Tag Archives: Terminator 2

#1678: T-800 & Endoskeleton

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

T-800 & ENDOSKELETON

TERMINATOR 2 MINIMATES

In the summer of 2009, DST was really starting to hit it in stride with Minimates.  Just two years prior, the brand looked to be at death’s door.  The DC brand swept in and reinvigorated things a bit, but its quick exit definitely left some question marks about the future.  Fortunately, DST was quick to add some new things to their plate, as well as partnering up with Toys R Us to give those lines a jumpstart.  One of the new lines they added was Terminator 2.  Interestingly, today’s set isn’t based on the sequel, but instead the first film.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

The T-800 and Endoskeleton were one of the two Series 1 sets available at both specialty and Toys R Us.  When the specialty set was first solicited, the T-800 was supposed to be the three-per-case figure, with Kyle Reese swapping out as his variant, but Kyle was shifted elsewhere, and this set wound up as the heaviest packed.

T-800

This figure depicts the original film’s villainous terminator, specifically in his iconic Police station storming get-up.  It’s the look that would influence all future Terminators, and definitely the more definitive of the two looks from the movie.  The figure is built on the usual body, so he’s about 2 1/2 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  He has three add-on pieces, for his hair/glasses, jacket, and pelvis piece.  The hair piece was new, and remains unique to this figure.  It does a solid job of recreating his singed hair and distinctive Gargoyle shades.  The jacket is a re-used piece, first showing up on the disguised Marty from the second BTTF set, and, though not quite a perfect match, its pretty darn close.  The paintwork on the figure is mostly pretty straightforward, matching up well with the source material.  The Schwarzenegger likeness is pretty spot-on, and they’ve even gone the extra mile and included his exposed endo eye.  He also includes a spair hair piece without the glasses, as well as a SPAS-12 shotgun and an AR-18 rifle.

ENDOSKELETON

This Endo was initially released in the single-packs case of figures that launched this line, before being re-packed here.  He’s largely the same as the previously reviewed scorched Endo, just with a cleaner silver finish.  As I noted in the earlier review, I have mixed opinions on some of the design choices here.  Nevertheless, I do still like the figure overall, and I think the cleaner silver works better for the overall design.  Like the scorched variant, this one includes the plasma rifle, which he still has trouble holding.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION 

I grabbed this set back when it was new.  They hit TRU first, so that’s where I got mine.  Of all the sets in this assortment, this one was the least exciting for me, but I think it’s still a competently put together pair, and this T-800 is definitely worth tracking down.

#1400: Sarah Connor

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , ,

SARAH CONNOR

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (HOT TOYS)

Oooeeee, look at that.  1400 reviews.  Another hundred down.  Seeming like less of a milestone these days, but I’m noting it nonetheless.  I’m noting it the usual way, with a deluxe review of one of my higher-end figures.  Today, I turn back to the film that kicked off the milestone reviews, Terminator 2.  So far, I’ve looked at both the terminator and the protector from the film, but I haven’t yet looked at one of the franchise’s central characters, Sarah Connor.  So, uhh, come with me if you want to…read this review?  …Doesn’t have the same ring, does it?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Sarah was released as figure 119 in Hot Toys’ Movie Masterpiece Series, placing her between Inglorious Basterds’ Aldo Raine and Iron Man 2’s War Machine numerically.  Not as themed as other releases, but the T2 figures were all pretty scattered.  This figure is based on Sarah’s “terminator” look from around the film’s mid-point, when she goes to kill Miles Dyson.  It’s really her most distinct look, and definitely my favorite.  Sarah stands roughly 11 inches tall and she’s got 28 points of articulation.

Let’s start things off by looking at Sarah’s head sculpt.  While heads are usually one of HT’s stronger suits, this one’s not one of their best offerings.  The prototype actually looked pretty good, but it seems something was lost in the manufacturing process.  It’s far from a terrible sculpt, of course.  The resemblance to Linda Hamilton is passing; it’s not spot-on, but it’s decent enough that you can tell who it is.  I think it’s the hair that’s throwing it off.  While I’m definitely a fan of the hair being sculpted, rather than rooted, and the overall shaping and detailing is pretty solid.  The biggest issue is with the bangs, which are just a little too short; they really should be getting closer to her eyes, and I think that throws off the likeness.  The bangs actually swap out, and there’s another pair that’s parted and closer to the head.  It doesn’t really improve the likeness, but it does allow for the addition of the included hat.  The paintwork on the head is generally up to the usual HT quality.  The only real flaw is the color of the hair, which is a touch too dark for Hamilton.  It’s not that far off, though, so it’s pretty minor, all things considered.

Sarah’s costume is made up of four main pieces.  She’s got a shirt, pants, a tactical vest, and a belt.  All of the pieces are very well tailored to the figure.  The vest in particular is really cool.  All of the pockets open and the the clasps all work like they’re supposed to.  There’s also a pair of sculpted boots, which are very nicely sculpted, and well scaled to the figure.  She’s also got a watch and a wristband, which are mostly there to hide the wrist joints on the arms.  They do that job well, and add some extra character to the figure as well.

The underlying body is largely unique to Sarah.  The arms in particular are unique; they’re armatures with a rubber coating over them.  They actually look quite a bit like Hamilton’s arms from the film, and she’s even got her scar on the left shoulder.  The rest of the body is decent, but could be a little more tailored to the figure.  The shoulder’s are definitely too narrow, and the neck is a little thin, which makes the head look really large comparatively.  Once again, nothing too terrible, but it’s definitely a little off.

Sarah’s accessories are definitely this figure’s strongest suit.  She includes:

  • 6 hands
  • Hat
  • Sunglasses
  • Shotgun
  • Assault Rifle
  • Handgun
  • Knife
  • Display stand

She’s got the basic relaxed hands, as well as a right trigger finger hand, a left gripping hand, a a right cigarette holding hand (with removable cigarette!), and a right hand for holding her knife.  They’re all very nicely sculpted and quite realistic looking.  They’re a little hard to swap the first time, but once you swap them a few times, they go alright.

The hat works in conjunction with the alternate bangs piece.  It’s cloth, and a little oversized, but it’s generally a pretty nice piece.  Just, whatever you do, don’t leave it on for long periods of time.  It’ll stain her forehead!

The sunglasses are very definitely my favorite piece.  They’re just amazingly detailed, perfectly scaled, and sit amazingly well on the figure’s face.  I wish I looked this good in sunglasses.

The shotgun, assault rifle, and handgun are close runners up to the glasses.  They all have a number of moving pieces and all of the details that you’d see on the full scale weapons.  The shotgun has a folding stock, as well as five removable rounds.  The assault rifle includes a removable scope, rail, and silencer, allowing for a few different looks.  The handgun has a removable clip, and the clip even has a removable bullet at the very top, which seems like it’s asking to be lost.

The knife is a key piece to the film, so it’s great that it was included here.  Like the other weapons, it’s very well scaled and detailed.  It includes a sheath, which feels a little cheap and quick by comparison, but it’s nice to have the option of putting the knife away, I guess.

Lastly, there’s the display stand.  It’s the same basic oval stand we’ve seen a number of times before.  It gets the job done, and it looks pretty decent, so that’s good.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Sarah is a very early Hot Toys figure for me.  I believe she was my third.  She’s also got the notoriety of being the very first Hot Toys figure I bought for myself.  I ordered her off of Amazon, in anticipation of getting the T-1000 figure later that year.  She’s not a perfect figure, and is definitely the weakest of my three T2 figures, but she’s still a pretty darn fun figure in her own right, and she completes one of my favorite sets of HT figures.

#1342: T-800 – Final Battle

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

T-800 — FINAL BATTLE

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (NECA)

“Specs: Model T-800 {Final Battle} – After escaping Cyberdyne, the T-800, Sarah and John Connor are pursued by the T-1000 into a steel mill. The Terminators engage in violent hand to hand combat causing the T-800 to sustain critical damage. Now missing his left arm and operating on limited power and capacity the T-800 staggers to Sarah and John’s rescue and fires his last grenade into the T-1000 causing it to explode and fall into a vat of molten steel.”

Wow, it’s been like a year since I looked at anything Terminator-related.  Guess I’ll be fixing that today!  So, remember back when I reviewed NECA’s Ultimate T-800 figure from Terminator 2?  And how I mentioned that I owned one of the prior, non-Ultimate-y ones, from their earlier line?  Yeah, well that’s (one of) the figure(s) I’m looking at today!  Let’s get right to that, then!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Final Battle T-800 was released in Series 2 of NECA’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day line of figures.  At this point, the line was still exclusively variants of the T-800, but hey, that’s what we all wanted at the time.  The figure stands about 7 inches tall and has 11 points of articulation.  This is before NECA had gotten quite as good with articulation, so he’s a little stilted.  The upper half of the figure’s pretty solid, though, and while the legs are essentially motionless, there’s just enough movement there to help him balance.  On the plus side of things, the lack of motion’s not quite as killer on this particular figure, since the T-800 wasn’t exactly doing kung-fu high-kicks after taking all that damage.  As the name of the figure informs us, this guy’s based on the T-800 as he looks at the very end of T2, after he’s lost an arm and taken a serious beating at the hands of the T-1000.  The figure’s sculpt is pretty darn fantastic, offering a ton of amazing texturing on the leather jacket and pants, and even on the underlying machinery that’s been exposed. There are two heads included with this guy, with varying degrees of damage.  He’s packaged wearing the slightly less damaged of the two, which has the more unencumbered likeness.  While NECA’s gone on to give us better Schwarzenegger likenesses in recent years, this was pretty darn great for the time.  There are maybe some minor quibbles, but that’s really all that can be held against it.  The damage is consistent with what’s seen in the movie, too, which is really great.  The second head is far more damaged, depicting him after he takes a girder to the face a couple of times.  It’s actually one of those cases where the figure looks a bit better than what’s seen in the movie, since the movie had to rely on rather bulky prosthetics, and the figure can just actually carve away chunks of his face.  It’s definitely a nice piece.  The paintwork on this guy is decent enough.  Like the Kyle Reese figure, I did find the soulless eyes to be rather jarring (it’s more obvious on the more damaged head), but it’s far from awful.  There’s a lot of good work on the body, especially the clothes, though.  I do wish the damaged arm had slightly more convincing blood splatters, since these look more like red paint, but that’s minor.  In addition  to the spare head, the figure also includes the slightly damaged grenade launder, which he can hold pretty well.

Did you see in the intro where I hinted at more than one figure?  Well, I’ll touch on that now.  Alongside their 7-inch line, NECA also did some 12-inch Terminator 2 figures, and the Final Battle T-800 was one of the two they chose to do.  The figure is essentially just an upscaling of the 7-inch figure, but there are a few tweaks, most notably the inclusion of a light-up feature for the eye (activated by pressing the panel in the center of his chest).  It’s also worth noting that the larger figure only includes the more damaged head, presumably because a swapping head wouldn’t have worked too well with the light-up bit.  The larger size actually really helps the figure.  The likeness on the head, in particular, is a lot stronger at this scale (to the point where I honestly think it’s a better Arnold than Hot Toys ever gave us on a T-800), and the paint looks way better, since there’s a lot more room for subtlety.  Just like his smaller counterpart, this guy included the damaged grenade launcher.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Final Battle T-800 is the second NECA figure I ever owned, and it’s certainly the one that got me to notice them as a company.  I don’t recall exactly when I picked it up, but I do remember anxiously awaiting its release after seeing it on the back of the Series 1 packaging.  It’s a nice figure because unlike a number of other looks from the movie, the fully battle-damaged appearance really does warrant a whole figure to itself.

The larger figure was a Christmas present, given to me by my parents.  It was the year after I’d gotten the Hot Toys T-1000, and I was really wanting to have at least some version of the T-800 to go on the shelf with him and Sarah.  While I did eventually get the Hot Toys release when it came out (a whole three years later), this guy held me over in the mean time, and actually fit in surprisingly well with the two HT figures.  Looking back, he’s still a pretty awesome figure.  It’s too bad NECA never did any other characters to go with  him!

#0922: Techno-Punch Terminator

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

TECHNO-PUNCH TERMINATOR

TERMINATOR 2 (KENNER)

TechnoPunch1

Back in the 90s, tie-in toylines were all the rage.  They were so the rage, in fact, that a fair number of movies that weren’t exactly “kid-friendly” ended up getting some very kid-aimed action figures.  One such film was Terminator 2, which got a fairly nifty line of toys courtesy of Kenner Toys.  A good chunk of the line consisted of figures with looks quite divergent from the movie, but a few, such as today’s focus figure the T-800 Endoskeleton, stuck pretty close to the movie designs.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

TechnoPunch2The Endoskeleton was released in the first assortment of Terminator 2 figures from Kenner.  His official name was “Techno-Punch Terminator,” in reference to the figure’s special action feature, which I’ll touch on in a bit.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and has 6 points of articulation.  He also features movement at the waist, but it’s tied into his punching feature: when he is twisted to either side, he snaps back into place, and if the hands are placed right, this simulates a punch…sort of.  Not sure it was worth sacrificing actual articulation, but there it is.  Also, the lack of knee joints is somewhat baffling, seeing as there are joints sculpted there, they just aren’t mobile.  The sculpt on the figure is fairly decent.  Obviously, it’s not on par with NECA or Hot Toys’ takes on the design, but it’s hardly expected to be.  For a figure from the early 90s, it does a respectable job.  The basic details of the Endo are all pretty much there, just a bit more simplistic.  The proportions have also been tweaked a bit, presumably to make the Endo a bit more imposing (provided you overlook the monkey arms).  The overall result is a figure that is clearly meant to be a Terminator, and that’s what counts.    As far as paint goes, this guy’s pretty simple.  He’s straight silver, up and down, with the exception of the eyes, which are molded in clear red plastic and use light-piping to light up a bit.  The figure was originally packed with a blaster and some sort of bent metal thing, but my figure doesn’t have those pieces.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy is a relatively recent acquisition (though he does predate the site by a small margin).  A few years ago, Cosmic Comix picked up a pretty sizeable collection of loose figures, and this guy was amongst them.  The figure shows his age, to be sure, but he’s actually not a bad figure at all, and he’s certainly better than some of his compatriots.

#0861: Sarah Connor

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

SARAH CONNOR

TERMINATOR 2 (NECA)

SarahConner1

The first time I really noticed NECA was when they kicked off their pretty awesome T2 line several years back. The line actually had a pretty decent run of figures, but, aside from a single Kyle Reese figure towards the end of the line, they mostly stuck to the killer robots from the future. That meant that one of the franchise’s key characters, Sarah Connor, was sadly missing. Recently, under their “Ultimate” heading, NECA’s gone back to some of their older lines, making some slight adjustments to prior figures to make them fit with current offerings. For a first in the Ultimate sub-set, they’ve released a totally new figure, offering a Sarah figure to go with the recent Ultimate T-800.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

SarahConner2Sarah Connor is the second “Ultimate” figure in the Terminator 2 line. She’s a single release, though she shipped right around the same time as the second version of the Terminator Genisys T-800. The figure stands 6 ¾ inches tall and she’s got 24 points of articulation. Technically, she should be little shorter to be in scale with the T-800(Linda Hamilton’s 8 inches shorter than Arnold in real line), but she’s really not that far off. As noted in the intro, Sarah is not a re-tooling like prior Ultimate releases; she is instead an all-new sculpt, handled by Adrienne Smith. Her basic look is her black tactical gear from the mid-point to climax of the film. It’s easily the character at her most distinctive, so it’s well-chosen. The proportions on the body are pretty much spot-on, including Linda Hamiliton’s impressively toned arms. Seriously, she was jacked, and so is this figure. Her clothes are incredibly well detailed, with tremendous texturing, and just the right amount of weight. To ensure the best poseablity for the torso, the webgear is a separate (non-removable) add-on piece. It has the same great work seen on the rest of the body, and some amazing little touches, such as the unfastened buckle at the top of the vest, which looks like it’s really a separate piece. She also has a separate belt piece (also non-removable), SarahConner3complete with a sheath for her knife. Like the Ultimate T-800, Sarah includes three different heads: Ponytailed with hat and sunglasses, ponytailed without hat and sunglasses, and hair untied (once again without the hat and sunglasses). Some people have complained about not getting another head with the ponytail and sunglasses, like she’s shown on the front of the box. While it’s a shame that look isn’t represented, if we could only have three heads, these are the three I want. The hat and sunglasses head is my favorite of the three. The likeness is the best here, the hat is fantastically detailed, and while the sunglasses aren’t quite as clean as the T-800s, they still look pretty cool. The other two heads are no slouches either, doing a nice job of capturing Sarah as she progresses through the movie. Sarah’s paintwork is pretty solidly handled; all the base colors are where they should be, and there’s some nice work differentiating the blacks of the various parts of her outfit. The heads show a bit of slop around the hairlines, but the overall paint looks quite nice, and I was especially impressed by how well the eyes turned out on the two non-sunglassed heads. In addition to the extra heads, Sarah includes an m4 carbine, a colt 1911, and a knife (complete with a sculpted tassel at the end) that fits perfectly in the sheath on her belt.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Sarah at the same time I got Chopper, though she was more of an impulse buy than a planned purchase. I was a little underwhelmed by this figure when viewing her in the packaging, but once I had her out and posed her a bit, I really came to enjoy the figure a whole lot. She’s a worthy companion piece to the T-800 to be sure, and I’m happy she finally got made.

SarahConner4

#0717: Ultimate T-800

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , ,

ULTIMATE T-800

TERMINATOR 2 (NECA)

T800Ult1

Duhduhduhduhduh! KSHH Duhduhduhduhduh! KSHH Duhduhduhduhduh!

Did you guys pick up on that being the percussion section from the Terminator theme? It’s harder to transcribe than you might think. So, a few years back, my first real introduction to NECA was courtesy of their immensely cool T2 line. While the sculpts on those figures are still top notch, there’s one thing that was just a teeny bit dated: articulation. The figures had a pretty good set-up above the waist, but the legs were essentially motionless, which held back otherwise great figures. Fortunately, NECA is well aware of this issue and is fixing it, courtesy of their new(ish) subline of “Ultimate” figures. They’re kicking things off with the main man of T2, the T-800, aka “Uncle Bob.”

THE FIGURE ITSELF

T800Ult2aThe Ultimate T-800 was a single release, who started hitting stores last month, which, coincidentally, was the same time as the Terminator Genisys figures. The figure stands a little over 7 inches tall and has 26 points of articulation. That’s a whole 8 points more than his original release brethren. By design, the large portion of this figure’s tooling is shared with the prior T-800 figures. This isn’t a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination, of course, since the detailing on those older figures was pretty darn good. The jacket is wonderfully textured, and even has the bullet holes from where the T-800 shielded John from the T-1000. The gloved hands are also very well textured, and hold all of the included weapons pretty well. And then there are the heads. Three different heads are included: clean with sunglasses, clean without sunglasses, and fully battle-damaged. All three heads feature a very good rendition of Arnold’s likeness, but the sunglass-ed head absolutely nails it, and is my favorite by far. It’s just got the look down. The damaged head is a nice enough sculpt, but it’s a little jarring to see the fully damaged head on a completely intact body. I kind of wonder if the partially damaged head might have been a better fit here. Enough about the old pieces, what about the new pieces? Well, essentially the entire lower half is new.  I think the boots may be reused, but that’s it. The joints on the legs are a little stiff at first, but once you get them moving, they make a pretty big difference. They also match up really well with the pre-existing parts, so you’d be hard pressed to find evidence that they weren’t sculpted at the same time if you weren’t already aware. If there’s one area that this figure could stand to improve, it’s paint. To be fair, T800Ult5with the exception of a single one-of-a-kind issue that is quite glaring, the paint on this figure is actually pretty decent. The paint on the clothing is great, and it does a nice job accenting the texture of the sculpt. The grey shirt isn’t technically accurate with the sunglass-ed head, but that’s a really minor thing. The sunglass-ed and damaged heads are a touch messy, but nothing exceedingly bad; just a few missed spots here and there. What throws the whole figure off is the normal head’s eyebrows, which are just badly misplaced, throwing the whole thing off. It’s totally limited to my figure, and to NECA’s credit, their CS is already working to get me a replacement (at which point I’ll re-shoot that one shot with the messed up head), but it definitely renders the head useless for the time being. Fortunately, there are those other two heads to let me still enjoy my figure as much as possible! In addition to the extra heads, the T-800 also includes a shotgun, a handgun, a grenade launcher, a bandolier, and (my favorite) his minigun from the Cyberdyne scene. All of these are done with incredible accuracy, and it’s a great assortment of parts in general, though I wouldn’t have minded getting a set of ungloved hands to go with the shotgun.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I ordered this guy at the same time as the two Genisys figures, and I was just as eager to get him as I was the other two. I only ended up getting one figure from NECA’s old T2 line (the fully battle-damaged version), so I’m happy to finally have a T-800 that covers most of the movie’s looks. The paint on the regular head was a bit disappointing, but if I’m honest I was always planning to set him up with the (admittedly inaccurate) sunglasses and minigun combo. Just look at how cool he is at the top!

T800Ult4

#0616: T1000 – Patrolman

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , ,

T1000 – PATROLMAN

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY REACTION

T1000MotorCop1

Hey! It’s Funko’s ReAction brand! I actually haven’t looked at one of these in like six months. That doesn’t mean they haven’t been releasing a steady stream of the little guys, though. They’re making figures from just about every license under the sun, which is cool, but it also means that not every figure is going to appeal to every collector. So, the last few licenses haven’t really been my thing. However, Terminator 2 is totally my thing, and that’s one of their most recent licenses. Score for me! Let’s have a look at one of the film’s two Terminators, the T-1000, in his Patrolman gear!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

T1000MotorCop2The T1000 is part of the first set of Terminator 2: Judgement Day ReAction figures. The figure stands 3 ¾ inches tall and has the basic 5 points of articulation sported by all the figures in the line. He’s based on the T1000’s second major look in the film, after he steals a motorbike cop’s cycle and assimilates his look. It ends up being the look he has for the huge chase scene leading up to the final battle, which makes it somewhat distinctive, though it’s probably not quite as distinctive as his more basic cop look. That said, it’s still a pretty cool, important look, and it checks a few more of the standard “terminator” boxes than the other look. The figure features a new sculpt, done in the Kenner-style which ReAction replicates. Generally, the sculpt does a pretty good job of replicating the look of one of those figures. It’s not perfect; the torso still suffers from a little flatness, and the arms feel a tad too straight. However, it fits in pretty well with Kenner stuff, and it goes well with the Terminator ReAction figures from last year. The details of the sculpt are simple, but what’s there is pretty sharp, and things look pretty clean. Most of the face is covered, so the likeness is fine. What you can see looks close enough to Robert Patrick’s face to work, so that’s good. It’s not really a bad thing, but there’s a part of me that really wishes that one of the arms had a blade at the end in place of the hand, just to make the figure a little more clearly the T1000. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Paint-wise, the figure is decent, but there’s some room for improvement. The body is generally pretty good, with no real issues with bleed over or slop. The head’s a different story, with the silver of the glasses bleeding onto the nose and the left side of his helmet. Also, the silver band on the visor is really sloppy. Both of these issues are rather distracting, and were present on both samples of the figure that I looked at in the store. The T1000 is packed with an MP5K submachine gun. It’s the gun he’s carrying while flying the helicopter in the chase scene, so it’s a good choice. I do wish he could hold it a bit better, but oh well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

These figures really ended up sneaking up on me. I think I might have heard about them somewhere along the line, but they weren’t really present on my mind until I came across this guy at a slightly out of the way Toys R Us. They didn’t have anything else I wanted and I certainly wasn’t walking out empty handed, so I got this guy. That makes it sound like I didn’t really want him, but I did. I love the T1000, so my Terminator ReAction stuff just wasn’t complete without this guy. He’s not a perfect figure, and I’d like to see more in the way of actual T1000 stuff, but this guy’s fairly entertaining, and he’s a lot better than Funko’s early output from this line.

T1000MotorCop3

#0493: Terminator Cyberdyne Assault Minimates

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , , ,

CYBERNETIC T-800, SWAT SARAH CONNOR, MILES DYSON, & SCORCHED ENDOSKELETON

TERMINATOR 2 MINIMATES

So, like, it’s been a whole twelve days since my last Minimate review. And that was just a Sisko Minimate (plus some other dude I really don’t care enough about to know his name. I think it was Jim or something…). You have to ask yourself, does Sisko really count? Anyway, it’s time for my first look into the world of Terminator 2 Minimates, which is a line that I kinda feel was the first “modern Minimate line.” Seriously, these guys were really influential to how future lines were handled, in character selection, property selection, assortment layout and even distribution. They were pretty darn epic!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These four figures were released as a San Diego Comicon exclusive set, distributed by Action Figure Xpress. AFX aren’t really one of the big players online toy sales anymore, but they used to be at the top of the list, and they were pivotal to helping Minimates get on the map. Anyway, the set was dubbed “Cyberdyne Assault” after the attack on the Cyberdyne building late in the movie.

CYBERNETIC T-800

It would hardly be a proper T2 set without a version of Arnold (or, as he’s known in the movie, Uncle Bob). This particular version of the character is not from the “assault on Cyberdyne,” but is instead from a scene right before the attack, where the T-800 demonstrates the concept of the machines to Miles by slicing open his hand to reveal the robotic component beneath. Fun times. The figure is roughly 2 ½ inches tall and features 14 points of articulation. He’s built on the standard Minimate body, with a unique left hand, as well as add-ons for the hair and belt. All of this figure’s pieces are re-use, but given that he’s a T-800 variant, that’s pretty sensible. The hair and belt are both from the previous T-800s in the line, and the hand is from the basic endoskeleton. The hair’s not bad, though I always found it to be a bit too long for Arnold’s T2 look. The belt is a rather standard piece, so no issue there. The hand is a nice sculpt, but it’s a little weird to see it next to the normal hand on the other side, since it’s actually too big to fit under a normal hand. Just one of those things. The figure’s paint work is fantastic, aside from one small inaccuracy. Namely, those tears in the front of his shirt aren’t accurate, as he hadn’t taken any damage at that point in the movie. But, they’re nicely detailed, so I can’t really complain. Also, the figure’s Arnold likeness is totally spot on, which is great to see. The T-800 included a spare hand in silver (so you could replace the sculpted hand if you want to) and a plasma rifle.

SWAT SARAH CONNOR

So, the other important piece of T2 set is definitely Sarah Connor. According to James Cameron, she’s actually meant to be The Terminator of the movie, so there’s that. Like the T-800, Sarah’s not actually from the attack on Cyberdyne; she’s actually from a little earlier in the movie, when she attacks Dyson’s house. Maybe this set should have been called the “Attack on Dyson’s.” This is Sarah’s most iconic look from the film, so it’s a good choice, regardless of which attack it’s part of. Seeing as this was the first Sarah Connor to actually be released, being iconic is a good thing. The figure is about 2 ½ inches tall and has 14 points of articulation. She’s built on the standard Minimate body, with add-ons for her hat/glasses, web gear, and belt. All three of these pieces are new to Sarah, and they are all very well sculpted and accurate to the source material. The hat and glasses in particular are a dead on interpretation of the look from the movie. Sarah’s paint is a lot simpler than the T-800’s, but it’s still rather nicely done. Underneath of the glasses, there’s a pretty great Linda Hamilton likeness, and all of the line work is nice and sharp. Sarah includes an alternate hair piece with the glasses and hat removed, as well as a machine gun.

MILES DYSON

Poor Dyson. This guy really got the short end of the stick, didn’t he? Probably one of the most genuinely likeable people in the movie, and he gets his house blown up, his family attacked, he gets shot (a bunch) and then he dies. But, hey, for what it’s worth, he’s the only figure in this set that’s actually from the attack on Cyberdyne. So there! Dyson is about 2 ½ inches in height and he has 14 points of articulation. He’s got the same body as the others, with add-ons for the hair and coat. The hair is new to Dyson, and it’s a pretty good approximation of hos look from the movie. The coat actually began its life on a cancelled Colonel Tigh Minimate from the BSG line, before making it to an actual release with Miles here. It’s a nice, standard coat piece. It’s well sculpted and rather versatile, so it’s nice that it actually got released somewhere. Dyson probably has my favorite paint work of the set. He has a spot on likeness of actor Joe Morton (great if you want to do any Eureka Minimates), but my favorite part is the detailing on the shirt. With the jacket on, it looks like just a regular button down shirt, but remove the jacket and there’s a fully detailed bandaged gunshot wound, complete with slightly dried blood. It’s a fantastic touch, and something that could have been easily overlooked. Dyson includes a fire axe, which is definitely important to the character and is my favorite accessory in the set.

SCORCHED ENDOSKELETON

Ah, yes, the scorched Endoskeleton, hero of the… no wait, ummm… yeah, so I literally have no idea what this figure is meant to represent. Like, there’s some endoskeletons at the beginning, but they’re all shiny and new. None of them get “scorched” and none of them go back in time, so it doesn’t even really make sense for this figure to be in this set. But, I guess you have to get and endo in somewhere. The figure is about 2 ½ inches tall, with 14 points of articulation. It uses the same body you’ve seen three times before in this review, with unique hands and feet, and well as add-ons for the upper torso and pelvis (which is missing on mine). All of these pieces were initially seen on the normal endo, released both in the first series of two-packs and in the single pack case. I’m of two minds about the pieces. The feet are well done, and the hands, while large, are still pretty cool. But, the torso and pelvis pieces, while nicely sculpted, make the figure way too big to believable be the thing under Arnold’s skin. It just doesn’t work. On the plus side, the figure’s paint has that covered. There’s a fully detailed normal torso under the sculpted one, so you can remove the sculpted piece and have a seeker looking Endo. The figure has some pretty decent paint, with detail lines for all of the various tech pieces. The main difference between the normal endo and this one is that this one is done in more of a dull gray, to look “scorched.” The endo includes a plasma rifle, which is the same as the one with the T-800.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was beyond thrilled when the T2 license was announced for Minimates. I rushed out and bout the first series from TRU (back when TRU was getting their Minimate assortments first!) and I patiently awaited the arrival of others. This set excited me the most, because it offered my favorite version of Sarah, as well as Dyson, the unsung hero of the film. SO, I ordered this set the day it went up on AFX and patiently awaited its arrival. Sadly, it seems not everyone else was quite as thrilled by the set, as it hung around for quite some time, and was eventually clearanced off by the CASE! I still think this a really solid set. Sure, the endo’s pointless and a little boring, but Miles and Sarah more than make up for that, and you get a fun version of the T-800 to boot!

#0198: T-1000

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

T-1000

MOVIE MANIACS

Terminator 2 is a very good movie. In fact, it’s probably one of my top 5 favorite movies. A lot of that is because of the film’s primary villain, the T-1000. That guy was just super cool!

Back in the early days of “collectible action figures” McFarlane Toys put out a line called the Movie Maniacs, which was a compilation of figures from lots of famous horror, suspense, and slasher movies. The figures featured detailed sculpts, which was new at the time, but were rather infamous for their lack of useful articulation. Amongst their figures they released were both the T-800 and the T-1000 from T2.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The T-1000 was released as part of the fourth series of Movie Maniacs. He has a few possible looks, but overall, he’s based on the character’s appearance from the last act of the film. The figure is about 7 inches tall and has 8 points of articulation. As with the rest of MM, he has very little articulation, and what he does have only really allows for one real pose. It kind of sucks compared to recent stuff, but it wasn’t too bad for the line. At least the T-1000 had an okay default pose, which is more than can be said for a lot of the MM releases. The sculpt is pretty good, especially for the time. It has more than a passing resemblance to Robert Patrick. The body is better work, with lots of nice textures, folds, and such. The paint work is okay, though there is some serious slop in some areas, and some of the flesh toned areas almost look like they’ve been dunked in mud. The figure does feature a nice selection of accessories, including a whole extra torso, head and arms for his exploded look, a hand gun, swap out hook hands, and a display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually hadn’t yet seen T2 at the time of this figure’s release, so I didn’t get it new. I ended up picking this figure up from my local comic book store (Cosmic Comix & Toys, for those of you in the area), got in a large collection of loose action figures. I fished out the T-1000 and all his pieces, which quite excited me! To top it all off, the store owner sold it for $3. It’s not a perfect figure, but it’s a pretty good one, and for that price, it was more than worth it.

#0150: T-1000

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

T-1000

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (HOT TOYS)

Would you check that out?  I made it to 150 reviews!  I think that’s pretty cool!  I’m gonna continue the trend with the milestone reviews and do another one of my “Deluxe Reviews”.

This is another figure produced by Hot Toys, a toy company based in Hong Kong who are renowned for their almost life like 1/6 scale figures.  They cater strictly to those with a large amount of money to spend on such things, as each figure costs anywhere from $200 to $300 on average.  They do a lot of figures to recent popular movies, but they also do some older films, like Terminator 2.  My 50th review was a look at the recently released Battle Damaged T-800, and today I’ll be looking at T2’s antagonist, the T-1000!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

This figure’s pretty much a catchall of all of the looks of the T-1000 in T2.  This figure was released as part of HT’s Movie Masters Line.  He’s designated as figure 129 in that line.  He stands about 12 inches tall, and has a bunch of assorted articulation.  Like with other HT figures, the costume covers the joints, and I don’t have any plans to undress him.

THE HEAD IN QUESTION

The T-1000 actually includes two heads, but as with the T-800, I’ll be looking at the undamaged head here, and the other head down in the accessories section.  So, this head is obviously what the T-1000 looks like for most of the movie.  It’s a very good sculpt.  Perhaps not as spot on as some of HT’s efforts, but it’s undoubtedly Robert Patrick as the T-1000.  The expression is dead set determination, which is perfect for the character.  The paint is up to the usual HT standards, which means it’s pretty darn phenomenal.

THE COSTUME IN QUESTION

The costume features a few sculpted parts, namely the badge and shoes, but for the most part, the costume is done through actual cloth pieces.  The tailoring on the uniform is superb, with everything very carefully handled.  Everything is well scaled, and he’s even got working pockets on his shirt.  .

THE ACCESSORIES IN QUESTION

T-1000 features an enormous selection of accessories, allowing you to duplicate just about every look he sports in the movie.  They are:

  • Split Head
  • Helmet
  • Sun Glasses
  • Coat
  • Biker pants
  • Boots
  • Hook Hand Constructs
  • Stabbing Construct
  • 6 interchangeable hands
  • 7 magnetic bullet wounds
  • Police belt
  • Handcuffs
  • Walkie Talkie
  • Flashlight
  • Machine Gun
  • Handgun with two extra clips
  • Display Stand

The alt head depicts the T-1000 after the T-800 splits his head with a shotgun and the T-1000’s head begins to reform.  It’s a really cool head, and looks pretty close to the scene.  I really like the way the eyes are staring off to the side.  It switches with relative ease, which is nice.

The Helmet, sunglasses, coat, pants, and boots allow you to change theT-1000 into his “Biker cop” look that he sports later in the movie.  These pieces, plus the extra head pretty much mean that you get a whole second figure included, so long as you can find a spare body, which HT just happened to sell around the time of this figure’s release.

The hook hands and blade are really great add-ons, and are very true to the character.  The transition from metal to uniform is a bit iffy, but it’s just a limitation of the medium, so I can’t really fault HT there.

There’s six hands: trigger finger (R and L), flat for running (R and L), finger wagging (L), and stabby-finger (R).  They all look really great, have some really nice poses, and offer some nice scene specific looks.

The belt attaches with little difficulty, and can hold the handcuffs, walkie talkie, flashlight, handgun, and spare clips very nicely.  All of these pieces are scaled properly and nicely sculpted, and the handgun even has all the proper moving parts.  The machine gun is also nice, and goes great with the biker look.

The bullet wounds are a neat idea.  They have magnets on them, and the figures torso has metal plates, so you can place the impact points anywhere on the front of the torso.  I wish they had put some plates on his back, so you could mix it up a bit, but it works really well as is, and makes for some cool displays.

Lastly, the T-1000 includes a black display stand with his name and the T2 logo.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The T-1000 was a Christmas gift from my parents a few years ago.  He was my fifth Hot Toys figure, and I consider him the one that officially pushed me over the edge on HT figures.  I’ve gotten quite a few HT figures since, but he still holds up as one of my very favorites from my collection!