Triceraton Warrior

Head Height: 14cm to top of frill.

Articulation: 6 points total - Swivel neck, swivel shoulders, swivel hips, and ball jointed tail.

Colors: Molded dark tan, colorless clear; Painted black, grey, burnt orange, brown, blue, silver, white, red.

Accessories: Rocket launcher; Missile; Breather mask.

Release Data: Released last quarter 2004 at a price range of US$4.50 to US$7. This figure is still available with a little searching as of this review.

Gallery: 5 items.

Author: ExVee

Be it the 90's or the present day, Playmates has always had a pretty clear strength and weakness. The strength of course is in the sculpting of their figures. While the style has changed over the years from the attempted "realism" of the original TMNT line to a smoother, simpler animated appearance of the revival line, there's no question Playmates can make some really fine looking figures.

Of course, their weakness is in articulation. Possibly sacrificed for the sake of the sculpt, most of the figures are only jointed at what is typically called the "Big Five": neck, shoulders, and hips. There's been exceptions. Look at the Star Trek figure lines. Those were blessed with elbows, knees, and waist joints! We know that Playmates knows how to use those joints, they just choose not to. Our three horned friend here is no exception, sadly.

In the original toyline, the Triceraton was an individual, a dinosaurian alien from Dimension X contracted by Shredder and Krang to hunt the Turtles. While the existence of a race of triceratopsian aliens is implied, the bio card with the original figure doesn't really say either way. Longtime fans of course know that the Triceratons are indeed an entire race, a highly militant, aggressive one at that. In fact, the old cartoon featured the Triceratons as an alien invasion force during the CBS Saturday Morning run of the series. However, there was but a single appearance and they were never heard of again.

The new series gave them a bit larger role, featuring them in an entire storyarc, plus limited appearances afterward, including an invasion of Earth with actual long reaching consequences into the current season of the show. Have I mentioned I really enjoy the new cartoon?

The Figure

Although the previous Triceraton figure was noted as being something like eight feet tall, the proportions of the sculpt made him look more like he was about four. An angry dwarf dinosaur, pretty much. It also would have helped if it had been, y'know, bigger than the Turtles. But such is how things were back then. Everything was pretty much the same height, except Krang's Android Body.

This Triceraton Warrior is cited as being six feet, three inches. Though they've been downsized, it helps to line them up with the Turtles, who are about five feet tall, keeping the toys more or less in proportion without requiring an overly tall figure whose lack of knees would prevent it fitting into the standard packaging. Fortunately this time around, the body has been sculpted so that it actually does look quite tall. The head is much smaller than the original figure, helping to add to the towering, hulked up appearance. If anything, it seems like the six foot measure is undercutting it, aside from the scale to the other figures.

The figure looks like a three dimensional representation of an animation model, with the entire body being composed of smooth surfaces. While this may seem under detailed, I find the clean appearance to be very appealing, certainly better than the overdone bumpy, scaly appearance the 1990 Triceraton had. Plus instead of having torn clothing just for the sake of additional detail, this Triceraton's jumpsuit uniform is completely unbroken, the excellent condition one might expect of military dress.

With only the minimum of articulation, the figure can't do much. The neck joint has no problems, and the head can turn as far as you like to either the left or right. And while the shoulder joints are equally free of restriction, the arms themselves are molded into a somewhat static looking pose, and don't seem to work well with the arms being in any pose but down at the figure's sides. The only exception is with the rocket launcher in the right arm, and even that's kind of edging the line. The hip joints, however, are totally useless. The figure has "V" style hip joints. That is, the pelvis forms pretty much a V shape, with the hips being on a 45 degree angle. Having only swivel joints in place, if you try to use the hip joints, the legs just turn to an un-natural, useless position. Not that they'd be much good anyway. As I've mentioned before, any leg joints without decent ankles can't do much good. The figure also has a tail, attached to a ball joint in the backside. This is a restricted joint, reducing it to just a swivel. The tail is molded as if to be lying on the ground relaxed, so while you can move it to one side or the other, it doesn't look right.

Paint and Deco

For the most part, the paint applications are smooth and even. But on some smaller bits, it's sloppier. The base of the horns is really uneven, though you could excuse that by saying it's the skin around the base of the horns, but that doesn't excuse the poorly applied paint for the eyes, or the really sloppily edged claws on each of the three fingered hands. It's just that when so much of the value of the figure rests with the visual appearance alone, it seems like you should make extra sure that everything looks as good as it possibly can.

Sculpt gets 8/10

Articulation gets 4/10

Paint and Deco gets 7/10

The Accessories

-Rocket Launcher

As could be said of many TMNT accessories, it's pretty much generic. It's a simple bazooka with a large black clip that fits under the side of the frill. But you have to put the grip in the hand before you fit the clip over the shoulder. Once it's all in place, it's really secure. In fact, with just a little spot of glue to reinforce it, you could almost leave this in place without using the hand. To make it better, the scope is easily removeable. In fact, with a second Triceraton Warrior, you can fit the launcher in the left hand and it'll stay nice and secure without the shoulder clip, for those of you who want a dinosaur with big and plentiful firepower. The launcher mechanism is typically weak, barely chucking the missile past a couple feet. I don't really mind, since I'm not much into spring powered launchers in general anymore.

-Breather Mask

This is actually my favorite accessory. It's just a simple piece of clear, colorless plastic, with the edges painted to reduce the transparecny to just the visor in the middle. There's two holes on top for the horns to poke through, and the front horn fits inside a space on the mask, with a false nose horn molded into the mask. The purpose of this accessory is to provide supplemental gases while on Earth, because the atmosphere isn't quite suitable for Triceratons. Prolonged exposure without the additives provided by the mask will drive the dinos crazy. I mostly like this just because it's a nice detail to have added, and could have easily been left out, plus Playmates executed it quite well. Just watch out. It seems to hold in place by way of tension against the main horns, and could well rub off their silver paint over time.

Accessories get 8/10

Closing Remarks

Where many things we feature this week are at least mechanically improved from their 90's counterparts, this is essentially a total lateral step. Yes, it traded one visual style for another, and into one that I particularly like, but it doesn't really change that by today's standards this is more of a statue than a toy. Mind, it makes a nice looking statue, but as a toy this really needs to have more articulation. That there have been fifteen years of advancement in toys between the first Triceraton and the modern example and the only real difference is a different concept in sculpting is truly a sad state of things. This isn't the revenge of the 90's near as much as it is the rerun of the 90's.

As a statue, I could rate this as Very Good, but as a toy? A solid Could Have Been Better is the best I can give.

ExVeeBrawn, Revenge of The 90's Week