Return to the Planet of the Apes: A Planet of the Apes Toy Review

December 10, 2008 on 5:39 pm | In Toy Review | No Comments

One of my very first duties for ToyFare was attending the New York Toy Fair at the beginning of this year. It was an overwhelming experience as I met a legion of people who I now talk to every day and saw hundreds of toys expected to come out in 2008. But of all the toys I saw, the ones I was most excited about were these Planet of the Apes Mego-style figures produced by Diamond Select Toys in conjunction with EMCE Toys. I’m a big POTA fan (proof: I actually own the box set that came in the limited edition ape head), so these seemed right up my alley. The only downside? I had to wait until a few weeks ago to get them in hand and check them out, but I’ll tell you what, the wait was worth it.

First off, these are the very first Mego-style figures I’ve ever encountered. I got a Marvel Famous Covers set of Spider-Man and Electro a while ago, but I don’t really count them. The POTA Cornelius and Soldier Ape are actually based on the original Mego molds and cloth costumes. You can check out what the originals looked like at the Mego Museum, a great site for checking out Megos. So, let’s get this time traveling rocket ship through space off the ground shall we? Blast off!

CORNELIUS

In the first three POTA movies Cornelius, played mostly by Roddy McDowall, saw everything from a man who could talk(!) to proof that humans evolved before apes to the destruction of his planet to time travel (POTA continuity is pretty wonky) and this figure looks ready to do all that and more. Features-wise, it’s a pretty basic figure. You’ve got a cloth tunic and stretchy pants (both removable), plastic shoes and furry sleeve cuffs. The real bonus here is the poseability of the figure. As you can see from the pics, Cornelius here can really get down if you want him to (I’ve got him knee-sliding across my desk with a Gene Simmons bass right now). As far as negatives go, I’m having trouble thinking of any (aside from the fact that if you don’t like POTA or 8-inch Mego-style figures, this obviously ain’t the toy for you).

SOLDIER APE

The Soldier Ape, a generic “bad guy” has a few more features. He’s still got the cloth clothes, but he’s also got a bandoleer (is that what that’s called?) strung across his shoulder and a gun that you can place in his hand with surprising success. Now, one thing that it took me a while to figure out that I want to pass on to you is that those weird “I have to wear oven mitts otherwise I’ll burn things” gloves he has on actually come off. At first I thought it was all one piece until I actually dropped the figure and the glove popped off. Soldier boy here is just as poseable as Cornelius and the only real problem that I see is that I would have much preferred to get my hands on another well known character (Bright Eyes, anyone?) over general ape cannon fodder.

I have no idea how the rights work for this kind of thing, but I’m hoping that Diamond and EMCE are able to put out all of the figures that were originally produced in the Mego line (go check that link out above if you haven’t yet, there’s some great stuff there) and possibly even new figures from the later movies or even the remake. I can’t wait to see the next to figures, which will be Dr. Zaius and Zira. Hey, what can I say? I’m a fan and my ape head DVD could really use some more figures surrounding it.