NECA 1:4 Scale Movie Shredder and Foot Soldier Review
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NECA made a big splash in 2017 with the release of their 1/4 scale Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures from the 1990 live action movie. They followed up
last year with Raphael in his trenchcoat and an accessory set with the four baby Turtles. And it looks like they are wrapping up the line this year on a
high note with the release of both a Foot Soldier and Shredder. (This being the end of the line is pure speculation on my part. But these are the
last figures that they can produce in this scale and recycle the sculpt. Plus their 7" line seems to be really taking off. So the lack of any future
release announcements leads me to conclude that these will be the last 1/4 scale figures to be released.) Fortunately it looks like the line is endding
on a high note.
Packaging - 8/10Both Shredder and the Foot Soldier are packaged in similar boxes to the Turtles that have previously been released. The boxes are fairly large due to the size of the figures. There is a nice big window that allows you to see most of the figure. Unfortunately the accessories are mounted along the sides of the box which makes them almost completely obscured. The box itself uses the movie poster image for the fornt of the box. The rear panel has a trio of photos of the figures in different poses and a description of the toy line. Overall, the packaging design looks great. And it's nice that the entire line shares a consistent design. It would be nice if the boxes were a bit stronger though to stand up to the weight of these large, heavy figures better over the long run.
Sculpting - 10/10NECA went above and beyond for this line. And Shredder and the Foot Soldier are no different. I assumed that since both figures share the same body, one or the other would have to be compromised. But try as I might to find something to complain about on either figure, I can't. I even owned the actual preproduction Shredder armor from the movie until recently to compare it to and I don't see anything more serious to complaining about than the elbow articulation not being well hidden. These figures are beautiful.
Paint - Shredder 8/10, Foot Soldier 9/10The paint work for both of these figures is pretty impressive, as you would expect. The entire figures are painted and have the appropriate washes to make the figures look like they step right out of the movies. Actually they look better as the movie was generally too dark to see Shredder very clearly. There are a couple of issue that stand out though, keeping them from being perfect. The Foot Soldier's head and neck are slightly darker than the rest of his uniform which I don't think was the case in the movie. Shredder has an additional piece added for the collar of his outfit. It is molded in the correct color to match the rest. But it isn't as glittery as the rest of the outfit which makes it clear that it isn't part of the rest of the outfit. I could easily igmore that. The bigger issue is that when they painted the eyes, they painted his left pupil slightly too high. So it looks like he is either slightly high or rolling his eyes. It also seems odd that they didn't paint the whites of the eyes.
Articulation - 6/10Both figures share the same body and of course, the same articulation. They have about thirty-five points of articulation which sounds impressive. But you would be sorely surprised. NECA seems to have prioritized hiding the articulation to maintain the look of the figures over the functionality of the articulation. As an example, the elbows seem to have four joints, rotating and hinged at both the top and bottom of the elbow, which do give near a full one hundred and eighty degrees of motion. But the rotating joints are barely usable. In the end, the articulation does it job for a display piece. you can get a number of different poses for display. But you are not going to see these figures pulling off any of the extreme poses that a Marvel Legends figure can pull off. And unless you are willing to spend quite some time working the joints loose, you're going to be limited to a fairly static, standing pose.
Accessories - 8/10The Foot Soldier comes with an impressive arsenal. The weapons included are a sword, long handled axe, a single sai, a tonfa (night stick) and two versions of nunchukus. He also comes with four sets of hands including the fist he is packaged with, open palmed hands, and seperate grasping hands for the sword and round handled weapons. So you can basically recreate just about any Foot Soldier that appeared in the first movie. And if you have the money to multiple figures you can have a great variety. But having now seen the storage rack that NECA included with the seven inch version of the figure, I'm disappointed that it wasn't included here so you could show off all of the weapons.Shredder has fewer accessories due to part of his outfit being removable. For weapons he has a staff with pointed ends on both ends and a dagger and sheath that can be tucked into his belt behind his back. He comes with three sets of hands: fists, grasping and open palmed. His face mask and cape are also removable. I have to mention that the cape is particularly impressive. It drapes incredibly well to look like it does in the movie. But due to its length, it is also quite impractical.
Value - Foot Soldier 8/10, Shredder 9/10NECA's 1/4 scale TMNT figures sell for $120 to $130, so they are not cheap. But they are really impressive figures, the type that are a centerpiece to a collection or display. And they aren't likely to be topped any time soon. NECA may have undermined their value a bit though with the release of their seven inch counterparts. But in the end, the biggest issue I have with either figure is just that one Foot Soldier isn't enough. (Something which the seven inch version solves by including two Foot Soldiers with the SDCC four pack.)
Happy Hunting:Both Shredder and Foot Soldier were released by NECA earlier this year. Both seem to be widly available from online toy stores. I ordered mine from Big Bad Toy Store. But I have also seen them at Entertainment Earth and numerous other sites.
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