A Good Idea With A Mediocre Execution: The 2017 Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data Ornament Underwhelms!

The Good: Good balance, Good sculpts, Neat sound function
The Bad: Expensive, Overproduced, Painted details are off, Animated look to the characters
The Basics: The 30th Anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation is celebrated by Hallmark with the 2017 Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament, which is a good idea with a middling execution.


2017 is the 30th Anniversary of the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation and to celebrate it, one of Hallmark's Keepsake holiday ornaments is focused on characters from the classic science fiction television show. The ornament is the 2017 Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament, which straddles the character and mural ornament styles. The substantive ornament is well-sculpted and has a generally cool sound function, but the painting for the ornament is a bit off, getting some of the details wrong and making the characters look animated.

The Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data is a Hallmark ornament released in 2017 as part of the 30th Anniversary celebration for Star Trek: The Next Generation. The ornament is one of the more expensive Star Trek ornaments on the market, but it is also one of the largest ones Hallmark has ever produced!

Basics

The Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament recreates Captain Picard, seated in his Captain's chair, with Data standing behind him on a piece of deck plating. Right off the bat, the concept is one that is a neat idea, but makes no sense for the setting. Picard's Captain's chair was flanked by seats on either side and there was no actual space behind the chair; the Security station was above and behind the chair on, essentially, a quarter-wall, ramp ledge. In other words, the Data in the Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament would be standing where chairs or a raised floor were!

The Hallmark Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament is made of a durable plastic and it is fairly large given that it is Picard, the chair, the deck and Data all in one ornament. The ornament is 5 1/8" tall by 3 3/8" wide by 3" deep, making it one of the largest Star Trek ornaments Hallmark has ever produced. The ornament features some pretty wonderful sculpted detailing. Both characters look recognizable and have sculpted features like fingernails, which is an impressive level of attention to detail. Picard's hair is textured to look realistic and for the size, that is one of the finer details that could be sculpted on. The Captain's chair looks immaculate and the uniforms are adequately detailed on the sculpt front to look realistic and like the subjects.

On the coloring front, the Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament is significantly less-detailed. The skin tones are monotonal, making Picard look animated, not realistic and Data's coloring is a bit more green in the yellow than Data's android skin tones possessed. The coloring is simplistic and the height of the problems with the coloring details is that Data's rank pins are miscolored (as a Lieutenant Commander, he would have two solid, one outlined, pips - the ornament has him promoted to a full Commander with three full gold pips). Ironically, the chair and section of flooring are colored in monotones that still make them look realistic instead of animated!

Features

As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, the Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament has an impressive sound function. With the press of a fairly well-concealed button, the Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament plays one of (at least) seven audio clips from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The sound clips are pretty cool and the ornament plays them loud enough, but the clips - somewhat ridiculously - do not feature clips exclusively of the two characters featured on the ornament! It's not like there wasn't a wealth of material to be mined of dialogue between Picard and Data, but some of the clips are not dialogue exchanges between those two characters. That is the sort of thing that fans who might shell out for the ornament are likely to notice!

That said, for the price, the sound function is a good one.

Balance

As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament is to be hung on a Christmas Tree. And for those creating the ultimate Star Trek Christmas Tree, Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data is a bit unnecessary as Hallmark has previously produced ornaments of each of the two characters separately. The ornament has a brass hook loop rather obtrusively placed. From that hook, the Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament hangs fairly level. The ornament's base makes the balance important, but most of the time it hangs level, despite the obvious placement of the hook loop.

Collectibility

Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition original U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (click here for my review!). The Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data ornament is a ridiculously common ornament and already it can be found on the secondary market for well under its original issue price. While some fans might buy them cheap and do custom paintjobs, one suspects the bulk of these ornaments will sell on clearance after the holiday season is over.

This is a poor investment piece and it is unlikely it will appreciate in value.

Overview

The Captain Jean-Luc Picard And Lieutenant Commander Data Christmas ornament is somewhat underwhelming, despite being a neat idea. The result is a somewhat lackluster tribute to the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

For other Star Trek ornaments of characters, please check out my reviews of:
2016 Legends Of Star Trek Ensign Pavel Chekov (Limited Edition)
2015 Legends Of Star Trek Lieutenant Uhura
2014 Legends Of Star Trek Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
2014 Vina The Orion Slave Woman (Limited Edition)
2013 Legends Of Star Trek Commander Montgomery “Scotty” Scott
2012 Legends Of Star Trek Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy
2011 Legends Of Star Trek Spock
2010 Legends Of Star Trek Captain James T. Kirk
2009 Limited Edition Ilia Probe
2005 Khan
2004 Commander Charles “Trip” Tucker
1999 Lieutenant Commander Worf
1997 Dr. McCoy
1996 Mr. Spock

4.5/10

For other ornament reviews, please check out my Ornament Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The End Comes For Logan.

The Good: Decent performances, Effective use of mood, Moments of character
The Bad: Stifling mood, Generic chase plot, Overabundance of generic adversaries
The Basics: The story of Logan - The Wolverine - of the X-Men comes to a close in one of the most difficult films to grace the genre yet.


One of the difficult aspects of being a reviewer is that speed is often rewarded over accuracy. Early reviewers get a huge volume of traffic, they can set the entire tone for the reviews that follow, they can prejudice a massive number of potential audience members by putting their take into the marketplace first. The severe detraction of rushing a review out is that it does not allow the viewer to let the film live and breathe within them and in the case of big-budget special-effects driven films, often reviewers get so excited by the spectacle and (for less mature reviewers) the hype of early access that they do not actually consider what they watched in any objective sense.

So, it has been almost twenty-four hours since I watched Logan, the latest installment in the X-Men Saga and the film that has been widely announced as being Hugh Jackman's final portrayal of Wolverine and Patrick Stewart's final outing as Charles Xavier. And it could easily be. Logan includes a pretty sizable narrative gap between X-Men: Days Of Future Past (reviewed here!) - or the post-credits sequence from X-Men: Apocalypse - and one suspects that if the right script came along and the money was right, Jackman and/or Stewart might be up for another outing. But, for now, Logan is being billed as the end of the franchise.

And it's rough.

Logan is a tough movie and part of the reason I took almost a day to review it is that I was not sure how I felt about it. Logan has an entirely oppressive mood. After the Deadpool short attached to the print, Logan is introduced as a dreary, dark piece that sinks the viewer deeper and deeper into a morass of misery from which the film only briefly recovers. There are plenty of moody, dark pieces that I absolutely love . . . but Logan is not one of them.

It took me a few solid hours of mulling the film over to finally recognize that I did not enjoy Logan. And I was excited about Logan going in. I knew only the most basic premise of the graphic novel Old Man Logan - which influenced the creation of the film, though it is not at all an adaptation of that book - before I watched Logan and I was excited about both the reinvention of the character and the potential of actually seeing the Wolverine's story bookended. Given that virtually no one stays dead in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the X-Men films have gone to great lengths to resurrect and rewrite the histories of characters, the idea of a character whose story actually ends had more than a little appeal to me. But Logan is rough and joyless and when it is not that, it feels unfortunately derivative and like a series of genuinely missed opportunities.

Logan opens in 2029, twenty-five years after the last mutant was born and after most mutants have been wiped out through an act of genocide and a mysterious something else that actually comes up within the narrative. Logan has returned to using his mundane birth name - James Howlett - and he drives a limo between Texas and Mexico. Logan experiences daily pain, vastly slower regeneration of his wounds, and drinks and swears quite a bit more. He is also the primary caregiver for Charles Xavier, whom he has squirreled away in Mexico with the mutant Caliban.

Right off the bat, Logan gives a big, long, middle finger to the audience and fans of the X-Men Saga. Logan is R-rated and it is VERY R-rated and that is absolutely fine. But X-Men: Days Of Future Past climaxed with a scene filled with hope, fellowship, and a slew of dead characters and actors who returned to the franchise, spent hours and hours in make-up prep, just to say "hello." And, like the opening of Alien 3 (reviewed here!) which utterly destroyed the family Ripley had built in Aliens (reviewed here!) before the opening credits were done, Logan shits all over the potential of who and what the X-Men became after Logan saved the mutants from Trask and his insidious research by completely leaping beyond their stories. In fact, in Logan, the X-Men adventures were adapted into comic books, which Logan despises. But, the narrative gap and the loss of all of the familiar faces - save two - effectively sets up the tone of Logan. Logan is lost and mutantkind is virtually extinct.

Logan, Charles and Caliban are sequestered in Mexico - in one of the most subtle allusions to The Wolverine (reviewed here!) that could be made! - because Charles is dying and periodically, he has seizures which incapacitate everyone within a significant radius of him. Caliban complains that the effects are starting to wound him, but Logan keeps Xavier medicated to prevent the seizures from occurring while he works to earn enough money to buy a boat for the pair which would get them away from other people. When Logan acts as a driver for a funeral, he is accosted at the event by Gabriella, who begs Logan for help. Logan denies her aid and returns to Mexico with medicine for Charles and Caliban tells Wolverine that Charles has been very insistent in his ramblings that there is a new mutant. Logan does not believe him until he is approached by the cyborg "reaver" Pierce about getting back something that Gabriela has taken and then he is hired by Gabriela to get her and her "daughter" Laura to safety.

Logan only accepts the transport job because there is enough money in it to get him and the Professor the ship he wants. But, when Gabriela is killed and Laura hitches a ride back to Logan's hideout, Wolverine finds himself drawn into a conflict virtually identical to the one Han Solo found himself in after transporting Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. While Logan initially attempts to save himself and Charles, he quickly learns that Laura is deeply connected to him. Recovering Gabriela's smartphone, he learns about Transigen, a company that continues to experiment upon mutants and the place from which Gabriela rescued Laura. Logan also learns that Laura was created from his DNA and is, essentially, his daughter. But when Pierce and others from Transigen come hunting Laura, using the captured Caliban, Logan, Charles, and Laura are forced on the run in the direction of Laura's mythical "Eden" - a safe haven for the last surviving mutants.

Logan is an odd mix of cerebrally-disturbing, over-the-top violent, and painfully predictable and derivative. The intelligently-upsetting aspect of Logan comes from the fact that the two main protagonists are aging . . . and poorly in the film. Both Charles and Logan are undergoing serious physical deteriorations and Xavier's is particularly unsettling as it risks the lives of those around him. Logan illustrates very realistically some of the ugliness surrounding end-of-life issues in a fearless way that does not actually get shown in super hero films.

As for the violence, director James Mangold seems thrilled to be able to make an R-rated Wolverine-centered movie and he uses that canvas to the fullest. There are at least two decapitations, burned bodies, limbs that get sliced off, plenty of blood-spray from arterial stabbing and the obligatory throat-slashing or two (though the throats are not overdone in Logan, which is very nice). Logan, Transigen's cloned X-24, and the weaponized Laura (X-23 ) put their claws through multiple heads, arms, chests and legs, all while getting shot and stabbed at repeatedly. And just when it seems like James Mangold draws a line by not subjecting the viewer to a child getting their head blown off (the child's head is kept out of frame while menaced), he manages to up the stakes by having children combine forces to execute one person and have a single child shoot off an adult's head (or most of it). Logan is so R that the two people who brought their crying infants to last night's showing of the film should be arrested for child endangerment.

So, Logan is unsettling. And when it is not unsettling it is just bad. It's not all bad, let's be fair. On the plus side is the acting. Stephen Merchant is excellent as Caliban. Caliban was briefly introduced in X-Men: Apocalypse (reviewed here!) and had to be recast because the events of Logan follow almost fifty years after the events of Apocalypse. Merchant is brilliantly serious in the role of Caliban, a mutant who barely uses his powers and instead tries to get Logan to open up and talk to him like an adult. Merchant emotes quite a bit through his eyes to make Caliban concerned, fearful and determined and he plays the full range well.

Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart show off their immense range in Logan as well, though there is nothing surprising from either actor in their performances. Two amazing actors manage to play hurt, frustrated, strong, senile, and strangely loving, not surprising at all. Eric La Salle might well be in that category, too, but I've not seen him in much else, so I was impressed by his performance. Elizabeth Rodriguez shows off her range by playing Gabriela as desperate and frightened in a way she was never allowed to play her Orange Is The New Black character.

Of course, much of Logan hinges on the performance of Dafne Keen, who plays Laura. Keen spends most of the film mute and, as a result, has to act with her eyes, body and in reaction shots to what other people are saying. And she is good. Keen plays off Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, and especially Quincy Fouse like a pro. More than simply playing the creepy little girl type (who can rip off your head or possess you), Keen manages a wide range of emotions with minimal words in a compelling break-out performance.

But, for as good as Keen's performance is, Laura represents a serious missed opportunity for Logan. From her first appearances in the compound, Xavier challenges Logan by asking him "doesn't she remind you of someone?" Xavier is trying to get Logan to make the leap that Laura is his daughter and he should see in her his previous, feral, qualities. But Dafne Keen is presented with a high brow and intense eyes and fans of the X-Men films would have no trouble seeing that she could remind Logan of Jean Grey. Yet, in Logan, the Transigen documents claim that Laura was created from James Howlett's DNA, not a hybrid of Logan and Jean Grey. This is especially disappointing because X-Men fans know that the mutant gene is passed through the father, so how Logan's X-chromosome was used to make a mutant daughter makes no scientific sense. Logan's writers could have easily eliminated this argument and given an added layer to Laura - and Logan through his conflict over taking care of her! - by making her a hybrid child of Logan and Jean Grey.

In a similar fashion, James Mangold and his co-writers seem to lack a real understanding of how and why people use bounty hunters and they gut the originality of Logan in the process. Logan begins as a mood piece that explores survivors of a genocide when a bounty hunter comes into Logan's life. Pierce is employed by Dr. Rice, who is shown in Gabriela's footage experimenting at Transigen on the mutant children he has created. And he is used very well there and Richard E. Grant was wonderfully cast for him. But then he comes into the field and becomes a painfully generic comic book style villain. And the kicker of it is that it is so thoroughly unnecessary.

Dr. Rice is credited by Pierce as being the architect of the mutant genocide. He succeeded where Trask failed and he has spent the years since virtually wiping out mutants making his own mutants for controlled mutant soldiers. He is a monster. He is a monster who works in Mexico and has a free pass to enter the United States . . . only Canada (in Logan) sees him as a criminal and the subjects of his experiments as viable life forms worthy of asylum. Here's the point of the problem with Dr. Rice; there is nothing that can be done in Logan that would justify putting him in the field and menacing his life. Dr. Rice is not in prison, he is not being hunted by an international tribunal; he freely works in Mexico, comes to the United States, has direct authority over his private little army of bounty hunters . . . all this after wiping out most of mutantkind. So, if Dr. Rice is responsible for killing (for example, it is not stated in Logan) Rogue, Jean Grey, Mystique, Storm, Beast and Magneto, his one death cannot balance even a fraction of the lives he took and there is no real emotional catharsis to his death or even any menace that his life is put in. So why bother with it?! The only reason - outside the fact that he is a comic book villain conceit - is that the writers do not understand the nature of those who employ bounty hunters. Dr. Rice relies upon Pierce and X-24 to get the job done for him and he has, presumably, survived as long as he has by keeping distance from his experiments. There is nothing in Logan that justifies him coming into the field.

So, Dr. Rice falls into the trap of a generic comic book villain when Logan already has Pierce as a compelling enough proxy for the scenes that were not focused on man vs. society and man vs. nature (age) . . . or even man vs. himself type conflicts. And in that way, Logan continues to disappoint. The moment Charles Xavier accepts an invitation from the Munson's to go back to their home, Logan takes a straight like into Derivativeville that every fan of the X-Men Saga will see coming. We wait for those pursuing Logan, Charles and Laura to catch up to them at the Munson's because we saw the exact same thing happen when Logan was rescued by the senior citizen couple in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (reviewed here!). Between that and the common conceit of "if a bullet is introduced in the first act . . .," Logan plays toward the painfully predictable at all of the opportunities it had to truly surprise viewers.

And that's where it ends. Logan had potential and it is set up very well to be a well-done, truly unsettling film that explored consequences, end-of-life issues and last-minute redemption for a man who never should have been a father; a super-hero film that mentions easements and political asylum. But instead of playing to those aspects, Logan becomes oppressive and harsh in ways that we come to expect and it ends up saying nothing truly new to the audience.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
The Great Wall
War On Everyone
The Founder
Underworld: Blood Wars
La La Land

3.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

More Inevitable Than Extraordinary: The Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 Trading Cards!

The Good: Good text, Some wonderful autograph signers, Some neat sketches, Archive Cuts cards
The Bad: Insanely expensive to assemble, Ridiculous look for collated set, Some ridiculous sketch cards and autograph cards, Requires the prior set
The Basics: Star Trek The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading cards concludes Juan Ortiz's artwork odyssey and makes for an inherently awkward set.


I love Star Trek trading cards. There is a reason I started collecting trading cards with Star Trek cards and built my collection outward from there. But, as the years have gone by and trading cards have evolved from a pleasant diversion to a big business, even my Star Trek trading card collection has diminished some. My love for Star Trek cards fell into conflict with the trading cards sets becoming virtually impossible to collect. A great example of how the trading cards have become insanely difficult to collect is the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints trading cards. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints trading cards should have been a massive, ambitious set. Instead, it was very inorganically broken into two sets. 2015 saw the release of Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 1 (reviewed here!). Now, Rittenhouse Archives has completed the set with the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading card set.

The Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading cards are a necessary evil. They are designed to complete the massive set, but they do so without much in the way of flair and with a shocking lack of enthusiasm for the biggest premium of the set. While there are some neat autograph signers in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading cards, the sketch cards are what truly carries the collecting weight these days. And while there are thirty-seven artists who participated in the Series 2 set, that is down from 48 artists who produced for Series 1 and all but 2 are duplicates - artists who drew sketch cards in Series 1. Between that and some autograph signers who were for exceptionally background or minor characters, there was a feeling that much of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading cards was phoning it in.

Basics/Set Composition

Properly assembled, the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading card set consists of four hundred fifty-eight trading cards: four hundred forty-eight available in the boxes and packs of cards and only eight found elsewhere. For a current series of cards, that there are only ten cards that cannot be found in the boxes is actually wonderful. Unfortunately, like many of the sets released for other properties, the most coveted cards in this set - the color sketch cards - are produced and distributed with such rarity that only a handful of collectors will be able to assemble a true master set and given how there are fewer sketch artists and autograph cards signers in this set, it is hard for collectors to not feel a bit cheated.

Unlike the Star Trek Portfolio Prints, which were based on previously-released artwork produced by Juan Ortiz for startrek.com, the artwork in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading cards is unique to this set! Juan Ortiz was commissioned to continue the concept of the retro posters into the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode line.

The hook for collectors with this set is that Series 2 is only all the even numbers. Unlike the "Complete" Star Trek: The Next Generation Series 1 and Series 2 trading card sets, which split the episodes at the mid-point of the series (the middle of the fourth season), Rittenhouse Archives released what amounts to an incomplete set with the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading cards.

Common Cards

With only eighty-eight of the cards in the set being common cards, there are quite a few chase cards to hunt down. The eighty-eight cards in the common set of Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 set are half of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes - the even ones. The set is comprised of a single card per episode for the even numbered episodes from "Encounter At Farpoint, Part Two" (an oddity considering it aired originally as a single, double-long episode) through "Preemptive Strike." There are no checklist cards with this trading card set. Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation are treated to a plot blurb on the back of each common card. The plot synopsis’s are well-written. All of the cards in this set were oriented the same way, a portrait orientation that made it very easy to look through the cards when in one's binder. . . at least until the bonus cards.

This common set for Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 is problematic in both concept and execution. The concept is an essentially flawed one: retro posters reminiscent of the Star Trek Portfolio Prints for a show that aired in the 1980s/1990s. The Star Trek Portfolio Prints worked because they mimicked the style of the art deco posters of the 1960s - when the episodes were produced and aired - exceptionally well. There was a sense of kitsch to them that played perfectly for a show that is very dated in a lot of ways. Star Trek: The Next Generation does not have that age to it, so the concept would have held if Juan Ortiz had made the episode posters look like movie posters from the 1980s. That would have, undoubtedly, required a lot more in the way of likeness rights clearances and would have been vastly more time consuming to pull off. It is a shame Rittenhouse Archives did not push Juan Ortiz (or other artists) to so try!

The concept might be flawed, but the execution has the potential to save it. Unfortunately, while the artwork is generally all right, the "every other one" concept guts the common set. For those who do read the cards, there is something surreal about encountering the cards for episodes that were part of two-parters - "The Best Of Both Worlds, Part I," for example, is in this set, but "The Best Of Both Worlds, Part II" is not. Similarly, "Redemption 1" and "Unification 2" are in this set without their completing episodes.

Most of the cards in the eighty-eight card set is a clear execution of the concept rendered in vivid colors. "Suddenly Human" might well be the least-evocative of the set and "Clues" is a tough one to pull off. Most of the rest at least make the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading card set look good.

Chase Cards

The bonus sets for the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading cards are a mix of mundane and wonderful, with a continued thorn being that the bonus sets, like the common set, are all the even-numbered cards, making for incomplete bonus sets. While this is generally bearable, the Ships Of The Line set - which is intended to form two nine-card murals looks absolutely ridiculous without the cards that preceded them from the Series 1 set. With two parallel sets, card collectors who love the common set have a lot to be excited about. Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation in general are likely to be much more excited by the other bonus sets which focus on the characters and the comic books, as opposed to replicating the common set in new and imaginative ways. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 set has three hundred seventy bonus (insert) cards in the set, of which all but ten are found in the boxes and packs of cards. The bonus cards found in packs are broken down into the following sets: gold signature parallel cards (88 cards), Juan Ortiz autographed parallel cards (88 cards), Ships Of The Line cards (9 cards), TNG Universe Gallery (9), Comic Book cards (40), Comic Book Archive Cuts (40), TNG Silhouette Gallery Metal (5), TNG Rendered Art Metal (5), SketchaFex (37), and Autographed cards (39).

The two parallel card sets replicate the common card set and were very much designed for trading card collectors. The first eighty-eight card set is printed on thicker cardstock and features embossed gold signatures by Juan Ortiz printed on each card. The glossy backs are foil-stamped with an individual collector’s number. Each card is given a number from one to one hundred twenty-five, so there are only one hundred twenty-five complete gold signature parallel sets. The faux-signature set cards were found one per box. This is a really cool parallel set because the gold signatures beautifully offset most of the artwork and the contrast is distinctive and cool.

As with the prior sets, there was a parallel set of Juan Ortiz autograph parallel cards (numbered JOA with the common card numbers). These cards were found one in every other box. Each of the poster cards were replicated and then signed by Juan Ortiz in blue ink. The Juan Ortiz autograph cards were re-numbered and the backs have Juan Ortiz’s statement on what watching Star Trek: The Next Generation was like him, back in the day. This parallel set is an interesting one and, like the gold faux-signatures, the blue autographs have good contrast with most of the cream-colored artwork on the poster cards. This bonus set might have been a little more interesting if Juan Ortiz had commented on each episode and/or his process with making the posters, but the autograph size is much bigger than on the Star Trek The Original Series Juan Ortiz autograph parallel cards, so there's no mistaking them for the common cards this time around, even just looking at their fronts. The blue ink pops noticeably on almost all of the cards and they look great for it!

One per box are Star Trek: The Next Generation Comic Book cards. These cards replicate 40 of the covers from first major DC Comics Star Trek: The Next Generation comic book series (there was a six-issue mini-series that was the subject of bonus cards in earlier sets). This set is cool because the backs feature plot descriptions of each comic book and the fronts have some of the best, most memorable Star Trek: The Next Generation comic book covers. The plot descriptions are strange for some of the arcs that encompassed several books, but these cards are some of the best in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading cards!

The Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 cards mimicked their Original Series counterparts with the TNG Universe Gallery cards. The nine TNG Universe Gallery cards were featured one per box and are art deco versions of some of the most popular main cast (Picard, Riker, Data, Crusher) and significant recurring guest character - Dr. Pulaski, Ensign Ro, etc. - as if they were Animated characters. This is a neat idea and certainly a good one for people looking for something different for their beloved characters. Sadly, Rittenhouse Archives stepped into a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation by breaking up some related characters if one were to put the even and odd numbers together to actually create the TNG Universe Set in full.

Every other box of Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading cards features one of nine Ships Of The Line trading cards. The front of these landscape-oriented trading cards feature brand new digital imagery of ships from the Star Trek: The Next Generation era. Some of these ships are concept ships that were never seen in any of the episodes and are somewhat incongruent with what one remembers from the show, like a Borg ship taking on an Ambassador-Class vessel. Similarly, one card has the Enterprise, Defiant, and Voyager - three ships that were never together. Unfortunately, the backs are an absolute mess. The backs reveal that the cards are intended to go to two different nine-card murals from the Series 1 set. This set, sadly, looks sloppy when placed in pages as a result of the backs not coming together to form a single picture.

In most modern trading card sets, the autograph cards are a big deal, but for me the impressive aspect of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 trading cards were the TNG Comics Archive Cuts cards. The Archive Cuts are a simple concept: they are like costume cards - double-thick trading cards with material embedded and sealed within them with a "picture window" for fans to look at and feel the fabric - but the fabric is replaced with panels from Star Trek: The Next Generation comic books! These panels make each card in the set unique and the 40 cards in the Series 2 Archive Cuts set have rarities that vary, but all seem to be in the 100 - 160 range. The back of each Archive Cuts card bears an individual collector's number, further emphasizing how no two cards are the same! The panels from the Star Trek: The Next Generation have wonderful color contrast and I've not come across a single one that didn't "pop." (On some of the comic book-based trading sets Rittenhouse Archives has produced, sometimes their materials come from VERY old comic books and the panels are faded. Such is not the case with the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 Archive Cuts cards).

With the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2, Rittenhouse Archives assembled a wildly inconsistent autograph card set. While this set provided Star Trek: The Next Generation fans four new Silver Series style autographs of Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden and Denise Crosby, it also has autograph cards of Peter Parros, (another!) Lycia Naff, and Tracee Cocco. Autograph cards of characters who recurred but did not even have lines are hard to get excited about. The set has thirty-nine autograph cards and outside the four silver series cards, they are portrait-oriented autographs in the style that was begun with the Complete Star Trek: The Next Generation Series 1 set. The smaller picture on the front of the card allows for a decent amount of space for the signer to sign and this set includes some truly awesome signers, most notably Mick Fleetwood, Madchen Amick, and Diedrich Bader. But having one of the rarest autographs of the set being from Robert Schenkkan (Remmick) is troubling; he had a memorable role on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but he is hardly on par with performers like David Ogden Stiers or Whoopi Goldberg who were in the same signing class of rarity in prior sets!

Like most recent releases, the real grail for collectors are the hand drawn color sketch cards. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series Two set feature thirty-seven artists' works. These cards are found one in every case, so that means to assemble a true master set, one would have to buy 37 CASES of these cards, which is pretty cost-prohibitive for most fans! Still, it is hard to argue with results! Warren Martinek did some amazing color sketches of starships, while most of the other artists focused on characters. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 cards have artwork that varies for the sketch cards (as one might expect from so many different sketch artists producing unique works of art on each cards), but most of them are astonishingly good renditions of characters and spacescapes.

Also one per case are metal insert cards from one of two five-card, character centered sets. Metal cards are becoming a real coveted chase card and the ones in the TNG Portfolio Prints Series 2 set are notable in that they are not simply parallels of other chase cards in the set! One of the two five-card sets focuses on the main cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation and they are similar to the Crew cards from TOS Portfolio Prints, save that they are metal and artwork, as opposed to photo images. The other five-card metal set replicates and expands the artwork from the Star Trek The Next Generation Blu-Ray seasons boxes and they look absolutely amazing, especially in metal! All ten of the metal cards from the cases of Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints are each individually stamped with a collector's number out of 100.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

As is customary from Rittenhouse Archives, there are a few cards not available in the boxes, no matter how many one buys. These range from the ultra-common P1 promotional card (easily available in the secondary market) to the two nine-case incentive cards that dealers were given for buying in volume. There are two other promotional cards in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 set: the P3 album exclusive promotional card and the P2 Non-Sport Update promo. The P2 Non-Sport Update promotional card is harder to track down than the other two and it is the least impressive of the bunch, featuring comic book style artwork of Captain Picard. The P3 is a landscape-oriented and features the U.S.S. Enterprise, while the P1 is an art card featuring Troi and Riker embracing with Picard's head in the background. None of these promotional cards are yet impossible to find in the secondary market.

This set also had one of two casetoppers. The two casetoppers were very basic Juan Ortiz art cards Q and Locutus Of Borg. There is nothing remarkable about either of these casetoppers, save that they are rare, though they are not even individually numbered.

For every six cases of Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints trading cards a dealer ordered, they were granted a Dual autograph, in the familiar style from Rittenhouse Archives's old "Quotable" Star Trek: The Next Generation set. The 6-case incentive autograph features Brent Spiner and Denise Crosby from their iconic precoital embrace in "The Naked Now." Given how Picard and Crusher never worked out, this is a sensible pairing, though a Partick Stewart dual-autograph with Whoopi Goldberg or Jonathan Frakes would have been a far bigger coup than a Spiner/Crosby dual-autograph.

The real grail of the bonus cards was the incentive card for buying nine cases of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 1 trading cards. For that, every dealer was given a hand drawn, painted sketch card by either Charles Hall or the Glebe Brothers. Charles Hall painted characters with extensive and detailed backgrounds, while the brothers Mick and Matt Glebe seemed to focus on character portraits. Either way, the artists did immaculate work that was absolutely incredible for their incentive cards.

Exclusive to the Archive Boxes was a portrait-oriented metal card of Q. Individually numbered on the back up to 100, the metal card gives fans a reason to chase down the archive boxes which were given as an incentive to dealers who purchased 18 cases.

As well, for the fans who collected enough wrapper points, there was a Rittenhouse Rewards exclusive autograph card. The exceptionally rare autograph card is of Pamela Adlon and its rarity has not been confirmed, though given its wrapper cost, it is rarer than most Rittenhouse Rewards cards.

Overall

The Star Trek: The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 is the logical end to an awkward idea that was executed in a problematic way. Only the most determined, die-hard collectors will care about completing the set. It is too tough a sell for anyone but the most wealthy, eager collectors who demand completion without a care for genuine quality.

This set culled images from Star Trek The Next Generation, which is reviewed here!

This is a set of cards which I sell in my online store.  Be sure to visit and shop from our extensive inventory of them at the Star Trek The Next Generation Portfolio Prints Series 2 Trading Card Inventory!

For other Star Trek The Next Generation trading cards, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Star Trek 25th Anniversary Series 1
Star Trek 25th Anniversary Series 2
Star Trek The Next Generation Inaugural Edition
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Profiles
"Quotable" Star Trek: The Next Generation

3.5/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The 10 Essential Star Trek Experiences! (Happy Star Trek 50th Anniversary!)

| | | The Basics: The Star Trek franchise is massive and if one were to try to distill the incredible franchise into ten works, these are the pieces everyone ought to experience!


Happy 50th Anniversary Of Star Trek! Fifty years ago today, Star Trek made its debut on NBC with the episode "The Man Trap" (reviewed here!) and that led to the creation of a massive franchise set in a common fictional universe's 22nd, 23rd, and (most significantly) 24th Centuries. To celebrate the Star Trek franchise, I thought it was the perfect time to explore just why so many people have fallen in love with the Star Trek universe. I have been a Trekker for more than twenty-five years and celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek is a pretty big holiday in my household.

In celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek, I decided to contemplate the entire franchise and all of the varied experiences I have had with watching, reading and otherwise studying the Star Trek franchise. I got to thinking about what was essential in the Star Trek franchise and I thought I'd give the answer the classic "desert island" question. In trying to winnow down the massive Star Trek franchise down to only ten items, I had to make some very difficult cuts. The incredible Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Hard Time" (reviewed here!) was a tough cut to make, as was the brilliant two-part Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes "Chain Of Command" (reviewed here!) and "Chain Of Command, Part II" (reviewed here!) had an insular subplot that non-fans would just not appreciate, despite its absolutely essential anti-torture message.

After all of the cuts and contemplation, after fifty years of all things Star Trek, the ten absolute essential Star Trek experiences are:

10. "The Measure Of A Man" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? An early second season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Measure Of A Man" finds the Enterprise docking at a starbase on the frontier where a scientist comes aboard to take custody of the ship's android officer, Data. Dr. Bruce Maddox wants to experiment upon Data and when the incredibly intelligent android doubts the scientist's methods and balks at the proposed experiments, Data attempts to assert his bodily autonomy. Maddox presses the issue and Data resigns from StarFleet in order to protect his life, which leads Maddox to assert that as a sentient machine, Data is property, not a person. What follows is a court case where Data's right to self-determination is decided.

Why Is It Essential? "The Measure Of A Man" is a strong ethical argument that holds up incredibly well. There is a lot of Star Trek that did not age well and "The Measure Of A Man" has moments of melodrama between Captain Picard and the officer representing the Judge Advocate General that play poorly, but they are not enough to rob the episode of its vitality. Instead, "The Measure Of A Man" has great character conflict and an ethical dilemma that successfully explores the ramifications of having ethics. The struggle between Data and Maddox is not about resolving a simple conflict; it leads to an argument about what comes next, what the ramifications are of devaluing life.

9. "The Survivors" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? An early episode of the third season of Star Trek The Next Generation, "The Survivors" has the Enterprise arriving at a colony world that was attacked and the entire world's population was wiped out. While investigating the destruction, the Enterprise discovers one family and their property have survived entirely unscathed. The mystery of how and why they survived perplexes the Enterprise crew and the mystery is intensified by a psychic attack upon Counselor Troi. As Captain Picard investigates the loving couple who survived a planetary genocide, he uncovers a horrific truth.

Why Is It Essential? No one else would probably find "The Survivors" essential, but it is truly an immaculate work of what Star Trek stands for. "The Survivors" explores the nature of guilt and consequence, it is a profound statement on love and the grief that plays out exceptionally well, time after time. "The Survivors" puts Picard at the mercy of someone he does not understand and his final statement to Kevin Uxbridge is a simple, eloquent moment where Patrick Stewart adds an entirely new dimension to Captain Picard with his delivery. After so many episodes of Star Trek and Star Trek The Next Generation where StarFleet seems virtually invincible and the sole occupant of the moral high ground, "The Survivors" redefines StarFleet's jurisdiction and there is a brilliance to the episode's simplicity and it's contrasting moral sophistication.

8. "Mirror, Mirror" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? In the second season of Star Trek, four members of the Enterprise crew teleport through an ion storm and end up in an alternate universe. There, they find that they are part of a warship that is set to wipe out an entire planet's population to eliminate the roadblock to strip mining the planet. With the ion storm dissipating, which will prevent the crewmembers from returning to their native universe, Captain Kirk risks his life to take a moral stand to prevent the genocide of the Halkan people. With assassins threatening Kirk and the others, Captain Kirk allies with his counterpart's partner to use reason and an alien weapon to delay the destruction he has been ordered to carry out.

Why Is It Essential? Star Trek managed to take a basic science fiction premise like multiverse theory and do something more than just give Spock a goatee (though it does that, too!). "Mirror, Mirror" is an episode that seems like a simple gimmick episode, but it is both character-driven and portrays a higher sense of ethics. "Mirror, Mirror" is pretty much the gold standard for multiverse episodes not only for the way it spends time with Captain Kirk and his team in the Mirror Universe, but for Spock's explanation for why their counterparts absolutely failed to integrate when they were beamed up to the Enterprise. There are not a lot of episodes of the original Star Trek that manage to use the entire ensemble cast (despite the mythology, only Star Trek only had three stars in the opening credits and the episodes were very heavily biased toward Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock); "Mirror, Mirror" is, arguably, the best to showcase the acting talents of the entire cast.

7. "Frame Of Mind" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? In the sixth season of Star Trek The Next Generation, Commander Will Riker is sent on a mission to a planet where he is wounded and ends up in an insane asylum. Prior to the mission, Riker had been involved in performing in a play that was set in an asylum and his sense of reality rapidly begins to break down. As Riker transitions between the play rehearsals and the alien asylum, he struggles with his sense of reality. With his apparent mental breakdown progressing, Riker must choose which reality is real, potentially risking his entire brain and life!

Why Is It Essential? Long before Brannon Braga absolutely gutted the Star Trek franchise, he wrote some masterful episodes of science fiction television. "Frame Of Mind" was his creative peak and Jonathan Frakes used it as an opportunity to act the hell out of it. Not at all about the reversal at the end, "Frame Of Mind" is incredible for the process, the thrill of discovery. And Jonathan Frakes dominates on the acting front. Sure, there is more to a great hour of television than an amazing performance, but seriously, Jonathan Frakes is that good as Riker transitioning between the two very different realities and making those transitions have an effect on his character.

6. Imzadi By Peter David (reviewed here!) - What Is It? Opening in the future, Admiral Riker is a miserable old man, crushed by the weight of losing one true love, Deanna Troi. Set in the future, the past when a young Will Riker met Deanna Troi, and the present when the U.S.S. Enterprise is on a mission that costs Troi her life, Imzadi becomes a time travel adventure as Admiral Riker decides to violate all of the rules of time travel by going back to save Troi's life. Pursued by authorities from his own time, Admiral Riker risks everything to change reality out of his sense of loss and love.

Why Is It Essential? No one writing Star Trek novels before Peter David looked at the episodic, unrelated, episodes in the franchise and managed to tie them together with plots, references and asides like Peter David. Imzadi is funny and tragic and clever in a way that endures as only great literature can. Intricate and character-driven, Imzadi effectively explores the depths of love and loss in a time-travel adventure that transcends pulp fiction. Indeed, when the greatest flaw a book possesses is that it gets a character's middle name wrong (Riker says his middle name is "Tiberius;" when Peter David wrote the novel, Riker had been referred to in the show as William T. Riker, it wasn't until years after the book was published that an episode defined the "T" as "Thomas"), you have a bona fide masterpiece. Imzadi is the gold standard for what a writer can do when not bound by a television budget for sets, make-up, special effects, and guest actors. Peter David writes a work that is appropriately complex and clever, with a narrative voice that entertains even as it drives the reader to empathize.

5. "A Piece Of The Action" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? Late in the second season of Star Trek, the U.S.S. Enterprise visited the planet Iotia. Iotia was once visited by another starship and now, years later, the Enterprise crew is horrified to learn that the entire planet has modeled itself off of Chicago Mobs of the 1920s. When Kirk and Spock are taken hostage, a caper ensues with their escape, rescue, and capture by rival gangs. In trying to stay alive, Captain Kirk has to try to put the societal evolution of the planet back on its natural course.

Why Is It Essential? Science fiction can work amazingly well when it utilizes humor and "A Piece Of The Action" is an excellent example of that. After a season and a half of Captain Kirk and his crew spouting the Federation's non-interference directive (the Prime Directive), the viewer is treated to seeing why the Prime Directive is important. The result of interfering with the natural evolution of a society is presented with humor and menace and "A Piece Of The Action" manages to find the right balance of it. Like "Mirror, Mirror," it utilizes the ensemble cast well and it is an episode that allowed William Shatner to go wild with his performance of Captain Kirk and have the occassional over-the-top nature of his acting not at all detract from the episode.

4. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan / Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (reviewed here! and here!) - What Is It? The two movies, viewed together, open with an aging Admiral Kirk feeling unsatisfied with life, wondering what his purpose in life is after being promoted out of being a starship Captain. Admiral Kirk accompanies Captain Spock and the Enterprise, crewed by cadets, on a training mission. While on the mission, a research outpost contacts the Enterprise with a crisis; a starship they work with is coming to take a potentially dangerous scientific device without authorization. The Enterprise rushes to help only to discover that the U.S.S. Reliant has been hijacked by one of Kirk's old enemies. In trying to stop a man who is smarter, stronger, and more dangerous than the Enterprise crew, Captain Kirk finds his sense of purpose, but loses his closest friend. In the aftermath of tragedy, Captain Kirk and his friends struggle to save Dr. McCoy and Spock's lives, risking their careers and lives against a new, vicious adversary.

Why Is It Essential? Technically, it is a cheat as they are two movies, but they actually hold up much better playing off one another to make one solid narrative. Plus, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock was Leonard Nimoy's directorial debut and Christopher Lloyd never gets enough credit for his portrayal of Klingon Commander Kruge. Aging and obsession are masterfully presented with a strong character-driven narrative and the full cast illustrates the depths of their character in a powerful story about loyalty. There is a reason Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan is considered a classic . . . and it's not just Ricardo Montalban's bare chest. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock find the absolute right balance between action, character complexities, and ethical dilemmas.

3. "The Inner Light" (reviewed here!)- What Is It? At the end of the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise encounters an alien probe that knocks Captain Picard unconscious. While his body lies unconscious on the Bridge, fed a stream of data from the probe, Captain Picard wakes up on an alien planet. He is told his name is Kamin by his wife and that he lives on the planet Kataan. After years of rejecting what appears to be the truth, Kamin accepts that the time he recalled aboard the Enterprise as Picard was a fever delusion and he starts a family and studies the environment to discover that Kataan is on the verge of a devastating climate change.

Why Is It Essential? It takes a lot to make a story that is insular to a character that is also incredible to viewers who are not invested in that character; "The Inner Light" finds that perfect spot. Fans of Star Trek The Next Generation were used to Captain Picard as a somewhat emotionally-withheld character who disliked children and was never in a successful romantic relationship. "The Inner Light" completely redefines the character and is a brilliant exploration of "the road not taken." "The Inner Light" effectively explores how, given a chance, a person can completely redefine themselves and create a life that is unexpectedly satisfying. "The Inner Light" is a Patrick Stewart performance that absolutely captivates the viewer and the guest cast that surrounds Stewart is surprisingly impressive, rising to his caliber. "The Inner Light" uses a minimal science fiction concept to explore real character drama.

2. "The Visitor" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? The fourth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine shifted immediately from its burgeoning war story arc to a powerful character-driven piece with "The Visitor," which focused on Jake Sisko. Opening in the distant future, Jake Sisko is a writer living in seclusion when he is sought out by an aspiring writer. Jake tells the story of how he became a writer and why he stopped writing; he lost his father. But when Benjamin Sisko was lost, so many years ago, he did not simply die. As the grieving Jake Sisko tried to move on with his life, his father would appear periodically, apparently trapped in another dimension. Guided by grief, Jake gives up his promising career to study subspace physics in a desperate search to find a way to recover his father . . . a pursuit that takes him his entire adult life.

Why Is It Essential? This is the ultimate Star Trek franchise tearjerker. "The Visitor" is a love story and it is a profound statement on the importance of having a loving parent. "The Visitor" is a great example of a powerful character study that has a universal message that makes incredible use of a minor science fiction conceit to reveal something deep and true. More could be said about "The Visitor," but it might be the greatest Star Trek experience worth experiencing rather than analyzing.

1. "Duet" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? The penultimate episode of the first season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finds an alien ship visiting the station with a Cardassian who requires medication. The need for the medication instantly draws the attention of First Officer Kira Nerys, who claims that for the Cardassian to need the medication he must have been at the site of one of the most horrific examples of genocide during the Cardassian Occupation. Kira imprisons the Cardassian and as tensions arise outside the station about the legality of the Cardassian's detainment, the crew works to confirm the Cardassian's identity. Kira has either imprisoned an innocent Cardassian filing clerk . . . or one of the greatest war criminals of the Occupation.

Why Is It Essential? It is virtually impossible to make a compelling hour of television where the bulk of it is two people simply talking to one another. The idea of creating an episode of Star Trek where the plot action is a prisoner identification seems like a recipe for boredom and disaster. Star Trek Deep Space Nine not only makes it work, but it creates a truly brilliant episode. Nana Visitor and Harris Yulin play off one another immaculately and their banter is a writer's dream. "Duet" is essentially an allegory episode that explores (in metaphorical terms) the effects of the Holocaust and the idea of national culpability. And, on the opposite side, "Duet" is a knock-out episode that defines Kira Nerys; a woman who has been fueled by racism and anger who is forced to look at a man she perceives as an enemy in an entirely different way. The emotional journey is intense, viewing after viewing. Like all of the best moments in the Star Trek franchise, "Duet" is smart, well-performed, character-driven and blends social commentary with a statement that reveals something profoundly important and human.

For other Star Trek articles, please visit:
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek The Next Generation
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek Deep Space Nine
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek Voyager
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek Enterprise

For other Star Trek reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Slap Some Silver On It And Call It New: The Supernova Series Locutus Of Borg Figure Is A Cheap Repaint!

The Good: Great sculpt, Good balance, Good accessories, Neat trading card
The Bad: Utterly ridiculous repaint for the character, Nothing truly unique to the figure
The Basics: The 1995 Supernova Series Locutus Of Borg action figure is an unfortunate repaint of one of the best action figures Playmates Toys ever produced!


When I was in high school and college, I was an uber-collector of Star Trek: The Next Generation toys and trading cards. I had everything released from Playmates Toys and all of the trading cards as Fleer/SkyBox was producing them. I was a proud geek. But, as college went on and I was paying for the experience, I slowly became more and more discriminating in my buying. I stopped collecting the Star Trek franchise comic books and I started truly looking at all of the plastic crap that I knew I would have to move (yet again) when college ended. I was one of the people who gave up on Playmates Toys when they released their “Tapestry” Picard (reviewed here!), despite the fact that the young woman I was dating at the time managed to snag one for each of us in her diligent pursuit of the figure. One of the first figures I liquidated from my collection when I stopped collecting was the Supernova Series Locutus Of Borg action figure.

I am a big fan of Locutus Of Borg and I thought Playmates Toys did an amazing job with their 1993 rendition of the character (reviewed here!). Unfortunately, the Supernova Series Locutus Of Borg figure is the same figure . . . but with silver-colored armor highlights on the chest and crotch, with a new trading card, put on a more dynamic looking card backing. In other words, the Supernova Series Locutus Of Borg is a cheap repaint of the original figure and the insult to the injury is that the repaint makes no rational sense (Locutus was never seen in silver armor!).

Basics

The Star Trek: The Next Generation 1995 Collection of action figures contained seven figures – three which were completely new, two which were simply recarded figures from a prior release and the two Supernova Series repaints. As a result, the Supernova Series Locutus did not exactly fly off the shelves . . . but it was never the pegwarmer that Noonien Soong was!

The Supernova Series Locutus of Borg figure is the Captain of the Enterprise after he was abducted and "altered" by the Borg in "The Best Of Both Worlds" (reviewed here!). Locutus is the Borg-armored, pigment drained Captain Picard after he was assimilated. The figure works because the face is clearly Patrick Stewart as Locutus with all of the Borg-added technology to his face and body. What doesn’t work for the figure is the bright silver plastic on the chest and groin that makes the figure look less like Locutus than the plain black original release!

Standing four and five-eighths inches tall, this is an incredibly well-sculpted likeness of Locutus immortalized in plastic. The character is molded with his fingers curled to hold accessories (which the figure does not truly have) and the ideal combination of hands that comes with Locutus has both hands armored with the appropriate extensions, as viewers saw in the second part of "The Best Of Both Worlds." There is an impressive level of costume detailing, which is impressive because the armor for Locutus is fairly intricate. The hands especially have wonderful molded details like tubes and mechanical ports that look functional. Even the back of Locutus features ports on the shoulder pads that were barely visible in the episodes!

The paint job is the only distinctive aspect of the Supernova Series Locutus and it is what brings down the figure. Sure, Playmates managed to get the drained skin tones of Picard as Locutus perfectly rendered. But the silver armor . . . the silver armor makes the figure look less like Locutus as he appeared in “The Best Of Both Worlds” and more like some concept “Disco Locutus!”

Accessories

Locutus of Borg is a Borg and as a result, he does not truly need accessories. Still, Playmates equipped th Supernova Series Locutus with two additional tubes, two hands, the action base, plus a trading card. That Locutus comes with very few accessories makes perfect sense as the Borg do not use external tools and Locutus was never seen holding any equipment. The Action base is just enough to support the Supernova Series Locutus and is a Borg symbol made of red and black plastic that is ample for support. Near the top of the "eye" in the symbol is a peg which fits into the hole in either of Locutus's feet!

The tubes are just that: two 1 1/2" rubber tubes that may be inserted into holes in the back of Locutus. They take a little work to wiggle in but they enhance the look of Locutus as an assimilated Borg.

As for the hands, the Borg equip their drones with tools that are built into special arm units. As such, Locutus comes with two replacement hands, one for the left and one for the right hand. The replacement left hand is a mechanically-enhanced glove which looks armored and like it could crush a man's windpipe! The right arm is the attachment that viewers saw added to Picard in the episode! The mysterious scanning device that extends Locutus's reach pops into a socket where the right hand had been!

The hands for the Supernova Series Locutus easily pop on and off offering easy swapping of appendages without any real challenges. At the same time, the arms do not slip off so easily that they cannot be played with without the figure falling apart. Playmates finally found the right balance and the hands swap out with enough ease to eliminate the playability problems that plagued the standard Borg figures!

The 1995 line of Playmates action figures also comes with a very cool SkyBox trading card unique to the action figures. The Locutus card features a bust shot Locutus with a warp field background that is quite striking. The back of the card has all sorts of vital information on Locutus and the figure is highly sought by card collectors who collected the cards and disposed of the figures.

Playability

The Supernova Series Locutus was an obvious cashgrab from Playmates, but it was generally well-made. Molded in an neutral, menacing pose that makes him look like a stalwart of the Borg invasion, this is a wonderful sculpt of Locutus. The Supernova Series Locutus is endowed with fourteen points of articulation: knees, groin socket, biceps, elbows, shoulders, neck, wrists and waist. All of the joints, save the elbows and knees, are simple swivel joints. As a result, the neck turns left to right, for example, but the head cannot nod. Similarly, the shoulders are not ball and socket joints and only rotate. Still, Playmates dealt with this limitation by having a swivel joint in the bicep, that allows everything below to turn and offers real decent posability!

Moreover, for use with actual play, Locutus may bend or extend at the elbows, which offers a greater amount of movement potential making him one of the more realistic Star Trek action figures to play with (for those who actually play with these toys!). The Supernova Series Locutus is actually able to look like he lumbers along inhibited by the additional tubes and that works perfectly for the character the figure embodies.

On his base, the Supernova Series Locutus is quite stable, making him a great figure for display as well as play.

Collectibility

Playmates mass produced the first few waves of Star Trek: The Next Generation figures and the Supernova Series Locutus was released as Playmates was getting a bit strapped for cash for its Star Trek license. As a result, the Supernova Series Locutus of Borg figure peaked in value quick and then bottomed out fast. It is one of the least-expensive later Star Trek The Next Generation figures to be found on the secondary market and can usually be found for well under $10 now.

Even so, Playmates tried to make the figures collectible. Each figure has an individual number on the bottom of his right foot. In the attempt to make them appear limited, they had numbers stamped on them, though one has to seriously wonder how limited something should be considered when there are at least 25,000 of the figure out there.

Overview

The Supernova Series Locutus figure is well-made, but an obvious attempt to make money as opposed to make a vital and realistic action figure toy. It is not worth the attention of collectors, despite its production value.

For other Star Trek: The Next Generation toys and figures, please check out my reviews of:
Captain Picard As Galen From “Gambit, Parts 1 & 2”
Galoob Commander Will Riker
Star Trek: Generations Micromachines Set

5.5/10

For other toy reviews, please check out my Toy Review Index Page on the subject for a comprehensive listing.

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Best 10 Movies Of 2014!

| | |
The Basics: 2014 might have been a rough year for quality cinema, but here are the ten films you should see from the year!


Coming into 2015, I was a bit down on movies. 2014 was not an exceptional year for movies and outside one of the nominees, there is no Best Picture Oscar nominee that I would even want to see again. That said, despite a dearth of great films in 2014 (I had to go into the 7.5/10’s to make this list!), there were two films that actually made it into the “perfect” camp this year (out of more 2000 movie reviews, only 35 have gotten perfect 10/10 ratings!). Despite having three movies from 2014 I actually still want to see, I decided to follow-up on my Worst Movies Of 2014 List (that’s here!) with the Best 10 Movies Of 2014.

It is imperative to know, at the outset, that I consider movies for my lists based on their wide-release date. As a result, some films, like Predestination (reviewed here!) and Inherent Vice (reviewed here!) would have been on this list, but they only had limited release in 2014, with a wide-release in 2015. I’m not a fan of supporting the “New York City and Los Angeles get to see it, so it should compete against the full field” concept. It’s also worth noting that Still Alice (reviewed here!) should have made the list (by the numbers), but given how I would not recommend it and never want to see it again, despite being able to acknowledge that the acting in it is wonderful and it accomplishes its goals well, I can’t consider it one of the best movies of the year. So, while this list is undoubtedly the only one with these precise ten movies, the Best Ten Movies Of 2014 are:

10. The Best Offer (reviewed here!) – If you had told me on January 1 of last year that the first movie released in the New Year would make the list, I would have said, “no way!” Quiet and contemplative, the film that focuses on a reclusive auctioneer trying to clandestinely rebuild an ancient automaton, before his life takes a right turn, is actually one of the cleverest and most deceptive films in years. Arguably the most underrated performance of Geoffrey Rush’s career, The Best Offer might be the year’s best gem import,

9. Veronica Mars (reviewed here!) – Arguably the most controversial film to be included on this list, Veronica Mars is vastly underrated. Rob Thomas had a herculean task in bringing his popular television show to the big screen, not the least of which was telling a complete story in a shorter amount of time than any of the story arcs on the series! Veronica Mars (reviewed here!) had big, season-long mysteries and the idea that a full story could be told, while introducing the essential characters from the television series to a potentially new audience, in only a couple hours required the right story. Far from being a mess, Veronica Mars is a rousing success of continuing the story of Veronica Mars after a gap of several years. And, to the detractors, at least Thomas didn’t use the “season four” b.s. idea . . .,

8. The Skeleton Twins (reviewed here!) – This might be the only film I was looking forward to seeing all year, missed in theaters, and then lived up when I finally caught it! The Skeleton Twins is heartwrenching and heartwarming and it illustrates just how much two performers can push themselves and each other when they are working with people they like and trust. Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader were robbed this Award’s season! The Skeleton Twins might be dark, but it does not feel oppressive and that is a rare thing these days,

7. This Is Where I Leave You (reviewed here!) – Jason Bateman might be the biggest star to appear in films that made both my Worst and Best Movie lists! Bateman gets top-billing in This Is Where I Leave You, which was the story of a family reuniting to sit Shiva after the death of the family patriarch. The dialogue, casting and performances are excellent,

6. The Double (reviewed here!) – It is rare for me to sing the praises of a creepy movie, but The Double is that good! The strength of Richard Ayoade’s interpretation of the Dostoyevsky original is that: 1. It can be interpreted several different ways and 2. Even when one feels like they aren’t sure exactly what is going on, the film is entirely engaging. The result is a movie that is unsettling, but has some real, enduring value,

5. Comet (reviewed here!) – One of the late releases of 2014, Comet was entirely overlooked during Award’s Season and that is their loss (and ours)! Comet is the smart exploration of a tumultuous relationship that is packed with wonderful dialogue, impressive performances, and memorable characters. This is a love story that feels fresh and real, even when it is difficult and the strength of the movie is that it still manages to entertain while embodying a strong sense of reality,

4. The Grand Budapest Hotel (reviewed here!) – So, here it is! My quest to watch all eight movies that got Best Picture Oscar nods yielded one that I think deserves it! I’m not big on slapstick comedies or classical movies (the novelty win of The Artist (reviewed here!) a few years back still pisses me off!) and I went into seeing The Grand Budapest Hotel biased against it. But, it won me over. The quirky comedy about a lobby boy and a concierge on the run from a family who want their mother’s inheritance is Wes Anderson’s best film in years,

3. Her (reviewed here!) – The Grand Budapest Hotel is lucky that the limited release of Her put it on the ballot last year, instead of this one! Her is original and clever as it tells the story of one man’s burgeoning love with the artificial intelligence on his phone. Spike Jonze has a flair for finding a concept that is smart and foreseeable, while reaching the only possible and logical conclusion to that story . . . with consequences that give us instant empathy for the film’s protagonist. Given how most of Joachim Phoenix’s performance is opposite a screen and he makes the relationship between his character and the voice of Scarlett Johansson seem entirely real, this might be his best performance ever,

2. X-Men: Days Of Future Past (reviewed here!) – While Guardians Of The Galaxy (reviewed here!) was amusing, X-Men: Days Of Future Past had a level of substance that makes it a far superior film. Despite awkwardness in the X-Men timeline and the desire for most fans of the franchise to forget about X-Men III: The Last Stand, X-Men: Days Of Future Past manages to incorporate the disparate elements, characters and timelines and make a story that is the logical conclusion to Magneto’s original threats against humanity back in X-Men. The film, which puts Logan at the center of a time-travel adventure where he must stop the rise of the forces that will lead to a slaughter of mutants is well-executed visually and from a performance and character standpoint. Plus, despite all the Easter Eggs in Marvel movies last year, there was no moment on screen in 2014 that delighted me like the cameos at the climax of this movie! Regardless of what comes next and all the recasting, X-Men: Days Of Future Past is the crown jewel of Marvel movies,


. . . and . . .


. . .the best movie of 2014 is . . .


1. Cheap Thrills (reviewed here!) – Seriously. Cheap Thrills might be one of the least pleasant movies in years, but it was the best, most important film of 2014. If it had reached an audience and people had understood the film’s metaphorical level, the Tea Party would never have managed to get a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress in the 2014 midterm elections. Yes, seriously. That is a lot to credit to one movie, but Cheap Thrills does that. The story of an everyman who is in debt, facing a financial crisis that threatens himself and his family begins innocuously enough. On the day he is fired, he goes to a bar, meets an old chum from school and he and his friend encounter a seemingly benevolent rich guy and his wife. In celebrating the wife’s birthday, the two men are given competitions for increasing amounts of money and the film turns into a powerful metaphor for how business and the media treat everyone but the 1%. The story of how business sets people against one another and how other powerful forces delight in it and reinforce the inhumanity of their actions is gripping, entertaining, difficult-to-watch and entirely brilliant. Cheap Thrills is the must-see movie from 2014.

For other lists, please check out my:
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek: Enterprise
The Top Ten Episodes Of Frasier
The Worst Ten Episodes Of Star Trek

To see how all movies I have reviewed have stacked up against each other check out my Film Review Index Page where the movies are organized from best to worst!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |