With the recent announcement that NECA’s quarter-scaled movie Turtles are going to be getting a smaller scale SDCC release, Turtle fever is once more running rampant. I’ve bought these four guys in a lot of variations over the years, but the latest release is definitely the most unique of any I’ve bought.
As dedicated as I am to buying the Turtles every chance I get, I have to be honest and admit that I didn’t jump into the quarter-scale line right away. I had a threefold excuse. The first was money, the second was space, and the third was a hope that they’d be releasing the four guys in a more palatable scale. I own a few 1/6th scale figures, and they take up their fair amount of space, but buying a set of ¼ scale figures was going above and beyond.
But after pictures started showing up, I caved. Luckily, I caught the ones I initially missed on re-release, and I have to say that the four larger-scale Turtles are some of the best looking toys I own. I am an unabashed, unapologetic and unblemished fan of the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Movie, and the big figures look like they stepped right off the screen. I’m looking forward to owning them in the smaller scale as well.
When an accessory set was unveiled for the big guys, I was immediately on board. It is a very novel, very niche set, but I have to give it high marks for going above and beyond, delivering something that, on the surface might be wholly unnecessary, but, for those of us who are hardcore fans, fills in a very nice gap that I’ll bet a lot of us didn’t know needed filling.
During the 1990 movie we are presented with, of course, a brief origin story of the Turtles. I think we all know the basics: radioactive goop plus four turtles equals Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. During this origin, we get to see the foursome as toddler turtles, and now NECA has brought these strangely adorable things into our homes.
As this is an accessory pack, the four baby turtles are not the only accessory, but they are the centerpiece of the pack for sure. They aren’t heavily articulated, so they are definitely more in the accessory camp than full-fledged action figures, but what they do have allows them a decent amount of expression.
All four of the baby turtles have disc-jointed shoulders, ball-jointed heads and they can open their mouths. It’s not a lot, but I’d guess more articulation would have bumped the price up. 50 dollars is probably at the upper edge people are willing to pay for something that took up less than five minutes in a nearly thirty year old movie. And saying that made me feel so old I might need to start looking for dentures.
Much like the larger versions, the sculpt work is beautiful. The larger turtles already set a very high standard for texture and detail, and these don’t feel “lesser” at all. The skin has a great texture, just on a much much smaller scale, and overall it feels like a larger figure, even though they each stand at a little over 4 inches tall. The paint, full of muted greens and splashes of brighter greens, adds to the heightened sense of realism, complimenting the sculpt. The all-practical, non-cgi effects of the original Turtle movie created a world that felt much more concrete and tactile than one that might use cgi to accomplish the same thing, and translating that into toys is more of a one-to-one process that enhances the final product. I am making no sense, but hopefully you get what I’m saying.
They’ve got great eyes. There’s a wet look to them that breathes a little extra life into them.
Without their trademark bandanas, it’s anybody’s guess as to which is which. The bodies are all the same. I think there’s some very minor differences in their head sculpts, at least from the side, but I can’t tell if that’s just an illusion. There seems to be slight differences in their noses. Am I just seeing things, or is that true?
Along with the four little dudes, we also get a bag of Chips brand chips, four slices of pizza, and an empty box of Tile Games Pizza. You get two guesses what “Tile Games” is supposed to represent. Interestingly, I was assuming the four slices of pizza in the set were the same sculpt as the slices of pizza that came with the four larger Turtles, but it’s a different sculpt. Oddly, when you add the four pieces you got with the individual Turtles to the four pieces you got in the set, you get a full pizza, and it all fits in the box, but not as perfectly as if they were all the same sculpt. They don’t jigsaw together into a perfect circle. It’s fudgeable, and you can still makeshift a full pizza in there, but I found it strange.
The box itself is made of cardboard and looks very authentic, like it actually held a pizza inside it. I like how there’s even grease and slicing marks inside the box. That’s a nice touch.
The turtles look great holding the pizza slices or digging around in the box for more pizza.
The other accessory is for Michelangelo’s large figure. In the movie, Mikey gets into a “dueling banjos” fight with a member of the Foot Clan, if banjos were nunchucks. After a furious back and forth where both show of their prowess, Mikey caps it off by simply spinning his nunchucks on the tip of his index finger. “Keep practicing!”
It’s become one of several iconic moments, and with the included pointing figure (with hole in the tip) and solid, straightened nunchucks (with peg), Mikey can replicate that very same movie scene. I was expecting it to be tightly pegged, but it’s loose enough so you can even spin it–just like in the movie. I think this is going to become my standard display hand, at least for a while, so I can smack the nunchucks and have him spin them whenever I walk past him.
For 50 dollars, this set gives you a nice array of items to compliment your quarter scale Turtle set. Like all accessory packs, they’re not things you absolutely need, but they add a certain intangible something to the set. The unfortunate thing is I’m going to need shrunken versions of all of these things to go with the shrunken set of Turtles I’m hoping like hell I can get my hands on this week. Fingers crossed!
You can pick this up at Big Bad toy Store.