Figure Name: Mr. Spock
Manufacturer: Mego Toys Corp.
Mego released Mr. Spock as part of it's carded 3&3/4" Star Trek: The Motion Picture line.
The Rundown: Another entry in Mego's 3&3/4" line, Spock was a very 'logical' choice for the line (hee hee). You can't have a classic Trek line without Spock! Just think though; had Nimoy decided not to return the franchise, I'd be writing this spotlight on Xon right now...
Spock is pretty much par for the course with the line. The body features the 5 points of articulation that was standard for the line. The sculpt on the hips are a little wide for many collectors, but I just remind myself that this figure is 30 years old now, and as such you have to overlook certain things due to the limitations of the time. Still, the sculpt on the uniform is quite well detailed. Again, Mego made some odd choices on the uniform though, since Spock wears a solid gray uniform for the majority of the film. They could have been working off of publicity stills or something though, much like with their "mello-yello" Decker.
The place where the Mego 3&3/4" line really shines is in their head sculpts. Spock here has a pretty good likeness for the scale and time! They captured many of the details of Nimoy's face that give him his unique look. Much better than Ertl's effort years later...
The End.... Ha!
Seriously, I really dig the line and feel like it's often overlooked by most collectors. It's pretty diverse and is a great scale.
-James
As far as the uniform colors being off, I chalk that up to there being very little variety in color for the crew uniforms in the film. Almost all of the characters they chose to model would have been wearing the standard gray outfit as members of the crew. It seemed that a lot of toy manufacturers in the 60's and 70's seemed to choose bright colors and variations over accuracy as they believed that these would be more appealing to kids ( Good non-trek examples of this would include the Dinky "Space:1999" Eagle transporter, and "U.F.O." Interceptor which were white in their respective series. Dinky decided to paint them lime green, which - to most fans - actually lessened their appeal ). As a child, I far preferred screen accuracy, as did most of my friends.
ReplyDeleteThough as far as variations go, I think the light-gray/dark gray on Spock is rather attractive. If the actual uniforms in the film had more of these color variations, they might have been considered less bland by most fans.
Dep1701
One addendum to my previous post; Since it was obvious that Mego was trying to add some variety to the clothing on these small figures, it's too bad that they didn't design Spock with the black and dark purple robes he wears when he first came aboard the Enterprise. Although they wouldn't have been the "standard" uniform that he wears through most of the film, it would've made an interesting variant from the other figures in the line.
ReplyDeleteDep1701