Alien Shocktrooper – Independence Day

This was another super-cheap Western figure from Mandarake that I couldn’t not buy. Also… shiny…

Shiny and blue is also a winner with me :P. And tentacles. This figure feels very 90s. And being 90s style, it has to have an action feature:

Not entirely sure if this cardboard dude is supposed to come out or not. He doesn’t easily, so he’s stayin’ in there. Here we can see there is plenty of glitter underneath the sealant. 

Here is the head closed:

The red eyes stand out from the rest of the figure, but aren’t too hash a contrast. The sculpting is good for its age, though the colours chosen are probably somewhat Marmite if you like them or not. 

Left:

Here we see the majesty of this thing. The tentacles take up quite a bit of room, but the upper ones have wires, so they can be posed. The lower two he stands on are solid so they can prop him up. The purple accents on these tentacles are a nice touch. The upper tentacles are pre-attached, but the lower ones are an absolute arse to get in – would recommend warming the figure to ease insertion. 

Close-up of the body:

Still looking shiny and decently detailed. The protruding bit on his upper back is the clip you squeeze to open the head. The head will spring closed. 

Right:

This shot shows the levers and hinge aren’t really that hidden. Does give you a good grip to open it though, which makes sense as a toy aimed at kids. 

Close-up of the lower tentacles:

Decently detailed, and reasonably easy to balance him on these back “legs”. 

Back:

All the tentacle you could need! Haven’t posed them much, but with some fiddling, they’d look good.

Close-up of the tentacle ends:

Here we can see there is more than one tip type, which is a nice detail. I like the way these came out. 

You also get a host dude:

He has a certain amount of flexibility, but isn’t designed to be poseable. The paint colours are nice though. I’ll either find somewhere he can hang onto, or maybe hang him onto a tentacle. He’s a decent little accessory to the figure, but he’s not capable of standing on his own, so that’s a bit of a shame. Would have more display potential if he did. 

Overall, I like this figure, not sure who I’d recommend it to. It also came with a floppy disk, but haven’t been bothered to try and see if it still reads. As of the time of writing, here’s some videos that I found of the mission disks that came with these figures: https://www.youtube.com/user/JTcheatwood/videos They’re all very short minigames (my brother had the Area 51 one as kids, which came with a mini playset, which is why I know the vague content of the disks).