Blade Runner concept blaster from Chronicle Collectibles

[superjedi]

Hi all,
This afternoon I received my Blade Runner concept blaster from the now-defunct Chronicle Collectibles. From what little I've read, this was up for pre-order back in 2017 (?) and went through a bunch of delays. But online retailers did get these in recently, and I was able to order one from Big Bad Toy Store.

It's a very unusual design to be sure! The box pays tribute to the amazing Syd Mead, who i read had some input to the product before his passing. There are also some Ennis House tiles on the box art.



The blaster and stand came packed in dense foam and each piece was also wrapped in plastic.



As for the blaster itself, most, if not all of it, feels like injection molded plastic painted silver with a few details picked out in black and white. The paint apps are well done on mine.



The display base is heavy and has a felt bottom with some info about the prop.



The "power cell" must be removed from the grip in order to display the blaster on the post. There's a small screw on the bottom of the power cell. Once removed, you can install two AAA batteries.



Once the batteries are installed, you slide the power cell into the grip and it's held in place with a spring catch. When it's correctly inserted, a red LED on the front of the grip lights up. I didn't see any way to turn it off, and I'm not sure if it goes out after a certain amount of time.



Pressing the trigger results in a soft audible click, and multiple LEDs light up. There are red and cool blue ones in the round area in the middle, and additional cool blue ones behind the grille in the "barrel." There's also a narrow slot in the end of the barrel that lights up, too.



The LEDs pulse on and off as long as the trigger is held.

The blaster also features a folding barrel, as the original concept described. It stops at 90°. I'm not sure if it goes further, but I felt a good amount of resistance and I didn't want to damage anything.



Overall I'm happy with it! I think it's a nice piece for the price, and it's very cool seeing Syd's sketch brought to life.
It also looks excellent displayed with my (modded) Tomenosuke blaster!



If you're into Blade Runner, or even Syd Mead, I recommend trying to get one at retail before they're gone! Thanks for looking.

 

[CessnaDriver]

Thanks for the review. There was little out there on the lighting and other features. They really are not doing a good job promoting this in that regard. Went ahead and ordered.

 

[superjedi]

Yeah, if I hadn't seen an offhand comment about these in another thread, I would never have known they were actually available.

 

[Apollo]

Great review and pics!

Too bad Sid never saw this being released!!

 

[Johnnyfl]

Great review, I got mine recently as well although there was an issue with the battery connections in my power cell so I had to take it apart to fix it. On mine the red LED stays on all the time so I had to remove the batteries to make it go off. Does your red LED only come on when it is inserted in to the gun? If so that could be another problem with my power unit. I did find with mine that it would stand on the base even with the power cell inserted. I also thought that the barrel only folds 90 degrees as there seemed to be a plastic stop to prevent it going any further but check out the thread

Syd Mead Bladerunner blaster from Sideshow. Anyone know when??

Sideshow charged my credit card for this today. Good sign hopefully. Sideshow is showing that it's in stock right now. Guess I'll finally be ordering this

www.therpf.com

After seeing this I checked mine and the barrel does indeed fold all the way.

 

[superjedi]

Johnnyfl,
The red LED on my power cell comes on when the cell is fully inserted into the grip. When I take the cell out, the LED goes out.

Thanks for that link! Guess I'll take a deep breath and try folding the barrel all the way! Lol

EDIT: I checked and did get the barrel to fold all the way back.

 

[superjedi]

I had a little fun with my concept blaster today.
I saw a couple of pics in another thread of Morganthirteen's excellent paint masters, and I could definitely see where Chronicle took some shortcuts with the paint apps on this piece.
M13's pics showed certain details in black as well as a medium gray, and Chronicle simply painted all those areas black.
Here's my modded blaster.



Pretty much all the details I repainted are on the mid section of the body, as I've circled in this shot.



I used a small brush to apply some gunship gray and flat black to spruce up the details.

One other pretty big feature on M13's paint masters is the square screen on the top of the blaster -- it's blue!



It was a little tricky getting this masked off, lol. I airbrushed white primer onto it first, then gave it a couple of light coats of Tamiya sky blue. I love the way it turned out.

I'm glad I made these improvements. I think these are things that Chronicle should have done in the first place, but apparently they were really trying to keep production costs down.
Back on display it goes!

 

[mode1charlie]

I ordered this via Chronicle Collectibles two years ago. I know they went bankrupt recently, and just assumed that I was never going to get the product I ordered and paid for. I assume that's still true - and that BBTS somehow acquired the CC inventory and is now selling them (which is obviously perfectly legal).

So I'm glad this product is out into the world, but it still sticks in my craw.

 

[userd1402]

Mine arrived today. My only complaint is that the original Chronicle offering said there was a Syd Mead print included for framing but that item never materialised.

 

[yodathedog]

I know this is a dead thread, but I just received my Syd Mead Blade Runner Concept Blaster from Sideshow Collectibles. It doesn't work. I have a brand new set of batteries. I’ve tried inserting them both ways into the battery holder. When inserted into the grip nothing happens. I don’t wanna try to force things, but I’m very unhappy it doesn’t work. Has anyone here had the same problem, and if so, how did you fix it?

 

[Synz314]

I know this is a dead thread, but I just received my Syd Mead Blade Runner Concept Blaster from Sideshow Collectibles. It doesn't work. I have a brand new set of batteries. I’ve tried inserting them both ways into the battery holder. When inserted into the grip nothing happens. I don’t wanna try to force things, but I’m very unhappy it doesn’t work. Has anyone here had the same problem, and if so, how did you fix it?

I had the same issue with mine. I'm not sure how exactly I got it to work. I just pressed the battery compartment hard into the blaster once then it worked totally fine after that.

 

[yodathedog]

I had the same issue with mine. I'm not sure how exactly I got it to work. I just pressed the battery compartment hard into the blaster once then it worked totally fine after that.

Thanks for your reply. I’ve got a return request in at Sideshow , but I’ll give that a careful try.

 

[userd1402]

This may sound weird but even though I had it ten months ago I haven’t taken it out of the box yet. Sounds like I better check the functions.

 

[CessnaDriver]

Pump the battery holder into the handle many times and keep the trigger pulled to observe if the lights come on.
My theory is that one of the contacts on the battery holder is actually a micro switch, it needs some pressure and the contact springs inside the gun are not strong enough to push it down fully at first. You'll note if you press on one with a pen or something the red LED on the battery holder turns on.

 

[CessnaDriver]

And for crying out loud why such wimpy LEDS inside? Unless they wanted low light on purpose. At least make the end of the barrel bright. Oh well. No way to pop open this bad boy so it is what it is. If you can't get the lights to work, really you aren't missing much. LOL

 

[Synz314]

And for crying out loud why such wimpy LEDS inside? Unless they wanted low light on purpose. At least make the end of the barrel bright. Oh well. No way to pop open this bad boy so it is what it is. If you can't get the lights to work, really you aren't missing much. LOL

Yah, I sold mine with how disappointing the electronics were. There's one single LED for the emitter and one for the power meter. It doesn't make sense that they light up together only when you press the trigger. The power meter should just always stay lit. It would have been so much better if they added multiple LEDs or had it pulsate.

 

[CessnaDriver]

I got tired of the flaky battery pack and was able to split it open from the battery cover side with a buck knife from the inside.. You can see the small spring under one of the contacts (Top far right in this picture), it's job is to stop the battery from contacting and keep the red LED off. I pulled the contact out carefully because a resistor lead is soldered to it, and stretched that spring a bit longer because my LED was staying on too much. I also stretch the spring inside the pistol so it would press down on that contact more. Seems to be working right now. It's all about fine tuning the springs and getting the right pressure. A nice long pair of forceps helps to pull and shape the spring in the pistol, it needs to precisely contact the battery pack contact.

 

[Kylash]

So given this is mostly injection molded plastic, does it feel like a toy? For $250 is looks like it should be better constructed.

 

[CessnaDriver]

So given this is mostly injection molded plastic, does it feel like a toy? For $250 is looks like it should be better constructed.

It displays great. In hand, yes you are holding a plastic art prop, nothing expensive feeling there at all.
It's saving grace is it looks so good and it's an arcane item.