darthskellington
Dark Lord of the Typos
So I opened some of the new items I got this past week.
Super Vulture Droid: This one is very cool. I wasn't excited about this
when I heard about it, but now that I can see it in person it really is
quite nice. It appears to be true to scale with the figures, which makes
it seem huge, almost too big. But thinking back to the opening scene of
TPM, the scale is right. It is pretty much the same as the old
articulated droid starfighter, only twice as big. Added "shoulder"
articulation for better poseablilty. 2 rocket launchers on the bottom
instead of one. Extra missiles can be stored on the wings/legs near the
blades or feet. Added cool feature is the "pop-up" droid head. Push a
button and the head pops up, so it can look around like in ROTS. Once
up, the neck and be positioned all the way forward, and the head can
rotate 360 degrees. The only thing this ship can't do is close it's wing
all the way (thus concealing the blasters). The only toy I've seen do
that is the old Action Fleet Droid Starfighter. It accomplished this at
the loss of appearance and leg features.
MagnaGuard Starfighter: This one is cool.....it's pretty much what you
would expect. Opening cockpit, firing missiles, rotating directional
thrusters, landing gear, and engine access hatches that you can store
electro-staffs in. Cool addition to any diorama or dogfight. The ship
is about the size I expected, although the main body/cockpit seems
smaller than I pictured, for some reason. The ship has a mysterious
hexagon hole in the top tht serves no purpose.....possibly a weapon or
grapple could be attached to it one day? This toy reminds me of the
cloak-shape fighters from Dark Empire...which is why I think it would
look good in a spaceport diorama.
Jabba & TC-70: Very nice....not much there though. TC-70 is a nice
repaint of 3PO....eyes are painted over though so no "glowing eyes".
Jabba has articualted arms and wrists, which is a nice touch. They will
pop off so you can remove the figure from the package. Jabba comes with
his Hookah and armrest. Jabba is made of a rubber material, so he has
an unpleasant rubber (I mean, Hutt) smell. My only complaint (other than
$$$) is that his yellow belly paint scheme is designed for Jabba to be
facing forward. When he is turned sideways, like in the package or ROTJ,
his chest paint does not match up evenly.
Yavin Scramble: Garven Dreis fig looks good as does his head sculpt.
Droid is cool....and is NOT the same paint job as the recent build a
droid R2, although they are similar. Rebel Ground Crew looks great, and
has a very interesting head sculpt under the helmet. If I didn't know
any better, I'd say it's Ryan Stiles from Who's Line is it Anyway. (I'm
serious...buy the set, take off the helmet..and you get Ryan Stiles).
Anyway, the transport is very well done. The underside is completely
sculpted with engine details and has wheels it rolls on. The top is big
enough it could realisticly hold 6-7 seated figures, although I suppose
you could squeeze 9 total passengers. Bonus feature: behind the two
battery cells there is a an opening top hatch. It features a sculpted
interior with slots to put weapons in, and enough floor space to stand
1-2 figures or an astromech droid. Why an astromech would need a ride to
a fighter, I don't know, but you can squeeze one in there anyway. Ground
crew and transport are the highlight of this set.
Star Trek:
The Playmates Enterprise ship: This ship is done along the lines of the
old ships from the 90's line. Stand, ship, lights and sound. This time
around, smaller. A lot smaller. I was surprised by the small size of
the ship compared to previous Playamtes ships. Looks good though. This
time, there is only one sound button. You press it and it plays a
variety of voice clips with corresponding lights. The ship is the length
of the box...fully assembled inside.
Bridge playset: Hasbro could take a cue from this and make a cool Star
Destroyer bridge, or other scene. What you get: Kirk figure; a plastic
roll-out playmat...about the size of the Next Generation Bridge playset
form the 90's; a command platform featuring the captain's chair, plus
helm and navigation consoles with chairs; two computer display panels;
forward viewscreen. Everything else (about 18 other pairs of
chairs/consoles), come with the figures. Buy all the figures, get a
massive Bridge playset. Drawbacks.....the playmat is so big it had to
be folded in half before they rolled it up....so you end up with a crease
running down the center. Mine is currently beng flattened under a couple
phone books, so not a big deal, but I don't think it will ever completely
go away. Haid dryer might help, but might melt the plastic too. Also,
one of my Nav chairs is wrong. I think they included a basic chair from
one of the figures, not a bridge playset unique chair. I'll have to
contact playmates and/or buy/return another to get my chair. Overall,
cool playset for the price (bought on sale last week for $19.99).
Transporter playset....similar to bridge. You get Scotty, a playmat,
control console with chair, transporter platform, back wall with ceiling,
and a tranporter cylinder. Place a figure on the platform, place
cylinder over figure, "transport" the figure.....light up and disappears.
Pick up cylinder (figure goes with it) put anywhere you want (like a
planet surface) and activate the transporter. Lights up, figure
reappears, releases from cylinder to be left standing wherever you
tranported him to. Very cool concept. Cylinder interior is very small
though....tricky to smoothly slide figures into. Buy 4 other figures to
get 3 more transporter base pieces and 1 more console with chair.
Warren
Super Vulture Droid: This one is very cool. I wasn't excited about this
when I heard about it, but now that I can see it in person it really is
quite nice. It appears to be true to scale with the figures, which makes
it seem huge, almost too big. But thinking back to the opening scene of
TPM, the scale is right. It is pretty much the same as the old
articulated droid starfighter, only twice as big. Added "shoulder"
articulation for better poseablilty. 2 rocket launchers on the bottom
instead of one. Extra missiles can be stored on the wings/legs near the
blades or feet. Added cool feature is the "pop-up" droid head. Push a
button and the head pops up, so it can look around like in ROTS. Once
up, the neck and be positioned all the way forward, and the head can
rotate 360 degrees. The only thing this ship can't do is close it's wing
all the way (thus concealing the blasters). The only toy I've seen do
that is the old Action Fleet Droid Starfighter. It accomplished this at
the loss of appearance and leg features.
MagnaGuard Starfighter: This one is cool.....it's pretty much what you
would expect. Opening cockpit, firing missiles, rotating directional
thrusters, landing gear, and engine access hatches that you can store
electro-staffs in. Cool addition to any diorama or dogfight. The ship
is about the size I expected, although the main body/cockpit seems
smaller than I pictured, for some reason. The ship has a mysterious
hexagon hole in the top tht serves no purpose.....possibly a weapon or
grapple could be attached to it one day? This toy reminds me of the
cloak-shape fighters from Dark Empire...which is why I think it would
look good in a spaceport diorama.
Jabba & TC-70: Very nice....not much there though. TC-70 is a nice
repaint of 3PO....eyes are painted over though so no "glowing eyes".
Jabba has articualted arms and wrists, which is a nice touch. They will
pop off so you can remove the figure from the package. Jabba comes with
his Hookah and armrest. Jabba is made of a rubber material, so he has
an unpleasant rubber (I mean, Hutt) smell. My only complaint (other than
$$$) is that his yellow belly paint scheme is designed for Jabba to be
facing forward. When he is turned sideways, like in the package or ROTJ,
his chest paint does not match up evenly.
Yavin Scramble: Garven Dreis fig looks good as does his head sculpt.
Droid is cool....and is NOT the same paint job as the recent build a
droid R2, although they are similar. Rebel Ground Crew looks great, and
has a very interesting head sculpt under the helmet. If I didn't know
any better, I'd say it's Ryan Stiles from Who's Line is it Anyway. (I'm
serious...buy the set, take off the helmet..and you get Ryan Stiles).
Anyway, the transport is very well done. The underside is completely
sculpted with engine details and has wheels it rolls on. The top is big
enough it could realisticly hold 6-7 seated figures, although I suppose
you could squeeze 9 total passengers. Bonus feature: behind the two
battery cells there is a an opening top hatch. It features a sculpted
interior with slots to put weapons in, and enough floor space to stand
1-2 figures or an astromech droid. Why an astromech would need a ride to
a fighter, I don't know, but you can squeeze one in there anyway. Ground
crew and transport are the highlight of this set.
Star Trek:
The Playmates Enterprise ship: This ship is done along the lines of the
old ships from the 90's line. Stand, ship, lights and sound. This time
around, smaller. A lot smaller. I was surprised by the small size of
the ship compared to previous Playamtes ships. Looks good though. This
time, there is only one sound button. You press it and it plays a
variety of voice clips with corresponding lights. The ship is the length
of the box...fully assembled inside.
Bridge playset: Hasbro could take a cue from this and make a cool Star
Destroyer bridge, or other scene. What you get: Kirk figure; a plastic
roll-out playmat...about the size of the Next Generation Bridge playset
form the 90's; a command platform featuring the captain's chair, plus
helm and navigation consoles with chairs; two computer display panels;
forward viewscreen. Everything else (about 18 other pairs of
chairs/consoles), come with the figures. Buy all the figures, get a
massive Bridge playset. Drawbacks.....the playmat is so big it had to
be folded in half before they rolled it up....so you end up with a crease
running down the center. Mine is currently beng flattened under a couple
phone books, so not a big deal, but I don't think it will ever completely
go away. Haid dryer might help, but might melt the plastic too. Also,
one of my Nav chairs is wrong. I think they included a basic chair from
one of the figures, not a bridge playset unique chair. I'll have to
contact playmates and/or buy/return another to get my chair. Overall,
cool playset for the price (bought on sale last week for $19.99).
Transporter playset....similar to bridge. You get Scotty, a playmat,
control console with chair, transporter platform, back wall with ceiling,
and a tranporter cylinder. Place a figure on the platform, place
cylinder over figure, "transport" the figure.....light up and disappears.
Pick up cylinder (figure goes with it) put anywhere you want (like a
planet surface) and activate the transporter. Lights up, figure
reappears, releases from cylinder to be left standing wherever you
tranported him to. Very cool concept. Cylinder interior is very small
though....tricky to smoothly slide figures into. Buy 4 other figures to
get 3 more transporter base pieces and 1 more console with chair.
Warren
Maybe he'd even sign it for you. 