I had been eyeing this Majorette model car for a really long time.  However the usual model car brands that I collect (Bburago, Maisto & MotorMax) do not have the 1:24 scale Porsche Boxster in silver color.  I’ve also seen the real car on our Singapore roads on countless occasions.  There’s even at least one living in my neighbourhood!

Finally I caved in and got my first Majorette model car during a sale.  The car is a few dollars cheaper than the Bburago and Maisto brands of same 1:24 scale.  At first glance, the Majorette Porsche Boxster  looks nice enough to display with my other model cars.  Upon closer examination, the lower standard of Majorette model cars is more apparent.

Functions: 

The doors and boot can be opened, which is the basic criteria for all 1:24 scale model cars.  The steering wheel can steer the front wheels right and left very easily. 

- points:

The doors are really thick and there’s hardly a gap between the doors and the seats when the doors are closed.  The boot opens to an empty space inside with no model engine in sight.  Or is the engine supposed to be in front?  Anyway, the bonnet can’t be opened to verify that.  The handbrake is made of very soft plastic and is as thin as paper.  The dashboard is lacking in details, and there are no foot pedals!

+ points: 

Nevertheless, the overall painting is decent and the lights look quite realistic.  The mirror stickers are perfect, just slightly pasted out of position but that’s fine, as long as the mirror stickers are not damaged.  And most importantly, the car moves along very smoothly on a flat surface!

Overall opinion:

In summary, this shall remain as my only Majorette 1:24 scale model car.  If I find a better replacement from other brands like Bburago or even Maisto, I’ll replace it with those, provided they have the 1:24 scale Porsche Boxster in silver color.  For now, this Majorette version will do.

Did you notice the latest toys offered with every McDonald’s Happy Meal here in Singapore?  These toys are based on the cartoon series - The Spectacular Spiderman, currently showing on every weekday evening on our local Okto channel.

I found this Happy Meal photo online and I must say that our local Happy Meal packaging do not look this.  Even the meal box and paper cup look good enough to keep as collectibles!  If only they included a small packet of french fries to complete the Happy Meal look!

Anyway back to the Spectacular Spiderman toys from McDonald’s, there are 8 different toys to collect, with 2 being offered each week.  The outlets change their Happy Meal toys on every Thursday here in Singapore.  And for once, there isn’t a separate set of dolls or ‘cutie’ toys to cater to the girls.  It’s Spidey toys all the way, so it’s no choice! 

Dr Octopus and Black Spidey (hanging version) came out in the first week (during our local school holiday week); followed by Black Spidey (crawling version) and Green Globin in the second week; Red Spidey (suction version) and Venom last week; and finally Red Spidey (web-shooting version) and Sandman this week!

I only watched a bit of “The Spectacular Spiderman” cartoon series and I find that the characters all look so much younger.  Peter Parker and all the ‘civillian’ characters all have this look like in ”Teen Titans” and “Ben 10″, which is not to my liking for I definitely prefer the artwork and animation style of the Spiderman animated series from the 90’s.  I plan to get the DVD of that series some day when it’s available!

Nevertheless, the Spidey toys at McDonald’s look good enough to collect, though I wish they had just done only 1 version each of Red Spidey and Black Spidey, and make 2 more different villains in their place.  Spiderman has so many enemies, hence I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to select 2 more to include in this set, instead of getting more Spideys. 

I hope to see McDonald’s offer the toys based on the new ”Wolverine & the X-Men” cartoon series soon too!

On the same day that I spotted the Dragonball Evolution toys in Singapore, I also came across these toylines based on the upcoming “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” movie, and a new cartoon series known as “Wolverine & and the X-Men”.  At SGD 18.90 each, these action figures are also rather pricey like the Dragonball Evolution action figures.

The X-Men movie action figures look quite realistic when you view them close up.  Too bad my 2-yr old mobile phone ran out of memory space to snap more photos.  I really prefer these figures to be larger, at least at 5-inches tall.  The above toys stand at just under 4-inches tall.  My larger X-Men action figures from the 90’s would have easily ‘trampled over’ these new guys!

The X-Men action figures based on the cartoon series look so cute!  I only saw Cyclops and Wolverine while the rest were presumably sold out.  On their backcards, Magneto and Iceman look quite cool too!  It reminds me of what made me start collecting the X-Men action figures based on the 90’s X-Men animated series.  I just prefer their ‘cartoon’ looks to their current ’comic book’ looks, which the popular Marvel Legends action figures are based on.

I hope there will be a sale on all these X-Men action figures soon.  Then I can add some of them to my X-Men collection.  I have not bought X-Men related toys since their movies came out in Singapore, which is really quite a while already!

I saw hordes of these Dragonball Evolution movie action figures in several departmental stores along Orchard Road today.  

My initial reaction was “they’re here already!”.  There are 2 sizes of action figures available.

Then my next response was “they’re so small!”, at around 4-inches tall for the smaller action figures!  I wonder they are made so small.  It’s not like they’re gonna fit into a space ship like the Star Wars action figures or are they…?

And finally when I turned their backcards over to see the price tag - “Wow they’re so expensive for such tiny action figures!”, at SGD 19.95 for each small size action figure!  The larger ones (at around 8-inches tall) with special actions cost SGD 29.95 each! *Gasp*

Every departmental store that was selling them had tonnes of them on the rack.  It’s either they had just put them up for sale today (after all Friday’s a popular stock up day for many departmental stores here), or people are not buying many of them.  The entire range of Dragonball Evolution movie toys were available (note: just refresh the link if the page does not load).

I’m still getting over my shock toy discovery today, about their prices mainly…*double gasp*… 

See my earlier blog post on Dragonball Evolution movie toys.

The answer to my blog post “Identify the Toys” a couple of days ago has been revealed and yes, these space ship toys are from Titan A.E.!  This is an animated movie done by the short-lived Fox Animation Studios.

Congratulations to the following winners who got the right answers!

KazeTora and LEon!

Back in 2000 when Titan A.E. was released in the cinemas here, there was hardly any marketing hype I could recall about it.  I first read about its then state-of-the-art clever use of both 2-D and 3-D animations to create the wonderful visual effects of the movie, in the local newspaper reviews.  So I went to watch it to see how good those so-called effects were.  I must say, the results were indeed stunning, especially when you watch them on big screen!

I rarely have a liking for space shows, even for Star Wars, but Titan A.E. blew me away and it still remains the only space show that does it for me.  I got the VCD when it came out many years ago, and recently I also acquired its DVD from a MJ Multimedia outlet for SGD 12.90!  One thing to note though, its VCD and DVD cover pictures don’t do the movie justice.  They are just too bland but they hide a treasure within!

This space ship is called the Valkyrie.  It’s the main and largest space craft used by the good guys.  I loved the Valkyrie when I first laid eyes on it in the movie as it looks so 3-D and beautiful on screen!  You can shoot out projectiles from the top of the Valkyrie toy.  When you place your fingers on the metal buttons on both sides of the Valkyrie toy, you can hear “missile-firing” electronic sounds! 

Well, you definitely need batteries to power those sound effects.  The Valkyrie actually came with a Cale action figure, who is the male protaganist in Titan A.E., but here I pair up Akima with it since she is its original pilot in the movie.  Cale only guest piloted the Valkyrie for a while.  One thing to note is that all the Titan A.E space craft toys are not made to scale with the action figures.  They are supposed to be way larger than the humans.

Next we have the villain’s Drej Stinger space craft toy and its accompanying Drej pilot action figure.  I love the luminous blue look of the Drej Stingers in the movie.  The toy however is purple in color.  This villain space craft comes with “battle-action” sounds and light, powered by batteries of course!

I remember that I bought this Drej Stinger space craft with the other 2 space craft mainly because it didn’t cost that much.  I can’t recall all their original prices though, but I think I got them all together during a storewide sale back then!

Last but not least is the Turbo Surge Phoenix space craft toy and it originally came with an Akima action figure.  Here I have paired up the Cale action figure that came with the Valkyrie space craft toy instead.  Since he was the one who fixed up and revitalized this originally run-down space craft in the movie, he gets to pair up with it.  In the movie however, Akima piloted the Phoenix as she was a more experienced pilot!

The Phoenix space craft does not have sound effects, just a blinking light.  When at rest, it ’stands’ upright like a space rocket on its turbo charges with the wings folded.  When in ‘flight’ the wings can expand to resemble one of those space craft from Star Wars.  However when I re-watched the Titan A.E. movie recently on my newly bought DVD, the Phoenix flew without expanding its wings. 

Storyline: In the year 3028 A.D. the earth gets destroyed by an alien race known as the Drej, who are made of pure energy.  Humans escape in space crafts and the survivors are scattered in refugee “drifter colonies” throughout the universe.  However the human scientists have a Titan project which possesses the power to create a new planet!  They managed to launch it to somewhere safe in the universe before the earth got destroyed.

15 years later, a young guy named Cale is being recruited by Captain Korso to search for the Titan.  Cale’s father was part of the security forces entrusted to hide the Titan back then but the latter perished soon after.  Cale has an electronic 3-D map of Titan’s location genetically encrypted on his palm.  Together with Akima who is Captain Korso’s assistant and a bunch of alien space crew, they all set off on board the Valkyrie space ship to seek the Titan.

Along the way, the Drej tail them so as to destroy them and the Titan.  The story has a predictable happy ending and the humans have their new planet to stay on once more.  The interesting parts to watch are the flights of the space ships, how the main characters manage to defeat such a powerful alien force and how the Titan eventually creates a new home for them.  The planet creation method may seem a little far stretched for some viewers but it’s not theoretically impossible though.  After all this story takes place in the 31st century.  At the end of the movie, you’ll also realise what does “A.E.” stand for!

Movie review:

The storyline of Titan A.E. may not be unique but throughout the movie, you get to marvel at the beautiful visual effects that combined 2-D and 3-D animation in the late 90’s can accomplish.  It’s just too bad that this movie is underrated.  However, the opening scenes showing the earth getting destroyed by the Drej forces can be a bit disturbing.  Luckily the stunning visual effects in the rest of the movie will manage to keep your mind away from that early depressing start!

I blogged about my collection of X-Men vs Street Fighter action figures from series 1 a couple of days ago.  I remember being more excited about the 2nd series than the 1st series because series 2 contains the females figures, including my favourite X-Men character Rogue!  The following are the series 2 of X-Men vs Street Fighter action figures by Toybiz from the 90’s.

This pair is Apocalypse vs Dhalsim.  Apocalypse comes with detachable and extra mechanical arms to switch with his normal arms.  He also has 2 detachable silver rubbery tubes that connect each elbow to his back.  Overall he closely resembles the original Toybiz Apocalypse, except for some slight color variations.

Dhalsim looks like what’s supposed to look like, complete with a skulls necklace, bangles and cloth pants that are tied with a string, giving him a rugged tribal appearance.  I’m not fond of this character as he freaks me out with his cannibalistic image, but I got him anyway because I wanted to collect Apocalypse.

Next we have Gambit vs Cammy.  Gambit is my 2nd favourite X-Men character after Rogue, and he looks very accurate in detail and color.  There is a lever on his back which controls his right arm in an up-down motion.  However his rod is a little too small for his fist and it slips out easily.  Hence I used blue tack to help him hold his weapon for the photo.  He also comes with an ace card.

Cammy is attired in a light blue and black-striped costume.  She is draped in a thick red coat that looks like winter wear.  I thought Cammy is supposed to be dressed in green costume, hence I was a little disappointed when I got this figure.  She also has a blurry facial expression.  Nevertheless, this pair is still worth it for the Gambit figure!

Here we have the Juggernaut vs Chun Li pair.  Juggernaut is holding a piece of accessory that’s supposed to be a bent metal beam and he looks about to ’smash’ it onto Chun Li’s head!  His helmet is molded to his head so you can’t remove it.  He has no joints at his elbows, hence he is less poseable, but at least he stands well.

Chun Li has a cute face and is well-proportioned, except that mine has been in storage for so long that her legs are a little ’squished’ together now.  Hence she topples over easily.  This is quite common for female action figures as they are so much slimmer than their male counterparts.  Her spiky bangles are not molded onto her wrists and can therefore be spun round!

Last but not least is Rogue vs Zangief.  To my delight, Rogue is made in a new mold!  She looks more like a Japanese anime character and I like her soft rubbery jacket too!  She doesn’t stand very firmly on her own but with a little adjustment of her legs and some ‘coaxing’ from me, she stood there long enough for the photo shots.

Like Akuma and Dhalsim, I have no special liking for this Street Fighter character Zangief.  But since he came as a pair with my favourite X-Men character Rogue, I have him in my collection.  However I do find this figure well-detailed and he comes with a red robe to drape over his shoulders like a wrestler.  The robe hides his over-sized arms well and makes him look less bare-bodied.

I only own 4 out of the 6 pairs in this 2nd series of X-Men vs Street Fighter action figures because the other 2 pairs consist of repeated characters in variant colored costumes.

See my other X-Men vs Street Fighter action figures collection from series 1 at my earlier blog post!

Having been inspired by LEon’s weekly blog posts on guessing the toys from the pictures that he shows, I’ve come up with my own version of “Guess the Toys!” game.  Let’s see if you can identify which obscure toyline and movie the following toys are from!  I’m also curious to find out how many people know these toys!

While looking for my other toys recently, I came across my small collection of space ship toys that have been parked in my cupboard for years!  I don’t have many space ship toys and these are my treasured few.  If you can, name these space ships and their pilots too!

These space ship toys are based on low profile animated movie that was shown in the local cinemas back in 2000.  I love that show and its beautiful 3-D looking space ships that seemed to pop right out of the screen, even without the use of 3-D glasses!  Hence I promptly bought these space ship toys soon after when I saw them being sold in the stores!

Clues: This 20th Century Fox science fiction movie was released in 2000, and it wasn’t highly promoted.  So very few people have heard of it, much less recall watching it.  Wordwide, it didn’t fare well at the box offices mainly due to poor marketing.

As a result of poor ticket earnings, it was the last animated movie done by the short-lived Fox Animation Studios before it got shut down, despite the phenomenal success of its first animated movie “Anastasia” a few years before it.

The main attraction of this animated space movie is not really the storyline, but more of the then state-of-the-art animation techniques that combined the use of both 2-D and 3-D animation styles of the late 90’s, to create the stunning visual effects seen in the movie.

So have you figured out which show do these toys come from?  I shall reveal the answer in a couple of days’ time.  Meanwhile, feel free to leave your answers here at the comments section!

I went to dig out my collection of X-Men vs Street Fighter action figures.  I bought these way back in the 90’s when I was actively collecting X-Men and Marvel action figures by Toybiz.  There are altogether 10 pairs of action figures - 4 from series 1 and 6 from series 2. 

The following are the 4 pairs of series 1 X-Men vs Street Fighter action figures by Toybiz from the 90’s.  Each pair came with a backdrop card to replicate the various fighting barkdrops seen in the arcade games.

This pair is Cyclops vs M. Bison.  Cyclops comes with an optic ray blast accessory which he can wear over his eyes.  He also wears a nice ‘leather’ jacket with the X-Men logo on each sleeve (logo can’t be seen in photo).  He stands in an awkward action pose, which can cause him to topple over easily.  The blue color of his costume is darker than in the X-Men animated series but he looks good in it.

M. Bison comes with a nice velvety cape and he’s quite a bulky figure.  Mine has slightly loose joints at the pelvis and knees so it takes a while to get him standing on his own.  Overall he looks like what he’s supposed to look like.  He does not come with accessories though, unless you count his flowy cape. 

Next we have Magneto vs Ryu. Magneto is a repaint of the original Magneto figure by Toybiz.  Overall his colors are in darker shades than his predecessor figure.  His helmet is removable and he comes with a round accessory, which is supposed to replicate a ‘magnetic ball’.  It opens into 2 halves so that his arm can fit inside and he can then hold it up to look as if he’s using his magnetic powers.  Over here I didn’t pose him that way cos the weight causes him to fall forward.  

Ryu is my favourite Street Fighter because of his ’simplicity’.  He is dressed in removable clothes that are like felt material.  He wears a black soft plastic belt that snaps on and off easily.  Ryu also has an ‘umbrella’-shaped ‘power’ accessory that fits over his arm to looks as if he is blasting a surge of energy from his arm.  He has a nice muscular upper body but his head is a little too small though.  There is also a lever on his back that controls his right arm in up-down motion.

Here we have the Sabretooth vs Ken pair. Sabretooth in the same mold as the one based on the X-Men animated series.  If you squeeze his legs together, his arms and jaws will move.  I love this sculpting of him and overall, he’s repainted in a darker shade than his predecessor figure.  

Ken is another of my favourite Street Fighter because if his ’simplicity’.  Like Ryu, Ken is dressed in removable clothes that are like felt material.  He wears a black soft plastic belt that snaps on and off easily.  Ken also has an ‘firebolt’-shaped ’power’ accessory that fits over his arm to looks as if he is blasting a surge of energy from his arm.  He has a slimmer built than Ryu but is still muscular.  There is also a lever on his back that controls his right arm in up-down motion.

Last but not least is Wolverine vs Akuma.  Wolverine has no joints at the elbows but he has ball-jointed arms.  He’s in his classic trademark blue and yellow colors, which is my favourite version of him.  And I prefer him masked too, like this one.

I have no special liking for this Street Fighter character Akuma.  He’s just in my collection to complete the sets.  Like Ryu and Ken, Akuma is dressed in removable clothes but his are made of cloth.  He wears a thick string as his belt.  Akuma also has a ‘power’ accessory that fits over his arm to looks as if he is blasting a surge of energy from his arm.  He is in the same body mold as Ryu.  There is also a lever on his back that controls his right arm in up-down motion.

See my other X-Men vs Street Fighter action figures collection from series 2 at my upcoming blog post!

Following my blog post yesterday on my collection of Disney’s Mulan action figures, here are the rest of them posing with the magnificent and courageous steeds seen in the movie!

This is the Mulan action figure in her training attire and she came paired with Khan, her strong and bold horse.  I tied a red ribbon on his tail to replicate the red cloth that is tied on his tail as seen in the movie.  Mushu and Cri-Kee came with the single pack Mulan action figures that I posted about yesterday.  Together, they all make up Mulan’s personal winning team in the movie!

Next we have Mulan’s commanding officer and love interest Captain Li Shang, riding on his impressive Imperial Stallion.  Li Shang is also in his training attire and he came paired with this horse, which I have named “Feng”, meaning “wind” in Chinese.  Feng’s tail was not painted grey like his mane, so I wrapped it with red ribbon to replicate his bound up tail as seen in the movie.

Here we have both Mulan and Li Shang riding on their respective horses.  I think they look great riding side by side together.  Well in the movie, I don’t recall seeing them riding their horses while in training attires.  However these 2 action figures are more suited to ride on their horses because their legs are not inhibited by any armour.

However I still think that both Mulan and Li Shang look better posing with their horses while wearing their armour.  The only thing is that they can’t ride their horses while in armour.  Anyway here is Mulan, together with her inseparable animal ’sidekicks’ - Mushu, Cri-Kee and of course Khan!

This is Captain Li Shang in armour and posing with his horse “Feng”.  I think they both look so smart standing together!  I’m glad that the Mulan horses are made to scale with their riders, not like those horribly off-scale Barbie dolls and horse sets, where the dolls are obviously too big for their horses.

Now both Mulan and Li Shang in battle armour are standing with their respective horses.  Their battle armour are well designed and they do resemble ancient Chinese armour.  The Mulan horses are actually modelled after the Tang Dynasty-styled horse statues and paintings.  Most of them back then had bound up tails like “Feng” here.  Fortunately Khan still retains a nice flowing tail despite having a red cloth tied to it.

Last but not least, battle armour Mulan and Li Shang are seen here with their horses Khan and Feng respectively once more.  This time, Mushu and Cki-Kee have decided to join in and they sneaked up from the back to take the photo together.  If you have seen the straight-to-DVD-release Mulan movie sequel, Li Shang finally knows of Mushu’s existence and meets him too!  

As soon as the Disney Mulan toys hit the local stores back in the late 90’s when the movie was shown in the cinemas here, I went to hunt down most of the Mulan action figures sets.  I first saw the Mulan toys preview photos in the Toyfare magazine.  Hence I knew what and which Mulan toys were coming out.

There are the 2 versions of Mulan action figures, her as a lady and as a soldier.  These 2 Mulans were quite common at Toy R’ Us, together with the Chien Po action figure (coming up below).  However, they all disappeared from the racks soon after I bought mine.  Not sure if they were eventually bought by kids or toy collectors though.  That round yellow cookie-like accessory is actually an umbrella.

Next we have Mulan’s commanding officer and love interest Captain Li Shang, and the main villain Shan Yu.  These 2 action figures were impossible to find in the stores here and back then, only Toy R’ Us was selling this series of single pack Mulan action figures.  The other departmental stores only had the Barbie doll-sized Mulan dolls and some of the other variant action figures box sets. 

Here we have the so-called gang of 3, as referred to by the Disney production team.  They are Yao (short guy), Ling (slim guy) and Chien Po (huge guy).  Chien Po was always the one found and left in the stores.  I finally tracked down the Yao and Ling 2-pack; Li Shang and Shan Yu action figures at the then Clarke Quay flea market about 1-2 years after the Mulan movie!  Luckily I managed to get them all Mint-On-Card (MOC)!

See the all the above Mulan action figures in their original MOC packaging here!

I also have the Mulan action figures that came with the magnificent horses that starred in the movie.  I’ll post their photos here tomorrow!  Come back again to view them!