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If you've been on TVFT before, you'll know that I'm
a big fan of Playmates World of Springfield series of figures.
A good chunk of the comics on the site are WOS. Combine that
with the fact that I love the Simpsons for their portrayal of a
typical American family. Which one of has not had a Homer
Simpson moment of D'oh at some point? Now,
I was very disappointed to see that line come to an end. I
was really wanting to see the ninja Bart. Oh well, that's
water under the bridge now. Recently, McFarlane came up with
the license and started slowly cranking out their own SimStuff.
Now, with the Simpson's big screen debut just days away, McF is
hitting the pegs with their movie themed figures. I have had
some harsh words for the McF figures up this point based mainly on
pictures and what I'd seen in stores. I thought the
movie would be a great purpose to buy a McF Simpsons figure and
check it out for myself. So, that brings us to this review
of Homer and Plopper (the pig).
Appearance:
As with all McF figs, Homer comes locked away in
a clamshell type package. After a little X-Acto work, I had
the pieces free. Homer, Plopper and the base. Now,
since McF didn't put a a "Try it" hole in the package I didn't
think about the sound feature until I got the base out of the
back.
Two things became obvious about the
base. One, there were no batteries in it. D'oh, darn
fine print. Two, the tape used to hold the base in place
left some adhesive residue in two places that required cleaning up
to put on display.
At this point my attention turned
to Homer and Plopper. They both appear to be fairly faithful
to their film versions. As always, McF figs rarely
disappoint in sculpt and appearance. As to why Home has the
goofiest looking pig I've seen in awhile, I don't know. But
from the TV spots you can tell he sure loves it. I wonder if
he'll end up eating it like Pinchy the lobster?
The figures are sculpted to fit
together. I actually thought they might be one piece until I
got them out of the shell. There is a single post hole in
each of them that matches up to the base. At least getting
them in the right position isn't a huge problem.
The base has a painted on rug.
For the $15 price tag on these figures. I would have
expected a base with a sculpted rug.
Homer looks like himself. I
have to say I really like the way they did the two strands of hair
sticking up out of his head. Now the bad. I didn't
like all the black out lines in the pictures of the previous
figures, and I have to say I don't like it any better holding the
figures in my hand. It's just too much for my tastes.
Plopper suffers with the same extra
dark extra thick lines. Compared to the package art the
lines just look too thick. Also there is a small sections of
his (her?) snout that doesn't seem to match just quite right.
I thought it was an articulation point at first.
Now, I know this set is ripped from
a scene directly from the film. But, couldn't they have
picked a more dynamic pose for Homer? My major nit with this
set is that when it's all on the base its so small that it looks
like something is missing. A wall or something would have
helped. After seeing the commercials I would have rather
have seen Spider Pig. I think it would have made a much more
dynamic pose.
Fun:
Is this set fun? It could have been.
First, the issue that plagues most of the McFarlane figures of the
modern era. Articulation. In this entire set, there is
one point, Homer's neck.
The second issue is with the "sound" feature.
The set doesn't come with batteries and at $15 that seems a little
cheap. The batteries required are 2 AAA's. I don't
normally keep those around as 90% of the stuff around my house
takes AA's. And last, there is exactly one sound clip.
Major disappointment in the sound feature. The sound clip is
Homer telling Plopper he's a good little pig and some baby talk.
It's loud, I give it that. But, the sound quality isn't as
good as the Playmates sets.
The third issue is the pose. As I said
above the pose isn't the most dynamic. It's also so specific
that neither of the figures look good on their own. Plopper
has Homer's finger prints on his belly and Homer is all bent over
and on his knees. Unless he's bowing down to a giant donut,
this pose isn't good for much else. At least with the
neutral poses the WOS figures had, limited articulation still
looked good in a variety of displays.
Overall:
In general I'd say this is good as and of the
other McF SimStatues have been. The ironic thing that came
to my mind when I got this set together, was the resemblance to a
Hummel figurine.
McFarlane has done some great figures over the
years. The Shrek figures had a neutral pose and a good
compromise between articulation and sculpt. The original
Spawn figures were other good examples of the same thing. I
remember rumblings on message boards a decade ago that McF should
be allowed to create Star Wars figures just to get better sculpts
and articulation. Yet today, the average Star Wars figure
has more range of motion than most McF figures. If McF
wanted to make Mc statues, they should have taken a page from the
Four Horseman's book and made "Staction" figures that were in
scale with the previous line.
Overall, not a great figure, but a decent
likeness. I expect more, though, from the company that once
was considered on the cutting edge and ahead of the pack.
Engineernerd Score: 70/100
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