The Nightmare Before Christmas has been filling the holidays with frights for over thirty years. Jack and Sally have become unholy shepherds guiding us through both Halloween and Christmas. Tim Burton’s love letter to the weird and underappreciated wormed its way into our cold, dead hearts as well as store shelves. You can’t swing a shrunken head in a retail location without hitting some form of NBX merch from August through December. This has included a fair share of action figures over the years. In fact, one of NECA’s earliest lines of Reel Toys was The Nightmare Before Christmas figures, so these Ultimates are allowing them to revisit the property nearly twenty years later. Have those twenty years allowed NECA to improve the final product? Here are my thoughts…
First things first. These figures aren’t going to be for everyone. All of the figures from Wave 1 require stands to keep them upright. While the design is beautiful and true to Burton’s vision, it’s more form than function. Those lanky delicate limbs aren’t made of nearly indestructible tungsten carbide; it’s simple plastic that will become gravity’s bitch if you plan on displaying them for an extended period. Rarely do I encourage you to keep your figures in their boxes; these will be a bit of an exception. Keep them in their beautifully stylized boxes, and take them out when you want to enjoy them. There are plenty of inexpensive statues on the market if you’re looking for a display piece.
All of that being said, these figures are more akin to the stop motion models used to create the movie as opposed to your run-of-the-mill “toy.” You’ll want to be mindful of the articulation while posing them. If you start bending against the joint without realizing it, you will unintentionally break an appendage. Plan on having a hair dryer on standby for your first out of box experience with Jack. Apply some heat to the joints on a low setting and loosen them up before you start getting too crazy with your poses. While Sally’s limbs aren’t quite as wiry as Jack’s her feet are just as small, so use that hairdryer to loosen up her joints as well, including her ankles. A little bit of effort up front is easier than having to order a replacement.
Now that we understand how delicate these figures are, let’s show them some love! These are precisely what I want for figure photography. They look like they’ve leapt right off the screen and into my hands. Sally gets five (!) swappable face plates, an upgrade from the 2004 release. Jack comes with eight different heads, each of which will have you pulling a DiCaprio Pointing Meme when you recognize the scenes in which they were featured. Having this much expression in my figures is something I long for with every purchase.
The Ultimate figures have received minimal updates from the Reel Toys. Bicep cuts have been removed, making the characters look more screen-accurate. The accessories are mostly reused from the original line, and they still look great. I’m not sure if they’ll take the Ultimates line as deep as the Reel Toys, but I’m sure they could piece together an accessory pack or two from figures that might not get the Ultimate treatment. I’m always up for some world-building.
Overall, these are excellent releases. If you still have the original Reel Toys, I’d imagine your limbs are about due for replacement. If you were fortunate enough to keep those in the package, the new collector-friendly packaging will allow you to open these up and enjoy them. Just be gentle with them when you do. Leave the scary stuff to the Pumpkin King and the Citizens of Halloween Town.
