Well I agree with Cap Mal being godawful, they really dropped the ball on that one, but I think the Sin City line should've gotten some more brownie points. Miho, Marv and Hartigan of the smaller line were very impressive. And the Hellboy one, sure it looks nice, but please, he's practically all primary shapes, how hard is that to get right...

EdDantes | January 06, 22:56 CET

A Willow figure also gets the mention in the "worsts" section

CaptainB | January 07, 00:34 CET

If you take the head from the Final Battle Mal and swap it onto the Browncoated Mal body (gentle but sustained upward pulling does the trick) you'll end up with a pretty acceptable Captain Mal. Its a wonder Diamond didn't use the same head.

Having said that it would be great if Sideshow got the license.

malformed | January 07, 00:37 CET

I certainly agree about the Mal figure being very disapppointing. I don't think the body or accessories are bad but both heads are horrible, in my opinion, and make it look like Nathan Fillion is wearing blusher, which as far as I can remember he wasn't in the film.

I'm surprised about the Buffy Palz being mentioned in the worst section. I think they look incredibly cool, and have plenty of cool accessories and each of them can be swapped to make a different version of the character. The reviewer doesn't like "blind boxing". I assume this is packaging that doesn't have a clear piece of plastic so you can actually see the figures?

Also agree about how unfortunately horrible the Alias figures are. I swear, it never ceases to amaze me how these companies can make excellent, perfect busts or figures of the most complex and unusual demons and monsters but they still produce so many poor human figures based on actors, who they apparently have digital scans of, when they apparently don't have scans of the monsters. And that's not to mention a certain Angel puppet.

Razor | January 07, 00:59 CET

I think so, re: the blind boxing.

To be fair, they didn't say that the Buffy Palz themselves were horrible, just the packaging. It was a "worst packaging" award, not a "worst figure" award.

As far as the Serenity figures go, I would have thought that Jayne would get the no-prize over Mal. Though, granted, by a very slim margin. *shrugs* I guess, in the end, it all boils down to personal preference, which will always vary.

At least the Reaver looked cool, eh?

sonyajeb | January 07, 02:08 CET

Have you seen the limited edition unpainted Jayne figure from Diamond Select Toys? Based on pictures of it, it seems the sculpt was actually pretty good (IMO). It made me look to the painting as the culprit. Makes me want to scrub that expression right off of action figure Mal's face and see what's under there, too. :)

[ edited by ThereUR on 2006-01-07 02:16 ]

ThereUR | January 07, 03:36 CET

Hey THerUR - total agreement. I was surprised how good the unpainted Jayne looked.

Gotta' tell you I looked through many Mals to find one that wasn't wearing too much "blush". There were also a bunch that were too yellow or Chinese-looking in overall complexion so I'm pretty happy with my "custom" Mal.

malformed | January 07, 03:47 CET

I definitely want more. I thought the Serenity figures were "ok" but Mal's hairline and expression (on both versions of him) was a disaster. Mercenary Jayne (with the cigar) was a great figure, IMO, even if the likeness was off a little bit.

If Diamond has given up on their Serenity line, I'd like it if Diamond were to restart the line as a Firefly line - either in the same scale as the initial Serenity figures, or in the slightly larger scale that Diamond's Stargate figures are in. (The larger scale would likely mean better detail).

I've speculated elsewhere that Diamond intentionally dropped the ball on the Serenity line so that they could come back and get more favorable contract for Firefly figures. I hope that's not just my active imagination.

will.bueche | January 07, 04:00 CET

i noticed that the unpainted jayne looked fabulous as well! but i then compaired the pictures of the unpainted jaybes with the pics of painted jayne- and even the hair line and shape was completely different! i swear to god thats a new sculpt!! im like, if they'd just paint it i'd buy it! i wanted jayne and mal sooo bad- and i didn't buy them because the faces were just horrible. there was no reason that they should have looked so bad:P

[ edited by kate on 2006-01-07 06:16 ]

Drusillaloveskyo | January 07, 08:15 CET

Hey, willbueche! There's a name I recognize :) Welcome to the good ship Whedonesque, sir!

zeitgeist | January 07, 08:20 CET

Three cheers for Drusilla the Gold!!

AncientMagicks | January 07, 19:25 CET

Hi, Zeitgeist! Thanks! After months of enjoying lurking, I finally made it in as a member of Whedonesque during the open registration held over Christmas. Glad to be here in full, at last!

will.bueche | January 07, 22:40 CET