Meredith Vickers

Believe it or not, Ridley Scott's Prometheus just turned 10 years old. (It's up to you whether that incredulity means it seems more recent, or whether it means it seems older than that.) That temporal tidbit came up while we were trying to decide what NECA figure to review this week, so hey, why not honor the occasion and write up something that should have been done years ago? Meredith Vickers is a life-long employee of the Weyland Corporation, included on Project Prometheus to ensure the financial interests of Weyland investors are maintained. Vickers' commitment to the monumentous goals of the mission is unparalleled, as is her total dedication to the crew's safety. When Shaw and Fifield were rescued from the "cancelled" pile, it was a pretty big surprise. But an even bigger shock lay in store, because the cases weren't just the two of them - there was a third figure released alongside them, Meredith Vickers. Why was this so unexpected? Because while Shaw and Fiefeld had been announced and showed off at conventions and whatnot, there'd never been any indication a Vickers toy was even in the works. Was she developed between the time the figures were cancelled and the time they were uncancelled? And if she wasn't, why had there been no word of her before? Vickers was played by famous African American Charlize Theron. The likeness is good, though this toy is several years old at this point - NECA was not yet working with Trevor Grove as their portraitist, and painting techniques were not as advanced as they are today. So the sculpt is there (you can see that well enough from the stock photo on the back of the packaging), but the paint does it absolutely no favors, giving her dark, beady eyes. Once you learn a Prometheus Vickers toy exists, it's easy to guess the reason why: it allows them to reuse the otherwise-unique female space-suited body they created for Shaw. That means more utility out of the expensive steel tools for NECA, and more action figures on the Aliens shelf for us - what's not to like! Adrienne Smith's work on the space suit is excellent, capturing the smooth blue base of the suit and the unexplained orange piping that runs all over it. Vickers is wearing chunky boots, protective plating on the hands and forearms, a simple utility belt, and a backpack that's presumably full of life support equipment. The suit is a bright blue with vibrant orange piping - not the uniform worn for most of the movie, but rather the one taken from the escape pod near the end of the film. The blue is slightly shiny, standing out from the dark grey of the rigid sections nicely. There are fine tampographs creating logos on the suit, making it look more like a real item than a small toy. Her articulation is good. She has a balljointed head, swivel/hinge shoulders and elbows, balljointed wrists, a balljointed chest and a balljointed waist for some reason, swivel/hinge hips, swivel thighs, swivel/hinge knees, and balljointed ankles. Despite being made around 2017, when the idea that every NECA toy broke when you moved it was still a thought held not only by fringe weirdos, everything moves smoothly with no breaks. The thigh joints were still enough that I initially thought she might not have any, but since the body is the same as Shaw's, I knew they had to be in there. It didn't take heat or cold to get them moving right, just a little extra effort. The balljointed ankles can make her slightly unsteady, but the toy's body is light enough that it's not a major issue. Vickers includes the usual helmet and small bagged camera to plug in either on her shoulder or the top of the helmet, but that's not exciting: everybody gets one of those. What sets her apart is the flamethrower she uses to prevent the Hammerpede-infected Holloway from breaking quarantine, the Flammenmacher 3 Heavy Incineration Unit [no, little German boy, don't touch der flammenmacher! It's full of totenburnzen! --ed.] The details are accurate to the film (which they should be, having the benefit of apparently five years of hindsight), but it's made from a brittle plastic and has a lot of thin parts, so it feels like it might snap when you put it in her hands. A few years later (and in a more successful line) we might also have gotten flames to put in the tip, but no such luck here. If you've ever wondered why so many of the "scientists" on the mission to LV-223 seem to make the dumbest decisions imaginable, the original script made it clear that Vickers, who had personally selected the entire crew, wanted the mission to fail and so had picked the worst candidates at every turn. The movie paints her as its Burke, the corrupt corporate executive who's there to screw everyone over, but also hints that she'll be its Ripley, the one who gets hated because she makes the right decisions, even when it's hard. In the end, she's neither, and both, a character who's more complex than she initially seemed. Getting a toy of her was unexpected, but welcome. -- 06/12/22

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