Ninja Turtles Giant Dimension X Turtles & Metal Mutant Leonardo Review
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Having reviewed the eleven inch Head Droppin' and Power Coil Turtles, my appetite was wetted for more. And fortunately I had the giant sized
Dimension X version of the Turtles waiting in the wings as well as the SDCC exclusive Metal Mutant Leonardo which is Dimension X Leonardo with a
blue vac-metal finish. (Sorry Donatello fans, Playmates hasn't produced a giant version of him in his space gear yet.)
Packaging - 8/10The eleven inch Dimension X Turtles come in open front packages that are a combination of a box on the bottom and more traditional card on the back. The design is largely the same as previous eleven inch figures. But it has gotten a graphical overhaul with images and logos for the Turtles adventures in outer space from season four of the cartoon. The back is still a generic backer shared by all three Dimension X Turtles. But it is colorful and has a lot of personality. They do have two minor drawbacks. Inorder to insure the helmets don't get lost, the entire head and helmet is covered by a large plastic bubble which is kind of bulky and blocks your view of much of the graphics on the card.Metal Mutant Leonardo received a whole new package design. The figure itself is packaged on a giant sized blister card. The huge blister gives a great view of the figure. But it does mean that you don't see much of the graphics on card. The back of the card has another huge image of Leo from the cartoon and a quick description of the space armor. Using just a single image on a card that is fifteen inches tall isn't the most effective use of all of that space. But the image does look good. But Playmates went one more step with the packaging for Metal Mutant Leonardo and packaged the entire card in a plain white box with the TMNT logo, figure name, Playmates logo and UPC. So they designed a great new package, and then hid the entire thing in the plainest of plain boxes. Of course you can solve this by simply taking it out of the box. But with the UPC on the outer box, that is clearly part of the packaging. And that puts MIB collectors in a quandry, is Metal Mutant Leonardo still MIB if you remove it from the outer box?
Sculpting - Metal Mutant Leo 8/10 Dimension X Mike 6/10, Others 7/10The Dimesion X Turtles are the Battle Shell Turtles' bodies with new, Nickelodeon style heads. Then the space gear/armor is added on. The packaging points out that the space gear is removable. But that is only half true. The helmets/shoulder pads can be removed as can the hand guards. But the wristbands, thigh armor and belts all require either a screwdriver or the disassmbly of the figure itself to remove them. So much like the eleven inch Ninja in Training figures, you are not going to get a normal, plain Ninja Turtle figure out of these, or at least not without some effort. Judging them with the armor on and they still turned out reasonably well. The armor is bulky, especially the wristbands and pouches on the front of their belts. But space suits generally are bulky. And when all of the gear is put on, it works well together. They also did a decent job of including variety in the gear. The wristbands, hand guards and the shoulder pads are all reused for each figure. But the leg armor and belts are unique to each Turtle. And they dress up the helmets/shoulder pads with different control panels for each Turtle to add more variety as well. In terms of accuracy to the show, the armor is a mixed bag. It's a lot bulkier, covering far more of the Turtles than it does in the cartoon, especially on Michelangelo since his body is shorter. But they did do a decent job of getting the different control panels on the chests right. They certainly could have done better if they just started over and sculpted new bodies with the armor already attached. But for a retrofit to a three year old bodies, these turned out well.Metal Mutant Leonardo surprisingly is not a simple repaint of Dimension X Leonardo. Metal Mutant Leo doesn't have the new head sculpt. Instead he reuses the same head sculpt as Ninja in Training Leonardo. And I have to say that I like the open mouth, screaming sculpt more. The second obvious difference is that Metal Mutant Leonardo actually does come with "boots" as seen in the show. Given that Playmates obviously had to create the molds to make them, I'm really curious as to why the regular figures don't have them. The final change is that Metal Mutant Leonardo has a unique, backpack. It is much longer, extending all the way down to and connecting with the belt in the back which is much closer to how they are shown in the cartoon. It would be great if they had included a way to store his swords as well. But the larger backpack and boots help make the back of the figure much more interesting and make the figure look less naked from the back.
Paint - Metal Mutant Leonardo 6/10, Dimension X Turtles 3/10Both the Dimension X Turtles and Metal Mutant Leonardo have normal, Battle Shell figures as their base. And they have the usual paint applications including all the ankle, wrist and finger wrappings. They aren't wildly impressive. But it is a decent start and they are mostly covered by the armor anyway. And with all the armor added, the Dimension X Turtles there are a number of issues. The first is that there aren't many painted details on the armor, just the control panels on the chest. The wrist bands, hand guards belts and leg armor are all unpainted, monochrome plastic. The effect is then made much worse due to the fact that all of the white pieces are above and on the arms while the belts and leg armor form a mass of plastic in each Turtle's signature color. By concentrating the blue/red/orange in one area, the lack of paint becomes very obvious. Just how much of a difference it makes can be seen when you compare them to Metal Mutant Leonardo whose armor is still either vac-metal silver or blue. But by changing the wrist bands to match the blue of the belt and leg armor and adding the silver boots, there is a much better balance of colors over the figure overall.
Articulation - 3/10The Dimension X Turtles each have the original fifteen points of articulation from the Battle Shell base figures:
Accessories - 4/10Each of the Dimension X Turtles and Metal Mutant Leonardo come with a pair of high tech versions of their signature weapon and a pair of removable hand guards. The hand guards are about the only bit of armor which can be easily removed as they just slip over the fingers. It's a shame that the helmets are not removable as shown in the cartoon. The weapons are a bit clunky and cast entirely in translucent plastic. If they had taken the time to paint the body of each weapon as they appear in the show, they could have been pretty cool. As it is, they just seem cheap.
Value - 6/10The Dimension X Turtles sell for the same $20 as previous eleven inch TMNT figures. That's not a bad price for a figure this large and all of the armor and accessories. Though spending an extra dollar to do more paint work would have been money well spent. Metal Mutant Leonardo sold for $50 when he was released. For a large scale figure that was also a comic convention exclusive, that was a fairly reasonable price tag. Of course, that was assuming you bought him last summer when he was available at the convention or shortly afterward. Fortunately the price hasn't gone through the roof. A quick eBay search turned up a few autions starting for under $60.
Happy Hunting:The Dimension X Turtles are sold in most of the major retailers that sell Ninja Turtle toys including Toys R Us, Target and Walmart. They have been shipping since early fall of 2015, but they are the most current figures still. So finding them should not be too difficult. Metal Mutant Leonardo was a San Diego Comic Convention exclusive. But Playmates did have quite a few extras left over after the convention which they sold online. At this point he is only available from the secondary market. But he doesn't seem to be in short supply.
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