It Came from the toy Chest: It is Dreadful, but to the point!

MOTUC Point Dread/Talon Fighter/"Filmation"Teela are here. I got a little present from the afterlife. My mom added funds to my card to cover for Point Dread before her passing. It was meant to be for PD because I found a note in her Notepad that mentioned the added money for "Teela's Castle". Thanks Mom!

So, Point Dread or Teela's Castle. What is it? I know you probably know, but for those of you who don't and can still read The House of Rants here's the 411 on Point Dread.
It's a Vintage Playset, or Mini Playset for the Original Masters of the Universe Toyline. It also worked as an expansion to Castle Grayskull. Most importantly it acted as a Perch for The Talon Fighter. The Classics Version does the same thing as the vintage.

But before I go to The Talon Fighter, I need to point out The Importance of Point Dread to the Canon. Before Filmation had the Sorceress laying a Teela egg, she was a Clone of the Goddess... made by Skeletor in order to marry the clone and inherit Grayskull... In Classics, she's a Clone of the Sorceress made by Skeletor in order to marry the clone and inherit Grayskull WITHOUT DIVORCING EVIL LYN... So, we can see the Connection to Teela, which will come later into the rant.

OK, so I mentioned that the Talon Fighter is perched atop Point Dread. IT ALWAYS LANDS ON TOP OF POINT DREAD... and I mean it makes the top of the mountain materialize wherever it lands... Wibbly wobbly Timey wimey stuff. Also, it's a nifty 2 seater Bird themed vehicle.

This leads us to the last piece of the Puzzle: Filmation Teela. This was supposed to be the pièce de résistance but we all know how Mattel messed this up.
The reasoning behind this figure is simple: Point Dread allowed Mattel a canonical reason to revisit Teela, a figure who has been in high demand since 2009. They didn't do a Mini Comics Teela, which would make a lot more sense canonically, because she's not THAT different than 2009 Teela (my first MOTUC) Mattel chose another version. With Filmation being the most popular variant it made sense that they chose her. Not to mention that Filmation is the DEFINITIVE Redhead Teela that many fans think of when you mention Teela.

Seeing that this is a Playset/vehicle/Figure set, I'll review EACH Item then get the overall score based on the final score of all 3 pieces.

Point Dread:

It's a Playset created by two main pieces: Mountain base and Perch. The Perch part can be attached to the left tower of the castle... (its left, not mine) The Perch part is made of multiple pieces (to support the weight of the Talon Fighter.)
Here's where the problems start:
Like the Vintage, it's Tiny! It's incredibly out of scale! The stairs leading to the Talon Fighter seem to be usable only by M.A.S.K. Toys. The Vintage Tiny door is still there and tiny. It bearely reaches a figure's ankles AND it's smaller than Kowl or Loo-Kee, But that is carried over from Vintage... Nostalgia glasses and stuff... The sculpt seems a lot softer than what the Horsemen usually do, especially on the extra parts added by Mattel. (The Floor and the support brick wall.) It feels like they used an in-house sculptor to make those. The wood grain on the floor looks amateurish compared to the wood grain on the tiny door. (or Grayskull). Even the outside seems a bit softer... kinda like the sculpt melted a little bit before making the molds.

Now, the Added Brick layer reduces display space on this already cramped mini playset, but the weight of the Talon Fighter... (Which is heavy as Hell) If you intend to remove the Top of Point Dread from the Base, be Ultra Mega Giga Careful... Part of it will grip hard to the base to support the Talon Fighter. IT WILL NOT LET GO UNLESS YOU TRY TO MURDER THE PLAYSET...
(This is why I won't have pics of it perched on Grayskull.)  That is if you put it on correctly. If not, then the Talon Fighter will drag the top down as it falls back... You don't want the Talon Fighter to fall...

The Perch part of the top of the Talon Fighter is the coolest part. It looks old High Tech and is rusted so it looks ancient. It has two nipples to hold The Fighter itself. Best part is that it has a RELEASE MECHANISM FOR THE FIGHTER TO LET GO when you want to remove it... Why wasn't this added to the playset separation part is a mystery...

So let's tackle the Single Accessory that is NOT the Vehicle or Teela: the Computer Screen.
It looks great EXCEPT the sticker. It was put in shoddily by the factory. The screen is full of bubbles and stuff.

So using the Traditional House of Rants Rating scheme is a bit hard, even if the playset has 1 POA...

Paint and Sculpt:
As I've explained above, there are a few things off, but others are right. 3.0
Accessories:
Aside the Computer screen we have TEELA and the TALON FIGHTER which we cannot really count for the overall score of the Playset ITSELF. 1.0
Overall:
Point Dread ON ITS OWN gets a 2.0 Mostly because of the sculpt issues AND engineering oversights.

The Talon Fighter:
Here's where you'll spend most of your time assembling the wings, the lasers and adding a Sticker to the Controls.
It's big... A lot bigger than I expected... but back to the whole review. Yes, the Talon Fighter is huge... It makes Point Dread AND castle Grayskull seem puny. Seriousl, its length is almost as Grayskull's height not to mention that it's almost as wide as the castle. It's meant to fit 2 Male figure, but with some creative arrangements you can fit 4 Females. This makes the Wind Raider its bitch...

My only gripe is Stickers... It has one set of Stickers for me to choose for the control panel, but on the sides of the vehicle there are two more stickers. (one of mine was put incorrectly and I had to struggle to fix it.) Remember when I said that you don't want the Talon Fighter to fall? Well, the top is Transparent plastic painted in TF Blue and the plastic feels like CD Case quality.

Paint and Sculpt:
4.5 It's near perfect, but the usage of stickers for some side panels sucks...
Accessories:
1.0 Sticker Sheet with 3 Options... Sadly, you can only use one seeing that it's a PAIN IN THE ASS TO REMOVE THE STICKERS.

Overall:
2.75 on its own. I know it SOUNDS Bad, but the lost points are on the wrong choice of Sticker sheet. It would have been better if the Control panel had a sleeve where you could have slid in the alternate screen displays.


PD Teela:
It's Time to tackle Teela... Yeesh! That's a Face that not even HER MOTHER COULD LOVE! It's that ugly... So, like I stated before, this is your Filmation Teela...

Articulation:
She's Pretty good here: 2.0 Buck with Boot cut and 1.0 Legs so you have thigh Articulation.
4.5
Paint and Sculpt:
Here's where the ball dropped hard. Something happened to the Teela Head... The Prototype looked fine, Final Product... looked bleh! Humongous lower lip (I tried to use the popular paint some teeth so she's grinning method) and no chin make her look bad.

Engineering/Design ruined her dress... (talked about this a long time ago.) So let's move on to paints... Mine has a copper streak on her back from the shield...
3.0

Accessories:
Extra head with removable Glasses. Filmation Sword and Shield. This is a clear 5.0 for her. She may look a bit crappy but she is loaded with stuff...

Overall:
Filmation Teela gets ON HER OWN a 4.17 which is a decent score for a HORRIBLE LOOKING FIGURE. I'm not that idiot who says she's perfect because she's Filmation. I'm the idiot that says that while her face is UGLY as sin (salvageable with a third party custom head) her body is mostly acceptable... One could try and remove her top and shave off a bit of excess material on her torso and glue the top back to see if it works (like with NA Skeletor)... I'm too much of a chicken to try that last one.

Now let's see how this SET scores as a whole...
2.97 for the whole thing... Here come the pitchforks... Just because it received a lower score using the Ratings system does not necessarily mean that it's a bad item, The Talon Fighter is a cool piece... Gigantic, but still cool. Cutting Corners with Stickers kinda sucks, then the 3 Display options that you can only use one, because otherwise you'll damage the sticker(s) REALLY sucks.

The playset itself has a lot of things that feel off and I have discussed those already. The biggest oversight is lack of accessories for it. I know the vintage set was playset + vehicle + cardboard computer.  The playset also lost a few things due to the size and weight of the Talon Fighter which caused the overall score to suffer.

My biggest issue with the overall set is that there were a couple of blunders that harmed it, but it's a good set. (Playset being the weakest part IMO) I think that they could have added a few things to give it more oomph! to it. I would have loved a Mini Comics Long haired head that could use the Snake Headdress from the Weapons pak or 2009 Teela to have the Teela/Goddess fusion from the Tale of Teela.

But to end this on a more positive note, with some creative posing, it looks awesome to have the main 3 heroes looking somewhat Filmation-like WHILE PRESERVING THE CLASSICS AESTHETIC... (Need to get a third party head ASAP!!)

Get the set at least for the Talon Fighter... unless space is an issue with you...