Okay, I have a confession to make. I love these Resolute toys. I really, really, REALLY love these Resolute toys. I know everyone labels me a Hasbro fanboy anyway, so that probably comes as no surprise to anyone, but my love for these Resolute toys goes beyond my normal love for the normal cool toys.
While I am fired up for the Pursuit of Cobra items and I love what I’m seeing there, too, for some reason the look and feel of G.I. Joe: Resolute just has me on cloud nine. It’s a little bitter sweet, because I’m not sure we’ll ever see anything else from this awesome Resolute universe, but if this is it, it’s a great last stand.
Granted, there were aspects of the Resolute story that certainly were not perfect, but the big drawing point were the designs, and seeing those designs translated into 3 3/4″ plastic form is absolutely awesome. So, of course, since I’m so ramped up, I couldn’t just stop at two reviews posted today… here are FOUR more. These are all linked at the G.I. Joe: Resolute Reviews Page, or you can check them out individually below:
So that’s a total of eight of the fourteen figures… I might even get the last six posted tomorrow. But I don’t want to shortchange my “Review-A-Rama” too much!
Anyway, check ’em out above.
Great reviews as always!
I just can’t deal with the melon-headed Scarlett and Baroness. Their massive heads just about ruin the figures. The best head swap that I have found for Scarlett is the Scarlett (Desert Ambush) figure from the movie line. The Baroness head from the Cobra 5-pack – as pointed out above – works best to replace Resolute Baroness’ massive head.
Wow… never knew Scarlett was so… tall. Or is SE really just that short?
Agh, man Scarlett stings! That was gona be my definitive Scarlett there, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted the packs at first. I’m wondering if you could rip the hair off Scarlett and Baroness and glue them on there better? Certainly looks worth trying.
As for the Alley Viper…well, the one coming out in red kinda makes that one look like a little kid. I love my Alley Vipers, but that one just looks like a Trooper with different gear, and since I found a total of ZERO Reso-Troopers, I kinda wouldn’t know what to do with that guy.
That Roadblock review just reminds me of how much I’m disappointed in the rarity of the movie battle station packs; I vastly prefer the colours on the movie version of the mold, with the lighter skin tone and the (admittedly painted on) undershirt.
I don’t know, but from the pics Scarlett’s head doesn’t seem as weird looking as Baroness. Scarlett doesn’t look all that bad to me.
Agreed. While Scarletts head is too big, it is VERY well sculpted. The Baroness head is pure crap. The equal scores baffles me.
But then the pretty much perfectly Resolute-accurate Alley Viper only got a 3.5 so who knows what’s going on.
I don’t understand how these are being reviewed. As part of the overall Joe universe I guess, though I would rate them based on how accurate they are to the Resolute cartoon, because that’s what I’m buying them for.
Having had all these guys for a few weeks now, I think I’ve gotten over that “omg, new Joes!” fanboy gut reaction and I’d still rate Alley Viper a solid 5, and Scarlett a 4.5 (points only being deducted because of the big head, because otherwise the figure is perfect.)Baroness on the other hand is off not just in the large head but the rest of the body doesn’t look very porportional either, let alone as femine and sexy as a Baroness figure should look. Also of note is that she’s very skinny in the cartoon while her figure here has very thick thighs (proportionaly yet super skinny arms, looks weird.
All things being equal though, I’m seriously hoping most people feel the new PoC Alley Viper makes this Resolute Alley-Viper irrelevant, so I hopefully don’t have to pay more than $12 per Alley Viper while army building these guys 😉
I will be honest, Hawkwinter, I’m struggling with how to review these guys. I am absolutely 100% totally infatuated with the Resolute designs, so I could honestly find reasons to give every one of these figures five star reviews. I love Scarlett’s body tooling even with the head… I like the Baroness’ colors a ton, and her cartoon accurate weapons are great. Alley-Viper looks very similar to his animated appearance, yet is made mostly of existing parts.
In the end, I tried to stay as objective as possible and balance many things. How accurate to the show design…use of existing vs. new tooling and how it worked… inginuity of the parts usage. And how “excited” the figure made me, which can sometimes be intangible. I absolutely love the Alley-Viper’s head and new vest, but ultimately it’s a Cobra Trooper beyond that. No different weapons (not that he needs them to be cartoon accurate), and while the vest is awesome, it’s a fairly generic, one piece vest.
Contrast that with a figure like Beachhead, who has amazing webgear, an ingenious new secondary (with the raised collar) and a really awesome paint scheme.
Perhaps the ratings seem like too much of a crapshoot, and sometimes they are. I spend a lot of time comparing this figures to each other as well as on their own merits. Beachhead was a figure that I enjoyed more than the Alley-Viper and one that wow’ed me more than the Alley-Viper, so it made sense to me that Alley-Viper come in a bit lower on the scale.
I personally prefer the Baroness head sculpt to the Scarlett one, which to me at least somewhat offsets the fact that Scarlett’s body tooling is a lot better, but in retrospect, I think in totality there is more to like about Scarlett than the Baroness, so equal scores might have been a bit misleading.
I dunno. Can you tell I’m winging it? 😉
Justin
lol.
I figured you were kind of struggling as to how to score them. I mean ultimately your awesomne pictures and review tell the tale for most of us. Very detailed clear shots of the figures with gear, without gear, with weapons, without weapons, in action poses, in comabt, beside existing versions, etc, etc. Add to that your meticulous account of how the figure moves, feels and all the details and all that jazz and we have a pretty good idea if the figure is something to our liking or not.
I also thought on this matter some more after posting, which I did quickly as I had to get to an appointment, and really the only truely fair way to do it would of been to give two scores. A general score like you do with all figures in relation to all Joe figures (which I think is what you mainly settled on). As well as a Resolute accurate score. A score that ignores what other versions are out there or even if the tooling has been used before, only if it resembles the Resolute cartoon version. I can’t see it working out any other way.
Like I’ve stated elsewhere, as cool as the Resolute Cobra Trooper is, it isn’t very accurate to the cartoon and that really bugs me. So that’s a perfect example. In the world of Joe, he probably deserves a 4 or better. In the world of Resolute, a poor effort, maybe a 2. Only my opinion of course.
I seperate my Joe universes and looking at some posts on thsi website as well as others, other Joe fans have started doing the same thing. So my Resolute figures don’t intermingle with my 25th/Classic Joes or even the newer RoC/PoC figures.
All in all, I figured something was up when the start of the article talks about how you’re so in love with these figures and then the review scores were…well, less than impressive…lol.
And man, I fully understand where you’re at, cause I’m there with you. On one hand the PoC figures are blowing everything out of the water. The mind blowing sculpts, the plethora of accessories, the cool semi-sci-fi approach and just that intangible feeling of “Joe” attached to them, has me praising Hasbro like never before.
But then here come the Resolute figures which are very simple and bright and colorful in comparison and really shouldn’t even compare to the PoC stuff. But somehow on some totally different level, they are just as mind-blowingly awesome and feel just as “Joe” as the PoC stuff.
I don’t know, can’t explain it, but man it’s a great time to be a Joe fan right now.
And no matter my quibbles about the scores, thanks for the great reviews.