Hey, guess how long it’s been since we last had an article about some stuff I got in a box? Precisely one month! And guess what showed up on my doorstep?
Yep, still a black box. Not much else to say, here.
Yep, it’s another one of them Loot Crates! To kick off 2016, the theme they went for is “Invasion,” which means this will likely be full of sci-fi and other assorted goodies. They also seemed to change the shape of the crate again from last month. It makes it more difficult to keep them neat and even with all these inconsistent sizes every month, but as long as they can stack, I’m not bothered.
Let’s open our space rock of a crate and see what’s inside…
The Fifth Element replica multi pass
“Leeloo” is such a dumb name, my god
This is a replica of the ID card from The Fifth Element, complete with a fake ID for Milla Jovovich’s character Leeloo. I’m honestly amazed that name went through without lots of checking, because that sounds less like an important character and more of a bit I’d see in Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. Despite that, this replica item is a nice treat for fans of the movie.
Admittedly, The Fifth Element is another one of those movies I’ve never seen. Maybe it was because it was critically panned upon release, but also because most sci-fi doesn’t do much for me unless it involves time travel. I’ll throw The Fifth Element on the “to watch someday” pile…
Alien Facehugger plush
Making scary monsters cute seems to be a cottage industry I’ll never understand.
Aww, how cute. It’s an Alien Facehugger plush. Alien is another one of those movies I’ve never seen in their entirety. I’m familiar with its legacy, from the movies, to that weird ’90s toy line with the screeching “ALIIIIIIENS” commercials, and of course, the video games. I still need to finish the original Aliens vs. Predator, but that game’s a bit finicky to run on modern devices, even with the “Classic 2000” version.
Bonus: This even comes with a rubber band so you can mimic the experience of having one of these bastards on your head. I took a picture and it’s… rather silly and not worth sharing here, honestly.
Space Invaders Mini Alien Vinyl Figure
It’s hard to tell in the picture, but this is a see through figure.
Neato, a vinyl figurine of the alien from Space Invaders. Finally, something video game related in this whole thing!
Space Invaders is one of those timeless video games. Came out in a post-Pong, pre-Pac-Man world and it took the arcade scene by storm worldwide. As time went on, Taito, the owner of Space Invaders, became merged into the osmosis of Square-Enix, thus Space Invaders suffered the same fate that a lot of big media companies do with older game company’s franchises: Either sell junk to pander to the nostalgia crowd, or pull an Atari and try to make new games for them while ruining the past’s legacy. Doesn’t help that Space Invaders was featured among many other nostalgic video games in that awful Pixels movie from last year.
Sorry for going on a depressing tangent. This is a pretty neat trinket, regardless. A shame it doesn’t light up, it’d make a great night light.
The X-Files flashlight and three batteries
Scully you gotta see this
With the recent revival of The X-Files, naturally there has to be some promotional material for it. The flashlight’s probably nothing super special, but hey, I can channel my inner Scully with this thing.
All I know about The X-Files was it had David Duchovny mumbling his way through, it had aliens, there was an episode where Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek played the Men in Black, and there was an episode where Burt Reynolds played God. I never really watched it, though I saw a lot of promos for it when taping King of the Hill back in the late ’90s. It’s probably a good show, I just need to find a watcher’s guide or something.
As for the batteries: They’re three AAA batteries. They came free with the flashlight. They likely work. 5/7, would use.
Invasion of the Mini Prints: The Day the Earth Stood Still and The War of the Worlds
Hey, these might actually fit on my wall, compared to bigger posters.
These prints are actually cool, based off ’50s sci-fi classics The Day the Earth Stood Still and War of the Worlds. I’m not a guy who really frames prints – hell, I still got old posters from PAX conventions long past that I don’t know what to do with – but these look pretty neat.
Fun fact: Upon writing this, I had to make sure I correctly wrote The Day the Earth Stood Still and not the MST3K-mocked film The Day the Earth Froze (aka Sampo). I blame watching a lot of the Poopie blooper tape when I was younger burning the latter name into my brain…
And the rest…
There’s the obligatory T-shirt, showing off aliens. Finally, there’s the monthly pin, which apparently has some unlockable stuff, but I couldn’t get it to work. Likely because I’m not a paying customer or what have you.
This month’s Loot Crate is pretty cool, a great mix of classic sci-fi and a bit of modern stuff, great for those who are fully into this stuff. Looks like I got a few movies and TV shows to watch. Man, with this and last month’s Star Wars-heavy promotional goods, it seems there’s a lot of stuff I missed out on. I don’t have to turn in my nerd cred card, do I?
As for if I’ll keep this going… I don’t know. These having a lot of stuff I don’t gauge interest in makes this difficult for me to be interested in them. Maybe if they have something cool worth writing about, maybe.
Sure enough, I would find something interesting a few years later, after my free yearly subscription lapsed, and it was because it was making headlines. You can check out my post on May 2016’s Loot Crate here, which featured a rather infamous promotion.
