{"id":20582,"date":"2015-10-16T00:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T04:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=20582"},"modified":"2016-07-31T15:44:33","modified_gmt":"2016-07-31T19:44:33","slug":"science-fiction-mystery-minis-alien-predator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2015\/10\/science-fiction-mystery-minis-alien-predator\/","title":{"rendered":"Science Fiction Mystery Minis - Alien & Predator"},"content":{"rendered":"

Funko's Horror Classics Mystery Minis<\/i> are perfect for Horror Month reviews, but sometimes the Science Fiction Mystery Minis<\/i> have a little bit of crossover potential.<\/p>\n

Alien<\/i> is about an outer space penis monster who just wants to make friends. It's also the movie that everyone loves to unintentionally slight when they refute \"sequels are never good\" arguments by citing Aliens<\/i>. Yes, it's \"just\" a haunted house movie set in space, according to Roger Ebert<\/a> (jump to the 22-minute mark), but is that so bad? It takes existing tropes and drops them into a new setting. Harry Potter<\/i> and The Matrix<\/i> are both Plato's allegory of the cave, but does that make them identical movies? No!<\/p>\n

The original Alien was designed by HR Giger, and was a mess of anatomical details and phallic imagery. The Mystery Minis<\/i> style is to make things smooth and simplified, suggesting that, in theory, the two would be at loggerheads. In theory. In practice, they've been merged splendidly.<\/p>\n

The xenomorph has an adorable squatty stance, and he's bent way over - this allows the figure to suggest the Aliens' excess height while still being small enough to fit in the standard box. Its head is smooth, marking this as being from the first film. It has sculpted ribs around the chest, dorsal tubes, and even the spike between its shoulders. He has the weird six-fingered hands, and although the feet are large, they have ridges on the front coming up from the toenails, plus a spike on the heel. There are subtle ribbed sections on the sides of the head, the forearms, the stomach, the tops of the thighs, and the back of the shins. Plus the sides of the inner jaw, which is sticking out.<\/p>\n

The most common Alien Mystery Mini is available in a 1:12 ratio. Unfortunately, it's a \"metallic\" figure that's all in pewter and looks like crap. The version in this review, painted black and grey, is 1:24 - so it's not much<\/b> harder to find, but why would you make the good one the variant?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Some Mystery Minis<\/i> are fine by themselves - others get better with a partner.<\/p>\n

Whether you consider the Alien or the Predator a better movie monster depends on what you want: do you prefer a dumb animal (that can somehow cut the power), or do you like an enemy with malicious cunning? Man against man or man against nature? At the end of the day, facing the Predator is the same as facing a man - it thinks, it reasons, it uses tools, it has a culture - while fighting xenomorphs is a jumped-up version of Liam Neeson: Wolfpuncher<\/a><\/i>.<\/p>\n

This Predator is from the first movie. He's yellow and tan, rather than being orange, and his armor is limited to greaves around his shins, a crotchplate, and a bit on both shoulders. The wrist-blades are extended from his gauntlet, there are metal studs on his knuckles, and they even remembered the extra toe on the back of his foot. His trophy skull sash is sculpted on his chest, and a diamond pattern sculpted into his legs, torso and left arm suggest his netting. Its not painted, but that's probably for the best.<\/p>\n

Maybe it's a result of all the cool Predators NECA has given us, but this one just doesn't grab me - I like the design, it's just something about the paint that leaves me cold. Is it the pale, pale yellow? The way the brown is just big jagged stripes? I don't know. His dreadlocks are really cute, though.<\/p>\n

There are three different variants of the Predator available: a 1:12 regular version; a 1:24 \"bloody\" version (which really just has a few small drops of green paint, nothing amazing); and a 1:36 clear version. Really, Funko? You had<\/b> to fill up the boxes with all these Predators? You couldn't have, say, increased the rarity of those, and made it easier to find the 1:72 Rocketeer or Mars Attacks<\/i> Martian? Or how about replacing the open-mouthed face on this one with a mask? Do the normal figure masked, make a 1:36 unmasked bloody version, and then leave the masked-and-cloaked one at 1:72.<\/p>\n

But himself, the Predator is fairly unimpressive. But put him next to the Alien<\/a>, and suddenly he gets a lot cooler. But if you really want to impress us, Funko? Be like NECA, and do the entire Lost Tribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

So, both those figures came from Series 1. But the Science Fiction Mystery Minis<\/i> came back for Series 2, and in addition to the 1:72 Kane with Facehugger, there was also a 1:12 Alien Queen.<\/p>\n

In the original 1979 Alien<\/i>, the titular peen-monster was a solitary creature, with only a hint that there was more to the species (namely, an entire room full of eggs, though only one hatched). It wasn't until 1986's Aliens<\/i> that we were introduced to the rest of their insectoid hierarchy. The thing is, in 1982 the X-Men<\/i> comics had introduced the Brood, aliens that reproduced by infecting other organisms; yes, they were clear rip-offs of the xenomorphs, but they had a queen in the comics before the movies did.<\/p>\n

The Queen is one of the biggest figures in this series, in addition to being one of the most common, which means that if you're trying to get a sizeable figure like Voltron or Godzilla, you're likely to get tricked by the Queen. I've personally come across probably half a dozen of her while trying to find other things.<\/p>\n

Because of the Mystery Minis<\/i> style and her squatty, horizontal stance, the Queen ends up being slightly shorter than her drone. The details are intricate, by the standards of this line, with ridges all the way down the tail, spikes sticking out of her back, hollows in the heels of the feet, and minorly inset spots on the hips and head-crest. The figure is done in black and grey (no metallic variants to worry about here), with silver teeth. She has four fingers and two thumbs on each hand, and two tiny extra arms sprouting from her chest.<\/p>\n

The Alien and Predator make for a nice pair, but the addition of the Queen really tips the battle in the Xenos' favor. Funko better come up with some more Preds pretty soon!<\/p>\n

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<i>And now, some more OAFEry:<\/i><\/H5>