Alien & Warrior Alien (2004) – Toy Review

Produced by McFarlane Toys

Features:

• Alien figure comes with a facehugger/egg base and two facehuggers

Asking Price: $10.99 each.
My Advice: Fans should own them with slight reservations.

[ad#longpost]McFarlane Toys is no stranger to the nasties spawned (no pun intended) from the mind of Giger. Indeed, they’ve released Alien and Predator toys before, specifically in a deluxe boxed set coupled with the Predator. Here, in anticipation of the upcoming Aliens vs. Predator flick, they’re releasing revamped versions of the previous six-inch figures, pulling from the original films in both franchises before releasing some specific toys for the new movie later this summer.

Here we’re talking two figures, of course: the first being the alien from the first film. This figure is identical to the one released previously. It’s heavily articulated almost to a fault: nineteen points are what you get here (ankles, knees, mid-thighs, hips, base of the tail, waist, shoulders, upper arms, elbows, wrists and neck) not to mention a lever at the base of the skull that shoots out the inner set of jaws. The tail is also flexible and firm enough to stay in whatever configuration you put it in.

As is the norm for McFarlane’s stuff, the sculpt is maniacally detailed: from the many ridges and ribs to the thing’s form to the transparent top to the thing’s skull, it’s pretty much straight from the movie as I remember it. The main difference here is a smaller version of the facehugger base from the boxed set–it comes with a place for the figure to stand, an open egg and two of the plastic facehuggers.

If there’s any main difference between this and the figure from the boxed set, it’s that the ankles on this figure seem to be looser than the one we received previous–it’s sometimes hard to get him to stand up properly, even with the base underneath. This may be just a bad batch on our part, so we’re willing to let that slide.

Then we come to the “Warrior Alien,” taken from the pluralized sequel. They’ve taken the original Alien figure and changed up everything but the legs and the torso. As a result, you’re looking at seventeen points of articulation (ankles, knees, mid-thighs, hips, base of the tail, waist, shoulders, upper arms, wrists and neck–because this figure’s arms don’t bend at the elbows). The head is different, featuring a more compact and harder skull, as well as the fact that the jaws are shut–no inner set of jaws. As we said the arms are different–with ridges that expand out from the lower arms–and the hands as well: the four fingers are fused to make for essentially two large fingers on each hand. The tail is a bit more spiky as well, though it’s just as flexible and easy to pose. Overall, the sculpt is, from what I can remember, extremely accurate from the film and just looks as wicked and lethal as you would expect.

Whereas the Alien figure is shiny and in places translucent, as well as having (what appears to my eyes, anyway) as a dark, dark brown paint job with orange flecks and highlights, the Warrior Alien is solid–no see-through action here. It’s also painted a duller, flatter grey and black. Makes the thing look more solid and more ready to kick your ass.

Both figures are pretty choice and the fan will want them. However, be aware that if you’ve already purchased the previous Alien vs. Predator set, the Alien figure is much the same, and the facehugger stand is the same as well, but on a smaller scale (and it won’t light up). If you missed it the first time, though, have at. Same with the Warrior Alien. McFarlane’s stuff is anything if not consistently good.