Sooooo… does it seem like quite a bit of time has passed since we brought you our initial First Look at some of the Green Lantern Movie Masters? Well, the GL movie may have come and gone in theaters (do varying degrees of success) and it is already out on DVD, but the Movie Masters toy line in support of it is just now rounding out! More GL goodness for you! It has been a journey collecting all of those figures and getting the various Collect & Connect pieces all lined out but Morro and Parallax make up the last two offerings to build up your GL-verse and your ginormous Parallax C&C.
For the most part, I am going to save most of my thoughts about the GL movie as it is far too late and nobody wants to hear another opinion on something that has been talked about for several years now. I will say that I thought the movie was okay, it was not anything spectacular but it had its high points for me (the off-Earth stuff) and its lows (Carol Ferris) but it was better than I was expecting it to be based off of a lot of forum and online banter. I still have a love-hate relationship with it though as I wanted to see space and GLs by the bucketful. That is what a GL movie should be (to me) and would have loved to see Hal leave Earth after about fifteen minutes and never look back.
Therein lies the rub though. See, from a marketing standpoint, and from what I have heard early drafts/cuts of the movie reflected, as to load us up with crazy-ass alien GLs that comic fans and kids would love. Mattel was actually pretty great about getting them out in all of the GL lines and that is something that collectors have been asking for for a long time. The thing is, Warner Brothers kind of put all of us (Mattel included) over the ropes and decided to focus on all of the stuff that was NOT the cool aliens. That is tragic because I would love to see more kids running around imitating Kilowog or Galius Zed or Morro. It really is too bad – the source material was there, the toys are here, the director and producers just did not deliver for us and I think that, all Blake Lively stilted lines aside, was the biggest failing of the movie.
However, I will go by my mantra and say, “at least we got toys”, because we did! I am more of a comic figure fan, but there have been several figures in this line, Kilowog and Naut Ke Loi to name a couple, that I have really enjoyed and never thought we would get. I was wondering how it would all work out though, with Parallax and all, but I have to say, he turned out really sweet.
Morro
Honestly, I have only seen the GL movie once (I need to watch the Blu Ray) so I cannot even remember seeing Morro in the movie, which is a shame. The figure turned out quite bug-like and he kind of reminds me of the Jeff Goldblum Fly. The face is small, but nicely detailed, and touch scary – he would make a great Sinestro Corps convert just on looks alone. How one-dimensional of me. If you have been collecting the line up to this point, you know there is no set articulation scheme, but does get a good amount of movement. You will need his included base in order to make him stand, but I like that they preserved his odd feet. He has a soft goods cape (I am not a fan of soft goods in general) and I think that if it would have been plastic it would have been way too heavy for him to stand. Freakish or no, he fits in well with the rest of the Corps.
Parallax
This is the big daddy, in both size and pay off. I will say that if you have been collecting everything from the line, you are going to really dig this C&C – he turned out great. I have to apologize in advance for the pictures, Sinestro is the one figure from the line that I have not found at retail (just scored him at BBTS though) so I am missing that piece and the part that (hopefully) attaches to it is still in the part bin. That being said, he is still wicked without those parts and if I did not know they were included, I would not have noticed.
Now that I have the head piece, the sculpt comes together really well. There is sculpted detail all over every inch of the entire figure and you will find little faces and maws all over the place. I *think* I have everything assembled correctly, it looks good to me, so if you are using the pictures as a guide, everything I have assembled clicks together well. Even missing the pieces I have not assembled, he stands up just fine and does not show any signs of going off-balance. There is an included base, but he does not need it and I am not 100% sure where it would go, perhaps just to support the torso piece if it not assembled.
Like I said, the head piece is the real highlight, and I REALLY dig the Hammond face. It is fearsome (see what I did there?) and has a lot of sculpted and painted detail. The best part is that the face is removable and you can reveal the more bug-like mug underneath. That put it over for me as I will now display him with my comic Sinestro Corps and feel that he fits in just fine. The upper torso piece also includes a removable chest piece so you can have him with or without his rib cage exposed.
Finally, there is a little powered-up Hal Jordan that you can pose with the figure to recreate the “final battle” from the movie. Again, someone is going to have to help me out as I have not yet found where it is intended to attach (if there is a particular spot), but you can place him in a variety of crevices on Parallax and he will stay just fine. It makes for a fun added touch.
So, we have come to the end of this long Movie Masters journey and ultimately, this is the most satisfying MM line Mattel has done so far. I like the toys more than the movie anyway, and the movie certainly had it’s fun spots. I am not sure how many brick and mortar stores are going to have this last series so going online will be your best bet. If you think you might want to finish Parallax, I recommend it, he is a great payoff.
*Thanks for reading and thanks for Toy Guru, GL of sector 90245 for sending these final pieces along for a First Look. We still have some more to bring you so stay tuned!
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