“If you’re really going down there, you’re going to die.” – Meredith Vickers
Prometheus, the prequel to the Alien franchise, came out in theaters in 2012, which, in today’s world of ever -shortening attention spans, is a lifetime ago. The film was met with widely mixed reviews, but it happens to be one of my favorite installments. NECA is doing fans like me a solid by releasing their long thought dead wave consisting of Vickers, Shaw, and the mutated Fifield — known as the “Lost Wave.” Is this a nice endcap to a series of figures, or should it have just stayed lost? Let’s find out!
Packaging
It’s pretty standard NECA packaging, although it seems a bit smaller and more efficient. You get some nice text about the characters on the back and the bubble shows off the product perfectly.
Sculpt
All three characters are in their space suits, and while we’ve seen the design in the already released David figure, they still feel fresh–mostly because we’re getting our first (and probably only) female characters in the line. From the sculpted piping to the intricate details on the removable helmets, the details on all three uniforms are as skillfully sculpted as you’d find on any modern NECA figure. The headsculpt on Fifield shows him post mutation, and is as scary as it is in the film. It would have been great to get a regular version of the character, but apart from the end scene, he really is one of the only true monsters of the film. So I’m glad we have him. The headsculpts of Vickers (Charlize Theron) and Shaw ( Noomi Rapace) are good, but just a touch off. Some angles are definitely better than others. That may have something to do with the paint though. Still, they’re close enough to make me happy. One huge flaw with these sculpts are the bottoms of the female feet. They sculpted a curvature into the soles of the feet which makes them very difficult to keep standing. C’mon NECA. Not cool.
Paint
The paint on the ladies is crisp and sharp and I was especially impressed with the tampos. If you squint hard enough, you can actually make out the Weiland logos on the uniform. One tiny nit is that I feel they went a little heavy on the makeup look. Vicker’s eyes are entirely too dark. It’s not really noticeable when she’s wearing her helmet, but it’s worth mentioning. Fifield is really the star in terms of paint. He has the particularly gruesome face of a horror villain, and NECA is no stranger to bringing those sculpts to life. And much like the evil Superman in Superman II, Fifield’s space suit has a sooty appearance over its entirety, so you know he means business.
Articulation
NECA seems to have found its sweet spot in terms of marrying articulation to sculpt, and they’ve stuck with that recipe here. As these are human characters in body suits, they are some of the most moveable figures in NECA’s arsenal. Double jointed knees would have been welcomed, but you can’t win ‘em all. Of course, when the helmets are in place, you do get some limited motion in the head, but that’s to be expected. I’m happy to report that I don’t have a single stuck or wobbly joint on any of my figures.
Accessories
We don’t get a ton of stuff with this wave, but what we do get is pretty cool. Shaw comes with a removable helmet, David’s severed head and the axe used in the final fight scene. Vickers has a removable helmet and her flamethrower. Fifield is the weakest with just his helmet and the little handheld science-y thing that we’ve gotten before. The plus side is that his helmet is all scorched up and broken, so it will definitely add some variety to the shelf. Each figure also comes with a removable shoulder camera. If you look the look, I’d suggest gluing it down as it tends to pop off just by looking at it. All accessories look awesome, but I had the handle of the flamethrower snap off when I tried putting it in the Vicker’s hand. The hands are rather stiff and the weapon is made of a hard plastic, so take care in handling it.
Value
This wave has been out for a while now and I believe they retailed for around $22 each. Unfortunately, I had zero luck in finding these at retail so I had to pay some slightly elevated online prices. Still — for fans of the film or even fans of sci-fi in general, these are great additions to your collection.
Thanks for reading!
