So can we get away with making this review half-length?
Bishop. Android. ("Artificial person.") Ripley hates him, but he's nice, so then she doesn't. He's a qualified pilot, but apparently doesn't notice when his ship is dragging something in the landing gear. Shouldn't there be sensors for that sort of thing?
This figure represents Bishop after he was attacked by the Queen - thus the name. So it's just half a figure, the head, arms, and a bit of internal workings. It's great that NECA was able to do such a gross figure, with piles of loose viscera, simply because it's not red; it's like in Kill Bill, when Tarantino successfully avoided an NC-17 rating by simply censoring The Bride vs. Crazy 88 fight to be in black and white. I mean, here's a disarticulated, disemboweled body, and it can be sold in Toys Я Us because the stuff hanging out of him looks like what's under the hood of your car and is molded in tan.
While the previous Bishop had a calm look on his face, this scene
is anything but placid - thus, he looks scared and confused, and just a little bit unfocussed. The head is a new sculpt, with the mouth hanging open and the hair a bit unkempt. He's also covered in his white "blood," which, in the film, was made from milk and yogurt - it spoiled under the hot lights, and poor Lance Henriksen got sick. The paint varies from figure to figure, so if you have the opportunity to compare quality before you buy, take it.
Bishop has the same arms as the last figure, though this time the interior of the joints are molded from pink plastic, not black - the downside being that the paint on the shoulders scrapes away easily, leaving big square flashes of "skin." The hands are the same molds, too, so he can hold his flashlight if you so desire. And the shoulder doesn't fall out of place this time! While there is a balljoint in the upper torso, you can't get Bishop up onto his elbows, like he was in the scene - you'll have to settle for him laying flat on his back. But here's a question for you: if the front of his jumpsuit has the hole where the Queen impaled him, shouldn't there be one on his back as well?
Because a half-a-Bishop wouldn't be a very good value by itself, NECA has paired him with a fun extra: a flexible facehugger, and an opened alien egg. We haven't gotten an egg since McFarlane made some, and the facehugger is a new sculpt, too.
The egg is about 2½" tall, and has a varying diameter - that's what happens when an egg is shaped like an egg. The base is only about 1¾ across, but the body maxes out around 2⅜".
The exterior of the egg has a perfectly scaly texture, but what's really impressive is that the inside is detailed just as thoroughly - it looks lumpy and slimy and wet, thanks to the glossy pink paint that coats it. The flaps at the top even have sculpted strings of mucous stretching between them, which is just a terrible sentence to have to read (or write).
The facehugger's tail is bendy, for posing options, and it's sculpted with six of its finger-legs splayed and two curled up in front of it. The underside, with its cuneal mouth, is given a gloss finish to make it look wet, while the top is dry.
If you've got the Alien Queen, and you've got the human queen, and you're going to get the Power Loader, you've kind of got to get this Bishop to go with them - he's an important part of the scene! He's a fun half-man, and getting the egg is a nice bonus.
-- 10/17/15
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