NECA “Engineers” Two Excellent Prometheus Toys

NECA releases the first two figures from their Prometheus series, including two versions of the Engineers that are every bit as well-realized as the film’s stunning visuals.

I don’t think I liked Ridley Scott’s Prometheus.  I do know it wasn’t a very good movie– the script was an illogical mess and the characters, by and large, acted on only whatever motivation lead them from point A to point B in the simplest way possible.  Despite that, I did respect the film’s ambition, and I’ve had many spirited discussions about Prometheus in the months since it hit theaters, and I think if it’s causing that kind of reaction almost four months later, it had to be doing something right.

It was also packed with stunning visuals, which is the main reason I opted to check out NECA’s toy line, despite my mixed feelings on the film itself.

NECA is getting as ambitious as the filmmakers with the depth of their Prometheus line, with at least three waves planned over the coming months, but they launched the line with a pair of Engineers, the meat-headed creatures responsible for the genesis of life on Earth.  The Engineers had two main looks in the film– the biomechanical Pressure Suit, and the exo-skeletal Chair suit, based on the iconic Space Jockey from Alien.  Both versions of the aliens are brilliantly realized in toy form here.

The Engineers had a very distinct look in Scott’s film, and the pale skinned, humanoid giants are perfectly realized through these 6″ scale figures, who actually clock in at a towering near 9″ in height.  The Pressure Suit Engineer features the unmasked, near-human head of one of these creatures, and he looks very accurate to his on-screen counterpart, from the black eyes and ashen skin to the distinct bridge of his nose.  The towering figure is wearing a bone-colored ancient space suit, packed with lots of strange, biomechanical details straight from the movie.  Just like in the movie, it’s vague where the suit ends and the Engineer’s skin begins, and the almost skeletal design of the suit’s torso has a vibe straight out of HR Giger’s famous Alien designs.  The figure features an excellent wash that spotlights the meticulous detail sculpted into the suit, and the result is a figure as intricate as he is otherworldly.

The Chair Suit figure is even better, delivering the Engineer in his Space Jockey-style armored suit.  The exoskeleton-like design is loaded with more nods to the Alien, from his rib-like chest armor to the skeletal striations on his arms and legs.  The Chair Suit is colored in a deep grey with a black wash and silver highlighting to give a weathered and metallic look to the figure.

The stylized lighting in much of the movie made it tough to discern exactly what color the Engineer’s suits were, and I got the impression they were closer to the bone-colored Pressure Suits, but the darker tone makes this figure stand out and feels like a direct throwback to the Xenomorphs, so I’m cool with that.  The iconic helmet is perfectly crafted, from the large black eyes to the trunk-like apparatus on the front, as well as the various tubes that connect throughout the figure’s head and body.

Both Engineers feature a very comprehensive articulation pattern, including ball joint necks and shoulders, half-ball elbows and knees, ab crunches, ball hips, knees, wrists and ankles.  These points of articulation offer lots of posing options, and the clever use of a soft plastic overlay across the hips (think Mattel’s Masters of the Universe, but better executed) does a great job of masking these joints.  The massive figures have a great heft to them, and their scale means they can seamlessly fit in with other semi-related NECA figures such as Aliens and Predator, so there are plenty of display options for these guys.

Collecting toys based on a property I’m not into always feels kind of weird to me.  I absolutely have my problems with Prometheus as a story and a film, but these figures are so well done, and came out so good I’m willing to gloss over my distaste for their source material.  The visuals of Prometheus were one thing that was absolutely not compromised on screen, and NECA did such a brilliant job of capturing that aesthetic here, I’m glad to add these Engineers to my collection.