Ninety screen-accurate figures in the Playmates Star Trek: The Next Generation line and not a single Season 1 Riker among them. Sure, there was a Riker in Season 1 uniform but he was bearded, making him specific to Season 2. One bald-faced Riker did see plastic, though: this Cadet Riker from the Starfleet Academy wave. This dude is famous as custom fodder for those collectors who just can't live without Riker from Season 1: just swap the Academy head with the Season 2 head, and you have a beardless Commander Riker, right? Let's find out if it's that easy. Set course for a Retro Toy Review... maximum warp!
Stats
Year Stamped: 1996Company: Playmates
Size: 4.75"
Price: $4 carded from Big Bad Toy Store
Packaging: Carded
Appearance 
Cadet Riker sports a "Geo-Hazard Suit" that's not canon by any stretch of the imagination. With striped black detailing, calf-high boots, and an arm pouch, Riker looks like he came straight out of a X-Men comic from the 90's. I dig the suit, though; it's dynamic (although I would have preferred a stronger red coloration) and not such a radical a departure from TNG as to make the figure look totally incongruous in a Trek display.
But the real question for customizers is, how accurate is the head sculpt to the beardless Jonathan Frakes from Season 1? The sculpt is pretty good, but it looks more like a teenage version of Riker than the adult Starfleet Commander. The cleft in the chin and the lines on the face have been smoothed out, making him look much younger than he appeared on the show. Since the figure is supposed to represent Riker in the Academy, I understand the de-aging of the sculpt. But that does make things complicated for customizers.
Articulation
Standard Trek articulation applies here: swivel neck, shoulders, biceps, waist, and hips, with hinge knees. Considering the Voyager figures released a year earlier had additional thigh articulation, Playmates should have done better with Cadet Riker. Regardless, his movement is still better than most of his action figure contemporaries.
Accessories
Cadet Riker comes with a bunch of nifty equipment, most of which can be added as accoutrements to his suit. Clockwise from left, they include: stand, phaser, temperature regulator, UV light source (the only accessory reused from another figure), survivor pack, and eye visor. Unlike many Playmates Trek accessories that were cast in obnoxious neon colors, these are colored a more realistic neutral grey.
The phaser can be challenging for Riker to hold. You have to perform a delicate balancing act to get it in his right hand, and if you accidentally nudge the figure, the phaser frustratingly plummets to the table.
Riker also comes with an interactive Starfleet Academy CD-ROM... although it's not interacting with anything now considering its ancient OS requirements (Windows 3.1 or 95, and Mac LC-III). I tried installing it on my Mac anyway, but the computer wanted nothing to do with it. Maybe you can install a virtual machine that runs one of those operating systems, but I can't imagine the CD-ROM would contain anything that would make it worth that much effort.
It makes a nice coaster, I suppose.
Value 
Four bucks for a carded vintage Trek figure with nice accessories and a free coaster? I'll take it.
Coolness 
Cadet Will is a mixed bag of coolness. The costume is cool, but it's more superhero than Trek. It's cool to get a bald-faced Riker in this scale, but the sculpt is too young to customize into an effective Season 1 Riker. I will say that attaching the accessories to the figure is undeniably cool and something I wish Playmates carried over to other Trek sub-lines.
Overall
I originally bought Cadet Riker for customizing fodder, but I don't think I could get past the de-aged face. Not to mention all the hassle that would go along with the customization process: boiling the figures, popping off their heads, whittling down the T-neck so that it can pop back in (assuming it's even compatible), cramming the head into the Season 2 body... and when it's done, the neck would be loose anyway. To hell with it.Still, I ended up liking the figure more than I thought I would. The sculpt is fun, the accessories are interesting, and the whole package is dirt cheap. Not too bad a figure for Trek fans like me who have exhausted all of the show-accurate possibilities.
3 comments:
Interesting looking figure. I forgot these existed. The academt figures were one of Playmates' misfires, assuming kids would get into Trek that much.
They had a lot of stuff planned that was cancelled. Diecast 3 inch figures with play enviroments.
They never made the Kazon raider or the Cardassian Galor class cruiser, either. I think the Ferengi Marauder may have been planned at one point, too.
@scockery: Interesting... I've never heard of the diecast figures before. Have you seen any prototype images floating around the Internet?
I seem to think that the Kazon Raider was going to be part of the Voyager line before it was cancelled. Maybe it was on the back of the box for the Voyager ship, but I can't seem to find a good shot of the box back.
I haven't heard that the Ferengi Marauder was planned, but information on the unproduced toys in the Playmates Trek line is pretty hard to find. You might be thinking about the mini-Marauder in the Galoob TNG line, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was planned at some point for the Playmates line.
I saw the diecast stuff in a Playmates toy fair catalog once and also recall toy publications mentioning them. No pictures in the catalog, just listings with the stock photos of characters, one would've been Quark with bar backdrop. They were probably more collector display pieces than "play environments" now I that I think about.
I can't remember if the Kazon ship was to be a "big version" or the similar looking one-man fighter for use with the 5 inch figures. I never collected the ships, only had the DS9 Runabout.
I recall other cancelled stuff, like a second wave of 6-inch mechs from the Robo-Tech reissues (Exo-Squad), would've been all recolors. The Seaquest vehicles, 2 of which were made for the figures, that would've been cool. The Skeleton Warriors wave 2 with the lead human female figure and some bizarre skeleton guys, plus a skeletal dragon.
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