ReAction Lines

[P-Siddy]

Still haven't found these at any local B&Ns.  Count yourself lucky!  And nice score on the display!

[Jesse James]

So if you want the playset, you can now simply pre-order it and you'll get one.  It's resin (IE: That's why it's $100, haha) and if enough orders come in they'll have enough to tool a mold for it and do injection molded plastic.  That's only if enough pre-orders come in.

The price at $100 isn't as outrageous now that I know it's resin...  Not cheap.  There wasn't mention of a price drop at all though, if enough orders come in to get a steel mold tooled to do plastic.


Clicky Clicky

[McMetal]

Hmm, that's cool of them, but it won't be exactly the same as the first edition. And the packaging looks different too. I do applaud them for acknowledging their audience though.

Hopefully this helps to bring the price down on the SDCC sets too.

[Jesse James]

I'm not seeing much difference in the base, just the box...  I actually like the black box better, than the blue one.  I think it just looks more in tune with the carded figures I guess.  It doesn't seem like anything is different but the numbered packaging for the LE blue box I'd think.

The bases seem pretty identical to me, at least in the photos, or as identical as something that's probably hand painted can ultimately be.

[Greg]

$100 seems fair for a low production run playset. Very cool that Super 7 is opening this up for a pre-order for everyone not attending SDCC. I must admit I am tempted.

Jesse, is the Acid Rain statue/base set made from resin? Since I don't have any non-plastic toys, I am trying to get an idea of the construction/weight of the playset.

[Jesse James]

Good Q Greg, and one I didn't know myself till I saw a review of it when looking for reviews of the Quad Eyes.  Apparently it IS resin.  I did not know this, but it helps with the statue (which is a real statue, I guess, in some museum) because it's weightier than normal.

All those bases/statues are hand weathered by the guy who invented that stuff, plus autographed on the bottom.  Color me actually somewhat impressed at that.  I didn't realize upon my pre-order of that, that it'd be a LE that would sell out as fast as it did.  Go figure that all I really wanted was a cool statue and base for my stash of goodies and the "set" as it were, was really an afterthought.

Now, I'm like you...  Kind of a non-plastic-phobe about toys.  Resin is, sort of, a plastic though, so I give it a pass.  It's obviously real heavy though, or typical (cheaper A/B) stuff is compared to like PVC or ABS.  Some call resin "liquid plastic" which I find a tad misleading (repro people I've noticed like to go that route, and I think partially because of people like us).  They're sort of plastics/polymers though if my understanding is correct, but different from ABS and PVC's obviously.

There's lots of different resins too though, with different properties.  Depends what you need it for.  I like resins then for that purpose but they're tougher to work with than any plastic I ever encountered, from a model/custom standpoint.

The toys themselves appear to be all plastic, injection molded, and/or hard rubbers/PVC's.

I have a sneaking suspicion the upcoming Alien playset could hit the threshold of injection molded plastic, and I wish it'd see a price cut because of it, but I guess that's not on the table.  I want one, bad, but $100 for a glorified stand is out of my budget.  A really kick ass glorified stand, mind you, but still that's what it would be to me so I've gotta limit myself.  As it is I bought all the figures including some extras which I wasn't going to do at one point.

I think it's awesome and double awesome that they're basically letting people order and will make as many as they get orders for.  No better way to crank them out than that.  And I'd love to say I'd give anything for an egg chamber to display my Hot Toys and other Alien(s) figures in, but right now I need to cool my jets on toy buying.  Star Wars is (theoretically) going to pick up here and I will need to allocate some buying power to them.  Thank god they've abandoned cool army builders for the most part. 

[McMetal]

I just got word that my remote field agent in San Diego was able to score the Egg Chamber playset for me tonight! Hells Yeah!

This was the #1 exclusive I was most concerned about, huge relief to have gotten lucky on this thing. It will fit in perfectly with all my other blue carded ReAction stuff... 

I believe there are also a few of the "Mystery Figure" Eggs coming my way too, waiting confirmation on those...

BTW, if anyone is able to verify about many different blind boxed figures there are I would sure appreciate knowing. I thought for sure I had heard somewhere that it would be 3 different ones, but now I'm thinking there may be more.

[Rob]

Brian Flynn who owns Super 7 has been answering questions over at Rebelscum and has basically explained that the more tan base in the blue box is the comic con exclusive, the one that is up for preorder until tomorrow will be charcoal in color, in the black box.

They are doing hand cast resin unless they hit some magic number of pre-orders at which point it becomes more cost effective to go with injection molding.  Here's his exact post:

Injection molding is what you typically see with most plastic. You create a two/three part metal mold, shoot the plastic in at a high pressure (forcing all air bubbles, etc. out). The plastic is melted heading into the mold, and then cures and dries inside the mold so that it pops out in its final form. The metal molds to make the plastic are very expensive. A mold big enough to make this playset in one piece is somewhere between the size of your microwave and the inside of your oven. It is incredibly expensive to make because of the size of the material needed to withstand the pressure of injection molding. The plastic itself become relatively cheap, so, if you make tens of thpusands of units, you can amortize your mold costs into a small fee per piece of plastic injected. If you make a very low amount of pieces, the mold cost becomes a huge part of each per piece cost.

With resin, you can use a variety of temporary molds (most often silicone), which is much cheaper, but they break down very quickly, and are only good for a limited number of pulls. Additionally, resin takes quite a while to cure and dry (not all resins, but many.) There are a ton of different kinds of resin, and the one we are using feels the most like injection plastic that we could find. In the case of resin, the material cost is much higher, and the labor of making them is higher, as in this case, they can literally only make 8 playsets per day with cure time on the resin.

Resin typically is a bit more fragile, but the resin we are using has a bit of flex to it, so we should only have issues with dropping onto hard surfaces. Does this help?

So, we'll see. 

I bit the bullet and ordered one - I don't like the price tag, but I want it.

Also this image of some mock-ups for future Alien figures was posted (it shows the lighter color base for the 250 first-run in the blue box) :



These are apparently the figures that are in the blind-buy eggs:

[Jesse James]

I'd like a chance to buy the red/blue space suited guys.

[McMetal]

Yeah, I pretty much knew it was going to be different, that's why I wanted the SDCC one so bad, more movie-faithful, IMHO.

I have been researching this, and I believe I have concluded that there are at least SIX (6) different blind bagged "mystery figures":

Kane - Spacesuit
Kane - Chestburster
Ripley - Spacesuit
Ripley - Plain
Alien - Plain
Alien - Clear

The Aliens were clearly shortpacked because there are almost none of them for sale on eBay right now, plenty of the other guys though. I believe I got the Ripley Spacesuit and Chestburster Kane in my preorders.

So not easy to be a completist with this line, but it's great stuff IMO.

[Jesse James]

So the SDCC base is that light green and the regular base will be charcoal, and neither will have much paint detail I'm assuming?  Pretty much a "molded color" look?

The eggs look sort of almost removable, but not quite.  Hmmm.  I'm tempted to order really, but I don't think I will.  I'm really bummed that those other space suited figures probably won't be available (at least not easily) in the near future.  I'd buy those in a heartbeat.

[Rob]

I'd like a chance to buy the red/blue space suited guys.

According to Brian, those will be future regular releases and those are just mock-ups with repainted Kane heads.

[Rob]

So the SDCC base is that light green and the regular base will be charcoal, and neither will have much paint detail I'm assuming?  Pretty much a "molded color" look?

The eggs look sort of almost removable, but not quite.  Hmmm.  I'm tempted to order really, but I don't think I will.  I'm really bummed that those other space suited figures probably won't be available (at least not easily) in the near future.  I'd buy those in a heartbeat.

I can't say for sure, but I understand it the way you just described.  The lighter base was the SDCC exclusive and is technically more screen accurate.  The charcoal base is the one that you can preorder as long as you decide before the end of tomorrow, and is more 'how we remember it' than screen accurate.

[Jesse James]

I'd not really look at either as screen accurate and more like a 70's playset.  Screen accurate's the Hot Toys eggs, or Microman eggs...  They're actually multiple colors and stuff.

This reminds me of the Land of the Jawas or something.  One solid color, which is fine by me.  I'd still like one.  I just don't think I want one for $100.  I'll decide before tomorrow is up I suppose.

I'm glad to hear the news on those space suit guys though...  I'm guessing new heads will happen, perhaps?  Kane's pretty generic though so that's fine.  I just like that suit.  Those guys look good working on a Star Wars ship in space kinda thing. 

[Rob]

Maybe scree accurate was the wrong phrase...

More technically accurate?