It’s getting pretty late and I need my beauty rest, so this one covering the SDCC Exclusive Toy Story Buzz Lightyear is going to be pretty brief.
I’m not sure why I took pictures of the outer box. It’s black. It has what I presume is the Buzz Lightyear logo on it. It also picks up fingerprints like one of those beautiful people on CSI: Miami. The goods are inside. Buzz’s rocketship are held in place by a couple of cardboard inserts that help protect those wings. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched the first Toy Story, but the packaging is close enough for my poor memory. It evokes the packaging from the movie, even if it’s not accurate to it.
For the record, I did not pick up one of the chase figures that had “Andy” on one of his feet. Those of you buying on Mattycollector won’t be getting that either, as it was a chase figure for the show.
Buzz himself is a mixed bag. He’s 3.75-inches, and at that size any figure is hard to keep standing. But Buzz is a special case of torture. There’s no swivel on the hips. At the knees are ball-jointed hinges that swivel on both ends. The ankles are not articulated. Even after getting all the parts aligned, I could not find a neutral position to get Buzz to stand up in a simple vanilla pose. Getting him to stand at all is a Herculean task. I had to prop him against his cardboard rocket ship just to get some pictures. I finally got him to stand on his own, and that required more patience than I had late tonight.
The elbows use the same type of joint as the knees, but as those joints don’t impact whether he can stand or not, I didn’t mind. Those types of joints actually work ok for big suits and armor. There’s also ball-jointed shoulders, swivels on the wrists, and a very cool ability to flip Buzz’s helmet open or closed.
I suspect they used a digital model for the sculpt. The face looks just right. Oh – and this figure glows in the dark.
I probably wouldn’t buy this figure again, or even buy it for kids, because of the frustration with just getting him to stand. I don’t want to go through that again, and I wouldn’t want to subject any kids to it. One thing that might have swung me over is if he had pop out wings on his back, but I know that’s probably a no go with figures this small.
I will display him in his rocket ship, where he’s safe and sound and shouldn’t fall down.
If you want to buy this or any of the SDCC exclusives tomorrow, go here: 2009 San Diego Comic-Con Products
That’s it for me tonight. I did take some pictures of the Wonder Twins, but won’t be able to put them up tonight.