Released before Comic Con madness, NECA’s eighth series of figures based on the Alien franchise made its debut. Centered on Alien 3, this wave contains Ripley, Weyland-Yutani Commando, and two versions of the re-released Dog Alien — one brown and one grey. The Dog Alien remains one of NECA’s best, in my opinion, and was covered a while back. You can check it out here.
Today we’ll be looking at the Alien 3 version of Ripley and the Weyland-Yutani Commando. I know the third film gets a lot of heat from fans, but apart from the goofy CGI in a few scenes, I remain a huge fan of this movie — especially the director’s cut.
As an added bonus, we also have a few shots of the NECA creature pack, which was released around the same time. Not quite enough to warrant its own review, but definitely something worth picking up.
Packaging
You know the drill.
Sculpt
Ripley
Another outstanding job by NECA. Stranded at the all-male work correctional facility on Fiorina 161, this is the completely hardened and badass version of Ellen Ripley. With her shaved head and combat boots, she pretty much embodies the punk attitude of not giving a flip. Like the previous Ripley releases, her face is rather expressionless and cold, but it works. The prison itself is broken and dilapidated, and the sculpt of her clothing fits well for the most part. The pants are worn with holes as you’d expect, but the jacket needs a bit more weathering. NECA continues to use the thin overlays to cover up the hip joints, and while it creates something of a diaper look (which may or may not bother you), it does at least preserve the articulation.
Weyland-Yutani Commando
Some would think this an oddball choice when there are so many other characters yet to be released. The hired gun of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation had just a couple of minutes of screen time and did pretty much nothing. He’s basically a Cantina patron. He’s also a potential army builder, extremely cool-looking, and great for collectors with an imagination who want to expand their Alien world. The toy is also extremely cool and is one of the more impressive sculpts in the line. I’ll let the photos do the talking as this guy is completely packed with detail. The articulation suffers a bit for it, which we’ll get to later on, but for a character that mostly stands around, I’m glad they put the budget into the sculpt. And one impressive note is that while the helmet is not removable, he does have at least a partially sculpted face that peaks through.
Paint
The paint on both figures is just about perfect on the figures I bought. Ripley’s jacket needs more of a wash, but it doesn’t matter all that much as I only plan on displaying her in her sleeveless mode. All of the tiniest details are nice and sharp with very little slop — including her eyes and lips. There is even some nice subtle bruising on the side of her head. I’m not usually the biggest fan of painted nostrils, but I don’t much notice it here.
The WY Commando doesn’t have the broadest color palette, but the paint apps are more than solid. There’s a nice wash that makes this guy look like he’s seen some real action.
Articulation
Ripley has the standard modern NECA articulation and is as poseable as any of NECA’s best offerings. Included is a ball-jointed head, pin-and-disc shoulders, elbows, and knees, ball/pin-and-disc hips, rocker ankles, pin wrists, a waist cut, and an ab joint. I would like to see them add a little more to the wrists to get some more natural poses. The WY Commando doesn’t fare quite as well due to the sculpt. He has the same points but there is no ab joint and the shoulders are very limited due to the large shoulder pads — especially that right arm.
Accessories
Ripley fares quite a bit better, but this is expected as her sculpt is relatively simple. With an extra set of sleeveless arms, you can create two looks for her: one jacketed, one not. Unfortunately, there was so much paint gumming up the wrists on the jacketed arms that they both snapped off right away. So that sucks. Good news is that they were always just going to end up in a box since the sleeveless look is what I prefer.
Ripley also comes with a flashlight and torch.
The WY Commando comes equipped with his rifle, knife, and extra set of eye shields that allow you pose with them up or down. The backpack and helmet are not removable.
Creature Pack
I’m getting awfully wordy here, so let’s sum this up quickly. This is the 30th anniversary pack celebrating Aliens. You get two stasis chambers with working LED lights and removable facehuggers, two chestbursters, and two additional facehuggers. The cost is $20 and I pretty much bought it for the chambers — which are awesome. The LED’s are bright and add a huge amount of realism when lit up. The switch is on the bottom, so you’ll have to pick it up every time you want to turn it on. Not a big deal, but some sort of disguised switch on top would have been nice for those of us with packed displays. The chestbursters have bendable tails to aid in posing and are really well-scaled with the figures — which makes them pretty tiny. The facehuggers are nothing new, and if you already bought the egg set, you probably don’t need any more. Still, it was a nice inclusion.
Overall
I’m a huge fan of this property and this line, so I can’t not recommend any of this. Apart from the QC issue on Ripley, NECA hit it out of the park once again.
Thanks for reading!
Buy Weyland-Yutani Commando on Amazon
