Leslie Chambers reviews the Gigantic Series Mechagodzilla (1974) Ricboy Exclusive Version vinyl figure by X-Plus.

• See more of Leslie’s reviews at his YouTube Channel.

By John Stanowski Originally posted August 12th, 2020​ on Kaiju Addicts.

If you’ve grown up watching Showa Godzilla on television, you’re probably not a stranger to works of visual effects and stop motion animation master, Ray Harryhausen. He started learning his craft from Willis O’Brien (the man who brought the original 1933 Kong to life) and has since created dozens of creatures for movies like One Million Years B.C. (1966), The Valley of the Gwangi (1969) and all of those awesome Sinbad movies from the 60s and 70s.

X-Plus occasionally veers from Godzilla to take on other franchises like they did in the early 2000s with a collection of creatures created by Ray Harryhausen. Back then, the quality was a mixed bag since X-Plus didn’t start to release super, movie-accurate sculpts until about 2009.

If you’ve been wishing X-Plus would take another stab at Ray’s monsters, the time has finally come. X-Plus is again producing vinyls based on Harryhausen’s legacy, but they will come under the Star Ace banner. Star Ace is a subsidiary of X-Plus. And because of X-Plus’ heavy involvement, you can consider these new Star Ace figures to be on par with the rest of your X-Plus collection.

Star Ace has already taken preorders for two upcoming vinyls based on dinosaurs from the aforementioned Hammer film One Million Years B.C. (1966). Impending releases include the Allosaurus and Triceratops seen in that movie. They’ve also announced the Ceratosaurus which is also in the works. There are links to more information on those at the bottom of this article.

THIS NEW DIRECTION JUST GOT BETTER
If you were pleased at the chance to acquire these high-end Harryhausen dinos, you’ll be glad to know there’s even more in the works. Star Ace and X-Plus have recently announced two more of Ray’s more fantastical creations…

Introducing the upcoming Star Ace 30cm Soft Vinyl Series Ymir. This vinyl will be based on the sci-fi film 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957). In this classic, an egg sack containing a baby Ymir makes its way to earth via returning Air Force mission to Venus. The ship crashes and the Venusian creature starts to grow and wreak havoc.

There are no more details to report at this time concerning price, preorder start and expected release date. There is also no word on whether or not there will be a Standard and Exclusive option.  That’s the one downside to early teases like this one. Stay tuned for more information as it comes in.

Ray Harryhausen brought the mythical Cyclops to life in the 1958 classic The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. And now Star Ace and X-Plus are bringing that creation to life for your collection.

And that’s really all there is to say at this point. We’ll have to wait for Star Ace and X-Plus to release more details at a later date. By my estimation, that date isn’t very far off considering that they already have production photos of the painted prototypes in hand.

These first five entries into Star Ace’s Ray Harryhausen collection really only just scratch the surface of the possibilities. Kali, the Minotaur, Mighty Joe Young, Talos, the Kraken and so much more.

If we’re to get more entries into this series, then this series needs to be successful right out of the gate. X-Plus got pretty far with their selection almost 20 years ago. Let’s hope this line is just as successful. Please share a link to this post on social media so that we can reach the legions of Harryhausen fans out there who haven’t been introduced to Star Ace and X-Plus yet.

As was already mentioned, I will post new information on these releases and where to get them as it becomes available.

And if you’re curious about the 20-year-old X-Plus versions, you can see a list of what was made over at KaijuBattle.net.

By John Stanowski Originally posted August 6th, 2020​ on Kaiju Addicts.