released in the first series of Shrek 2 figures from Hasbro.  He and Dragon were the two shortpacks, at least initially, which did make them hard to find for a bit there.  The figure stands about 3 1/2 inches tall and he has 4 points of articulation.  Yeah, not a lot of mobility there, but to be fair, that was more or less consistent with McFarlane’s offerings.  He’s really only good for the one pose, but it’s a pretty decently chosen one, so that works out alright.  Also, he’s rather on the large side in terms of relative scale with the rest of the figures.  He should really be about half the size.  As far as his sculpt goes, Puss isn’t awful, but he’s definitely a little more anthropomorphized than his animated counterpart.  The “arms” in particular seem to take a much more human shape than they really should have.  His boots also seem a bit downplayed in their scale relative to the rest of the figure.  While they should look clearly oversized, they don’t so much look that way here.  I’d wager this is a symptom of Hasbro having to work from slightly earlier versions of the character model.  Making matters worse, there’s the head, which has been split at the jaw in order to make way for Puss’s “hair ball shooting” action feature.  Unfortunately, I never much found this particular feature to be of much merit, so all it really ends up doing is making his head look kind of weird.  It also causes his torso to be a bit elongated, so as to house the mechanism for the feature.  All-in-all, it was a very odd choice.  Puss included his hat and cape, which were both removable.  My figure lost his cape somewhere along the way.  The hat’s better than you might expect, though.  It’s a little bulky and oversized, but not terribly so, and it manages to say in place in his head pretty securely.  The paint on Puss ’n Boots is actually not awful.  The colors are generally a good match for the animation model, and they even got the proper variations to his fur.  Puss was packed with his sword (seen here), as well as Gingy and the three blind mice (not seen here).  Presumably, all of the various extra characters were there to make up for his slightly diminished size, but, like Puss, the other four are definitely way too large to actually fit with the rest of the figures in the line.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Puss ’n Boots at a Costco of all places.  My family had a membership there for maybe a year, and we were stopping there in preparation for a road trip we were going on over the summer.  Costco’s toy selection was never much good, but they had like a single case of the Shrek 2 figures, and just so happened to have both of the short packs.  Antonio Banderas’ turn as Puss ’n Boots was my favorite part of the sequel, so I was definitely down for getting him.  And, by nature of when I picked him up, he was one of a small handful of figures that ended up going on the trip with me.  He’s a little worse for wear these days, and perhaps not the greatest figure, but he’s certainly got a bit of a charm about him.