Playmates Spotlight- Dr. Soran ("Star Trek: Generations")

Figure Name: Dr. Soran
Manufacturer: Playmates Toys



Dr. Soran was released by Playmates as part of it's "Star Trek: Generations" line. (Mine has been autographed by Mr. Malcolm McDowell!)



The Rundown: This past weekend, the folks at HorrorHound Magazine held one of their conventions in my neck of the woods. While I am a fan of horror films, I wouldn't usually attend the show just based on my love of the genre... but this year featured a double whammy for me on the guest list: Meg Foster, who portrayed Evil Lyn in the 1987 "Masters Of The Universe" film, and Malcolm McDowell, known to Trek fans as Dr. Soran from "Star Trek: Generations". So I grabbed my carded Dr. Soran figure off the wall and hot-footed it over to the show for a signature. And since I took the time to dust him off for the show, I figured what better time to spotlight ol' Soran than right now! Let's take a look...



The "Star Trek: Generations" line is a bit of an oddity in general. Most of the figures are based off early conceptual costumes or deleted sequences that weren't in the film, like the Space-diving Kirk and all of the TNG crew being produced in uniforms not actually seen in the movie. All of the figures also lack the traditional articulation of your standard Playmates release, with most figures only having neck, waist, shoulder, and hip articulation.



Soran follows the trend of the line by missing out on one of the main visual cues of the character- the large scar that dominates his face! Again, since the line seems to have been based on a large portion of conceptual stuff, it's a detail that probably wasn't present early on and thus left out on the figure. And I could overlook that if the head actually looked like Malcolm McDowell...



...but no such luck. I consider myself to be a "Playmates-apologist", defending the inadequacies of many of the offerings by pointing out the nice head sculpt work that went into many of their releases. I can't do anything with this one. It just isn't very good.



Maybe things get better as we work down then? Umm, no. While the uniform is nicely sculpted, with a bunch of line-detailing throughout, the proportions of the figure are WAY off and look almost comical. The head is large even by Playmates standards, and those arms...



...What is up with these tiny arms!? I had no idea Soran was a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He must have a heck of a time buying long sleeve shirts off the rack. The arm issues drag down what was already a pretty mediocre offering into the land of dreadfulness.



Accessories: Soran includes an "action base", a pocketwatch, PADD, mulit-range light source, and a Klingon Disruptor. While the Klingon Disruptor is large, the pocket watch is ridiculously oversized-



Who has pockets big enough to hold that!? That thing looks like a wall clock. Might as well throw a chain on that and call him Flava Flav. Anyways...

Here's his bio from the box if you want to read it:



Dr. Soran is not one of Playmates finer efforts. In fact, I was a little bummed that this was the only Soran figure I had to get a signature on, as I am really not a fan of this guy. To be honest though, I'm not that big of a fan of the Soran character to begin with... You can totally skip this one. It doesn't add much to your shelf, and I'm sorry... but I just don't buy that this guy had a hand in Kirk's death.