Alien, the final figure from McFarlane Toy's Movie
Maniacs 6.
The Dog Alien is a big figure and it's very poseable, which is a change for
McToys' typically frozen figures. The excellent sculpt which metamorphoses
Giger's original Alien into a more sleek dog-shape features a ton of
articulation, including 4 ball-jointed shoulders, ball-jointed neck and
midsection, joints at all the wrists/feet and even a moveable tail (discussed
later).
The Dog Alien can be posed walking/crawling along the ground as seen in the
above picture, with one arm raised for attack, or in a standing pose thanks to
the articulation and the tail, which support it in a cool attack pose
reminiscent of the cooler death scenes from the Alien VS Predator game.
Paint is top-notch on this figure; everything is detailed and highlighted to
complement the excellent sculpt, and the Alien fits in with the other figures
from this line. Featured is a nifty play-action - press the button on the back
of his head and his second mouth pops out! There are some minor complaints about
this - for one, the mouth doesn't come out very far and it's more phallic in
shape than it is a second mouth shape, and the button to make it work is on the
back of his head – a blaringly obvious distraction to the cool head sculpt.
Regardless, it's a great little action for a very playable toy.
Like the Warrior Alien, the Doggie also features a long bendy tail, and like the
Warrior Alien, it's utterly beautiful. Each part of the tail is segmented like a
spine but it moves easily and can be posed and played with in all kinds of ways,
perfect for just trailing behind the Alien or whipping and strangling a human.
The end of the tail is obscure but accurate to the source material – it's shaped
like the fin of a giant squid, which I always thought strange about the Alien.
Some minor complaints about the Dog Alien that don't really change my high
opinion of it. The hands are strangely sculpted for attack and for walking,
which can make the Alien look weird in some poses. There's a couple of more
places where articulation would have been an improvement, like elbows and knees
(for both of the knees), but this isn't a big problem, just something for
McFarlane to improve upon in later figures. To complete the figure is a really
crappy "Movie Maniacs" marquee stand with an Alien 3 poster; I used to be a big
fan of the marquees but they've become really cheap and terrible over the past
few years and are no longer of any use to the figures.
The Dog Alien is another fine Alien figure from McToys, who've finished up the
MM6 series as one of the coolest ever, esp for Alien/Predator fans. Now I want
to see more!! More Alien toys!! Lets see some Aliens from the movie Aliens, as
well as some cute Collectors Club exclusives, like a Bag Of Chestbursters or a
Bag of Eggs, w/ Face Huggers, that would be really cool.
- Shocka
(October 17, 2003)