So, this thing came up in my Amazon suggestions the other day. I didn't know it existed, and my sum total of knowledge about Thunderbirds is that it was that show with the creepy puppets that I stopped watching because I was convinced that, at any moment, they were all going to look directly at the screen and tell me the exact time and method of my death. But I thought this looked interesting, and it was marked down to $20 with prime shipping, so I figured it could at least provide some good fodder later.
After I ordered it (...which is the best time to do this), I started looking around online for pictures to get a sense of scale. There are surprisingly few, most coming from mommy-blogs that were paid to review the toy and "10 best Christmas Gifts of the Season" lists. So I decided I'd take some shots and give my completely unpaid for opinions.
First off, this thing's box is huge. Like, unnecessarily so. I'm so glad I'm a prime member, or the cost probably would have tripled to get it here.
Now, the few unpaid reviews I read on various websites made a BIG deal about how hard this thing is to assemble.
"Ha," I thought, before receiving this in the mail. "Clearly these are people who have fulfilling careers and social lives, and HAVEN'T spent the last thirty years assembling action figure playsets!"
"Ha," I thought, after receiving it. "Clearly, this was made by the devil and inflicted upon us as punishment for the sins of man!"
Holy crap this is a pain in the ass to put together. It comes in about twenty pieces. The interior pieces snap into the base, and can be kind of difficult to keep popped into place (if you move the whole thing, the base tends to flex and pop them out), which is annoying. But the exterior pieces of the playset (the rock parts) are made of super-soft plastic (think new-sculpt figures) that have been crammed into packing material, leaving most of them deformed.
(This is the opposite of what you want).
....so you have to twist and bend them to fit them together and snap them in, and the soft plastic actively rejects the pegs and holes you are supposed to attach the pieces to. You get one side in place, the other side pops out. You end up just having to mash the pieces together and pound them into place until they stay.
Once you are done putting it together and cursing the mothers of the people who designed it, you get this. I've included a figure (it's a custom, but it's a standard modern-era figure size) for scale:
The weirdest part of this set is that it seems simultaneously designed for two, maybe three, different scales. The slots for the vehicles (the rocket silo, the launch door, and the elevator under the pool) seem designed for 2.5" scale. The outside seems designed for even smaller scale, but the interior seems scaled for 3.5" figures (and, in fact, is advertised on the box as such). I've taken pictures of my figure in various places around the base.
Here's another thing before the pictures: All of those cool rockets and stuff on the box? Not included. I knew that the green ship wouldn't be in there, but I thought at least the rocket for the silo would. So I subbed in a rocket from a Rolling Thunder.
The trees are made for like micro machine scale. The secret launch door there is way too small for any Joe vehicle, but maybe it could be used as some sort of drone launch bay.
A luxurious wading pool.
And the hidden elevator.
Bay door from the inside
Computer lab section. Pretty well scaled for 3.75" figures.
All in all, I think it could be turned into a usable playset for 3.75" figures, some sort of missile base or such. As is, it's of limited use, but it was definitely worth the $20. Unfortunately, I just checked, and Amazon has it back up to $72. Do not pay that much for this.
