ALIENS was released in 1986 and yet no toys or action figures appeared as tie-in merchandise to accompany it. At the time of its release, the only mass market content were print materials such as posters, magazines and books. No toys whatsoever were made. There were no action figures available, sadly, as the previous ALIEN movie had long since proven how inappropriate its material was for such treatment.
Much like the earlier ALIEN, the 2nd movie in the series was rated R. No one was willing to manufacture toys based on ALIENS at the time. The manufacturers perception of the market was they could potentially suffer the same fate of rejection of product at retail outlets as Kenner had in late 1979. Kenner had already burnt their fingers on making toys based on the earlier R rated movie and weren’t interested in doing so again. No one else was willing to pick up the mantle in this regard, either, so the first commercial ALIENS ‘toy’ didn’t appear until 1991 when Halcyon released their (rather excellent) ‘Alien Warrior with base and egg’ model kit. Confidence in making toys based on R-rated movies improved during this decade. Halcyon would be followed by Kenner in 1992 to produce their now famous range of ALIENS toys; but ALIENS had long since been released and the 3rd movie was about to hit cinemas when these items appeared on toy and hobby store shelves.
That’s not to say that ALIENS was made without the involvement of toys. Surprisingly, castings based on ALIEN figures were used in the making of the movie. The use of toys as background items or props in miniature sets, for use as realisation tools and for other purposes of being used for film making tools is nothing new. Film makers have been doing so for decades. In this regard it’s not surprising to learn that castings of ALIEN toys were employed for the very purpose of assisting the film makers to help realise specific elements in scenes in the 1986 movie.
To this end, a derivation of the Kenner Products ALIEN action figure is known to have been used as a base as a visualisation aid during the movie’s ‘hive’ scenes. Such visualisations were used for lighting, scaling, set design and no doubt served other purposes to help the film makers communicate ideas and solve problems while setting up shooting stages to help maintain workflow and budget restraints in a low cost 3D environment. Photographs of the improvised miniature set were taken and the actual figures used to this purpose still exist. The improvised miniature of the hive scene is shown here with the purpose specific cast ALIEN figure present in the lower left of the shot to help realise and construct the set for the actual scene as it appears in the movie.
The figure itself possesses a substantial amount of history in its own regard. Strictly speaking, it’s not a Kenner ALIEN action figure but rather the item is a casting of one of its derivatives, the Tsukuda Hobby Jumbo ALIEN figure, released in 1984. The item in the photo is one of 4 such items known to exist and the body and limbs are made of molded foam latex with the head being a separate resin cast piece. The complete figure is painted from head to toe and stands about 17 inches high.
A document vying its authenticity regarding its use during the making of the movie was written by Faisal Karim who worked with ALIENS visual effects supervisor, Dennis Skotak. Dennis has also been known to confirm these details regarding this piece. So, it’s a legitimate and genuine item used to assist the film crew to make the movie.
While the figure is a casting of the 1984 released Tsukuda Hobby ALIEN Jumbo figure, it can trace its history to the original 1979 Kenner ALIEN action figure from which it was derived. There are a couple of features present on this ALIENS visualisation piece that confirm the Tsukuda figure is the actual item used as a base from which it is cast.
Most identifiable are the ankle spurs which are present on both the visualisation piece and the Tsukuda figure. As the Tsukuda item was made in 1984, 2 years prior to ALIENS’ release, it’s easily identifiable as the original source piece. The spurs on the ankles of both figures share a pronounced upward curvature; and both figures also share an obvious separation at the knees; neither of which are present in the Kenner item. As the Tsukuda figure was the immediate successor to the original Kenner ALIEN, there is no doubt this is the piece used to cast the figure as seen in the ALIENS miniature mock up set above.
Unfortunately, the Tsukuda Hobby Jumbo figure isn’t regarded very well among fans and collectors with the item possessing some glaring problems, most of which relate to its head. Gone is Kenner’s original jaw activation system and the mouth is presented in an opened fixed position. The clear carapace is ill fitting and the general finish of the head is poor, especially at the rear. It’s no wonder the ALIENS art department decided to ignore the head of this item when casting their improvised visualisation figures. Re-sculpting fresh heads for their purposes was a good choice.
The refurbished head that appears on the visualisation piece is designed to match the creatures as seen in ALIENS. There’s no translucent carapace, the skull face is removed and the front of the head is now featureless and curved without any indication of the former eye orbits. It’s a close approximation and very fitting of what the creatures in the movie looked like even though much of the original Kenner features are still evident and present throughout the item.
The ALIENS movie art department produced a very small and extremely limited number of these visualisation figures based on the Tsukuda Hobby item. 4 are confirmed to exist.
These are the only action figures made for ALIENS; and none of them were for commercial intent. Instead, they were cast from a re-purposed Tsukuda Hobby ALIEN figure and used as a tool to assist visualising scenes in the movie. While they make no appearance in the movie themselves it’s safe to say that ALIEN toys helped to influence the making of ALIENS.
It’s too bad that Kenner didn’t take this opportunity to step in and use these re-purposed versions of the Tsukuda figure to create their own toys based on the movie in 1986. Today, however, we have the luxury of retroactively appreciating what such toys would have been like with Super7’s 2017 release of their 1986 ALIENS Warrior, Classic Toy Edition.
Special thanks to Steve Dwyer for additional photographs and information.
