I’ve written before about my love of sci-fi and fantasy art from the ’70s. It was a magical time, as were the movies of the time. Alien still lists as my favorite horror film in a sci-fi setting, and as the premiere of Prometheus approaches, I can think of no better time than now to showcase NECA’s Alien figure!
More after the jump…
The original alien design was a brilliant achievement, capturing the concepts of H. R. Giger and bringing them to life in the form of a man in a rubber suit perfectly. NECA successfully reproduced this with their Alien figure. The sculpt is beautiful, and the bio-mechanics of Giger’s drawings are successfully translated to this miniature piece of plastic. When I look at the figure I get the same chill of horror in my spine as I do when I watch the movie.
The figure stands about 8-9 inches tall and features loads of articulation: hinged ankels, knees, and elbows; swivel wrists, knees, biceps, ball shoulders, neck and ab-joint; hinged jaw; retractable tongue; rubber wire tail; and cut hips. Overall, this is a fantastic figure and the articulation is just about everything one should expect in a toy, but the cut v hips kill me. For the most part, I can live with the hips since the figure will be posed vanilla, but this hip type really kills the fun factor for me as it limits the poses that could be achieved with the figure.
The color/paint is a great match. Truth be told, I can’t tell where the molded color starts and the paint begins.
The real fun factor for the toy is not the articulation, sculpt, or paint, but in capturing the likeness of the movie alien. I took the figure out of the box immediately wanting a Ripley or Dallas figure to pose with it, and maybe even some Colonial Marines. My kids picked up the figure and started making “raarr” noises and attacking Transformers on the table. That, to me, is a win.
