The film Alien seemed to come out of nowhere. A horror in space that was like no other that came before it or after it. Moody, dark and absolutely terrifying, the film spawned several sequels, including what may be one of the finest sequels in the history of film, Aliens.The
Nostromo, a deep-space hauling vessel with a priceless cargo of minerals from distant planets, encounters an unexpected signal that may indicate intelligent life. The ship's computer automatically wakes the cryo-sleeping crew to investigate. The ship sets down on a dead world where the crew finds a derelict spacecraft and discovers the fossilized, almost mummified remains of what appears to be an extraterrestrial space jockey, the long-dead skeletal pilot of the derelict ship. Finding a cave underneath the pilot's control chair, Kane, one of the astronauts, explores further only to be attacked by a newly spawned alien creature he finds down in the dark recesses. The creature is brought back on board the
Nostromo, and soon the terror begins, when an alien incubating in Kane's stomach runs loose on board.
Part of
Alien's success was due to the fact that the horrific alien creature was designed by H.R. Giger, famous for his melding of bone, body and machine into beautiful yet ugly images that would scare most people anyway. But this success was also due to an excellent set of performances by actors both known and unknown who made what could easily have been a shlocky cheap thriller into something real, something that felt more like a documentary than science fiction.
Many toy lines have sprung from this lucrative license. One of the most intriguing and unusual is the Mez-Itz line from Mezco.
The Mez-Itz Alien carded set is composed of 2.5-inch figures of Kane, the unfortunate astronaut who is attacked on the derelict spacecraft, and the alien menace, each with its own diorama display stand, as well as the space jockey, an interesting fossil the crew finds at the heart of the downed ship.
The two figures have limited moving parts, but the shoulders and hips are set on ball joints, making for good range of angular movement. Kane's head rotates to show one of two faces: one "before" shot, and one "after" once the face hugger attaches itself to his face.
The set comes on a bubble card with very little information about the set, but the back depicts a large image of the film's lobby poster.
In space, no one can hear you play A trend in recent years has been to create licensed action figures shaped like those small Lego men that have been part of Lego construction toys for decades. Just about every toy license in the world now has figures shaped like this—slightly larger, but not much more detailed—from the
Simpsons to the
X-Men, and now
Alien is no exception.
The interesting thing about this toy set is that for such a horrific theme the set is almost—cute. In the film, we have this hideously efficient killing machine made of what looks like cross between smooth piping and vertebrae, and suddenly here he is, turned into a small cartoon caricature. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the juxtaposition of the sleek horror of the film and the cutesy plastic of these figures is amusing, to say the least.
Each figure has interesting play features that far exceed the Lego figures' that inspired this look.
Kane's space suit is a simple design, but it has detailed additions attached to it. The helmet itself is an excellent likeness, and it connects to a well-detailed backpack tank. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, the wrists and waist rotate. The coolest thing about this figure is the fact that the helmet's searchlight rotates, and the face inside the helmet spins around to reveal Kane's face with the alien face hugger attached to his face. (How it got inside the untouched helmet visor is beyond me.)
Kane's diorama stand has two small ovals for his feet to fit in and three alien egg pods. The central pod is open, and a small, fully detailed rubber model of the face hugger fits inside the pod.
The alien has very nice detail, including the ribbed piping seen all over the body, a rubber tail and a long, arced head. The head's carapace is clear, showing bonelike detailing underneath. But also a lever under the back of the head can be pushed, causing the alien's second inner mouth to protrude from between its sharp outer teeth. An excellent feature.
The alien's base is a typical wall of the
Nostromo, with gas tanks and bulkhead features.
The star of this set, however, is the rotocast space jockey. For a deformed model (with an exaggerated flat head, the hallmark of this type of figure) its detail is excellent. The skeletal ribs look good, and the way the pilot blends in with his chair is captured well from the film. What looks like a navigational scope is fairly accurately modeled. The pilot snaps to a base with similar detail, and rotates on that base.
I recently watched the director's cut of Alien at the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival, and despite the fact that it's 25 years old, this movie is still almost perfect in every way. Even down the the amazing detail of the space jockey's chair and base, Mez-Itz captures the gorgeous design of the film in a lighthearted way that is slightly confusing, but ultimately delightful. — Sean
