NECA Gremlins 2 "Puppet"

Got my Gremlin yesterday.

From a distance he looks great! ..but up close there's a whole lot of 'wrong' going on: massive seamlines, globs of paint everywhere - some with thin nylon-thread mixed in, ears not glued together in places so foam filling's coming out, small excess pieces of rubber on horns and skin, hardened foam/glue running across the face, ears and chest.. not cool.

The paintjob is ok, but nothing near perfect..

It's a cool prop though, and with some mending and a better/more detailed paintjob, I'm sure he'll look awesome.



I'm already in the middle of fixing the issues mentioned and prepping him for a new paintjob. I've never painted something like this before though, so a bit nervous of the outcome.. but I feel it's necessary to fully appreciate this replica, and I wanna give it a try.

Sadly... We are used to a community of perfectionists. This is molded from the original stunt mold and most likely the flaws are in the casting. And I wish the could provide a photo of the paint job on the original one... I am betting it was worse than what they gave us

Most screen used props, especially BG stunt ones, were actually crappy up close. Heck, many hero props looked great on screen but are flawed when seen in person.

SankaraRaider said:

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Got my Gremlin yesterday.

From a distance he looks great! ..but up close there's a whole lot of 'wrong' going on: massive seamlines, globs of paint everywhere - some with thin nylon-thread mixed in, ears not glued together in places so foam filling's coming out, small excess pieces of rubber on horns and skin, hardened foam/glue running across the face, ears and chest.. not cool.

The paintjob is ok, but nothing near perfect..

It's a cool prop though, and with some mending and a better/more detailed paintjob, I'm sure he'll look awesome.



I'm already in the middle of fixing the issues mentioned and prepping him for a new paintjob. I've never painted something like this before though, so a bit nervous of the outcome.. but I feel it's necessary to fully appreciate this replica, and I wanna give it a try.

I don't think it's sad. It's a hobby!

I know I know, oxymoronic, blah de blah.

I'm certain that many of these issues are caused by the rushed manufacturing of these guys, not the source material.

This replica's first release date was in may, then NECA pushed it back to november. I guess they realized they needed more time to complete these. They also posted some cool box art for it on Twitter:



Suddenly late June, they announced on Facebook that it would be shipping out from their factory the second week of July. I was very excited, but also wondering how they could get it ready this fast all of a sudden.

Then when it started to show up at people's doorsteps, it didn't come in any fancy box or very protective packaging - they just shipped it in the brown shipper with very little protection inside. Kind of odd.

I didn't care that much, since I wasn't gonna keep the box or anything, but we're used to get our collectibles in better looking material.

Had seen a few pictures and some unpacking-videos before mine arrived, so I kind of knew what to expect. And when I opened the box, I certainly was amazed of the size of this guy and he looked very cool. But when I looked closer, all these production errors started catching my eye.

It was very poorly put together, I know the seamlines can't be avoided, it's a part of putting it together, but it could have been done with more care.

Mine got a lot of foam drippings running across the face and ears, some of it they'd tried to remove, leaving a rough texture, and mostly it was just painted over. The puppet is stuffed with nylonfibres and foam, and it had leaked in several places, the back had some but on the ears it was extreme in places, it is clear that they just painted over these areas.

The paintjob is something different. I'm not sure it could have been done much better under the circumstances, but one could have wished for a better colourmatch to the originals, in places. I don't remember bright yellow shoulders or red/orange face details on any of the gremlins in the movie. The application is quite good though, considering it's factory-made.

I knew from when the first pictures showed up of the final product, looking just like the prototype, that something needed to be done about the paint. I'm just a sucker for accuracy when it comes to props and costumes.

Don't get me wrong, this is a very, very, cool replica. And for 169 it's a steal!
Just wish more care had been taken with these. My guess is, that NECA at some point realized that the puppets were gonna be more expensive and take a while longer to produce than expected. A lot of preorders made it impossible to raise the price before the release, so they cut some corners production-wise and therefore could release it sooner. The prices have gone up considerably since the release.

I do not believe that the stunt puppets in the movie looked as sloppy as this. Of course they weren't at all comparable to the amazing animatronics shown up close, but they weren't poorly put together sockpuppets either.





If you compare this replica to the screen-used puppets Tom Spina have been working on, it's clear that they weren't perfect, but not bad either. Seamlines are visible in places and the paintjob isn't as detailed as on the hero-puppets.

-I know I could never expect a replica of a stunt puppet to sport a top-quality hero-prop paintjob, it wouldn't be faithful to the source material either. But I would very much like it to look a lot better, and if I'm able to - like the animatronic Brain Gremlin shown here:



I've been wanting a full-size Gremlin replica since forever. I missed out on the Mohawk statue, and the Sasca Feiner replicas are a bit out of my price-range at the moment I think. So I'm very happy to finally have one. It just needs a little tweaking, thats all

Moviefreak said:

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Sadly... We are used to a community of perfectionists. This is molded from the original stunt mold and most likely the flaws are in the casting. And I wish the could provide a photo of the paint job on the original one... I am betting it was worse than what they gave us

Most screen used props, especially BG stunt ones, were actually crappy up close. Heck, many hero props looked great on screen but are flawed when seen in person.

It's a hobby indeed!

And as a perfectionist, I'm very picky when it comes to things like this.
I'm very happy with this guy - but like a lot of us here, I just can't help modifing and try to perfect these things when they arrive. (did the same with my T-800 Endo Skull and Fertility Idol from Sideshow).. It's a disease!..

Nwerke said:

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I don't think it's sad. It's a hobby!

I know I know, oxymoronic, blah de blah.

Anyone getting the green version? I think the paintjob looks a bit better on this one than on the brown version.