The conceit of a 1980s style action figure line being made from a movie from 1968 in 2018 is 231114-tra-g2-yellow-grimlock.shtml. But even more outlandish would be if that was made in the 1980s, and that they made two women in it. Nova and Zira from Planet of the Apes were both in the first wave, and were excellent choices. The movie - if you haven't seen it - plays out like an epic episode of Twilight Zone with special effects that range from amazing (the ape make-up) to not (the thunderstorms.) The bulk of the performers were gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans on a mysterious planet, in addition to four astronauts and some mute humanoids like our pal Nova here. Played by Linda Harrison, the character left a distinctive mark by appearing in the sequel too. She was effectively mute, providing endless term paper material for film students along with the film's treatment of Stewart and Dr. Zira. There's a lot to pull from these movies, and I'd say you should check them out if you haven't already done so.
The apes of Super7's Planet of the Apes lines are the stuff dreams are made of. You can totally hold these up as fuzzy fake memories you might have seen in a Sears catalog one day, and Nova is no exception. She may also be my least favorite in the batch, mostly because whittling down a simple figure like this to their most distinctive features can be tough to do with humans.
The actress who played her is incredibly distinctive with bright eyes and incredibly distinctive eyebrows - the figure loses this. You get her then extremely young form rendered in plastic pretty well, complete with ragged one-ish piece costume. Getting bare human arms to look decent seems like a challenge in this size, so they did a pretty solid job here. Her arms and legs swivel freely, and they designed the outfit well on the toy so she can swing her legs forward and it doesn't look like her rear is made of right angles when she sits.
Functionally, she's good. The skin color is consistent and not too pale, which is good for what is effectively an outdoor caveperson. Her hair is a little messy and I don't think they got it quite right - it's a little thick on the sides when it probably shouldn't be. I think I might feel it was better if we saw a hint of an ear, but depending on which shot you look at, she looks fairly different in the movie. Kenner did a great job getting Leia's first hairstyle right, but other than that she didn't much look like Carrie Fisher. Maybe they were going for a similar thing here - the costume is right, but the head is close enough. (The cardback art, though, is pretty great.) Her hair from the back looks too good for the era, with lots of waves and strands here. It's impressive, and you could totally buy it's being blown around by a breeze on the beach while she's on a horse.
If you're a fan of old action figures, especially Kenner ones, you know it's hard to capture a likeness on a head the size of a peanut. Taylor looks Heston-esque. I don't really think Nova looks at all like Linda Harrison with a slightly pouty lip and eyes that look a little more tired than lively, but odds are you're buying this line for Dr. Zaius and Cornelius anyway. She looks like a person, and she absolutely fits in with how human figure heads looked in the era this figure is trying to evoke. I guess what I'm giving you is a mix of a complaint and an excuse - this feels like a reasonable interpretation of the character as a toy.
She has no accessories, but she sits in vehicles if you have some.
If I had any skill with a paint brush, I'd probably give her slightly thicker eyebrows and the tiniest splash of color on the lips and say "awesome" - but the latter wouldn't be in Kenner's budgets. Super7 did a great job hiring the sculptor to capture subtle details like a hunt of muscle around her knees and just a tiny bit of it on her arms, and playing with the figure I'm almost fooled into thinking this was a toy I had as a kid. There's nothing fragile or "off" about it, although the head on mine doesn't turn. (I blame the hair.) I would not recommend starting with this figure unless you have a Linda Harrison action figure collection going, and I'm pretty sure they're all other renditions of Nova.
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