Jameson Rook
Super Freak
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2012
- Messages
- 11,876
- Reaction score
- 123
Thanks again, Skull! Also, is this a better figure than the new BD one? Let's say if I could only get one, what would it be?
Thanks again, Skull! Also, is this a better figure than the new BD one? Let's say if I could only get one, what would it be?
Tough call, but I like the 238 more now. Bulking up the neck really helped and I prefer the shootout outfit, weapons, stand, & sculpts over 136. Not taking anything away from Tech Noir though and it's never leaving my collection cause it's badass
It being a Saturday night, drunk opinion to follow - drunk but honest (i.e. what my sober persona really feels and, later, will possibly regret having said):
Bulking up the neck was nowhere near enough for me. The body size is just wrong, simple as. Everyone seems to love the 238 figure now, ''FOTY'' and so on and so forth, but I just can't get on board with that. HT ****ed up too much on that one. I still consider it a relatively half-arsed release compared to the 136.
MMS136 catered to every need all the way up to the Arm surgery scene while having accurate proportions. That particular sized headsculpt really matched that particular sized body with those particularly tailored clothes. It worked. Even with what I consider to be an imperfect Schwarzenegger likeness with the very same ''squashed'' appearance of MMS117 - it still looks like a better recreation of the T1 character. I guess no matter what improvements of the facial likeness that you achieve, if you don't nail the head/body ratio it just looks wrong. This is simply of vital importance with an action figure of Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is a guy who dedicated the earlier part of his life to body-building and became known initially specifically for that. If you make a figure of him that is either too small or too big this is very noticeable. You are very noticeably in error. This is why it wrecks my head that the body they provided for a ****ing Michael Shannon figure somehow ends up having bigger biceps than a figure representing Arnold Schwarzenegger - sorry but that is just ****ing ridiculous. I cannot accept that - no matter what improvements there is in the headsculpt. What's the point in taking some steps forward and some steps back. Why bother improving anything in that case.
So, body size was a major, major blunder.
If it was even just that and that alone.....could I even grant it FOTY on the basis of other attributes.....no. Sorry but no. Unlike the T2 figures the MMS238 package completely omits scenes from T1 - no eye surgery because it does not provide a bandaged forearm and handsculpt - it does not provide any tools or the towel for said scene - ''who gives a ****'' some will say - ''why not give a ****'' I say - this could have been a DX figure, A. And B, the MMS136 covered the entire first segment of the movie so why couldn't the MMS238 cover the rest, especially if it were a DX? It also lacked a clean vest and jacket which were pretty big disappointments for many of us who wanted to accurately recreate the ''I'll be back'' moment - again some will say ''who gives a ****?'' - well sorry but a few of us did. Unless I'm mistaken it's the very first time Arnie spoke that most famous of lines in a movie and considering the worthiness of a Police Shootout Terminator figure as a DX (which commonly have interchangeable clothes) a few of us wondered why we weren't given any options in this case. I mean why, why a DX stand and not make it a DX figure? I'm a major T2 fan and yet I see no reason why they shouldn't give T1 as high calibre treatment as T2 when it comes to figures - without T1 there would be no T2. T1 is a ****ing significant film. Why not a DX.
Aaaaand if a sparsity of display options weren't enough they didn't even really nail the sculpts or the paintjob on MMS238. The sculpting of the hair isn't terribly bad as I feel it is on pretty much every T2 release but it isn't completely right either - again pretty much a ''hey, whatever'' job to be honest. I've seen low end companies do better with sculpted hair and I've seen larger scale rooted hair be more accurate too. Seems to me when it comes to sculpting Arnie's hair, HT just doesn't really give a ****. They don't think it's particularly important to his likeness. Needless to say I disagree ****ing strongly What else....the human eye on either of the 238 sculpts doesn't really look like Arnie, I just don't see it. Definitely better on the 136 sculpts. This could be a matter of paint, I'm not sure. But speaking of paint, this aspect was idealised on the 238 sculpts. Arnie's makeup was very pale and clammy by the time of both the Police Station Shootout and the Tanker Truck pursuit and the final paint-jobs on the figure do not reflect this. See Rorywan's paintjob for how it should have been done.
What else....the vest is too short, and it is. Some people have looked at movie shots and said that it looks fine - it doesn't. Yeah the length of the vest may look correct but people aren't taking account of all the folds and creases it has in the movie. To have the figure's vest at a movie accurate length you have to completely iron out these folds and creases. It's a relatively minor point compared to the others but there it is, I figure why leave it out if so much else is a problem.
Lastly (I promise), the boots....while a superior sculpt to anything that went before, they are very small (the smallest in fact) and when you combine them with almost the largest headsculpts HT have made for a Terminator figure - it looks stupid. It looks like he is wearing teeny tiny wickle wickle booties, ****in' Leprechaun booties and as an Irishman I'm not unaware of the magnitude of that comparison. On the other hand these same boots transferred onto the MMS136 figure looks perfectly fine because of that figure's smaller head.
Anyway that's that. In summation, if anyone cares about my opinion and is trying to choose between MMS136 and MMS238, personally I say get MMS136 and if you want to improve that figure's accuracy get the pants and boots from MMS238 separately. If you do that you've got yourself a really cool Terminator, in fact the original appearance of a Terminator. You don't necessarily need the leathers look that followed which actually became kind of cliched within the franchise. You would instead have a unique looking figure on your shelf that, while not a perfect facial resemblance of Arnie, at least very much embodies him in it's proportions and the character of the face.
I know some will utterly disagree with my opinion on the MMS238 figure, some will even think me a ****ing idiot, but that's that. I get PMed a fair bit by people asking for my opinion on such matters due to the reputation I seem to have built up on SSF over the years. Repetitively posting your views will do that, even if my time would have been better spent doing something else But anyway I've just been seeing a whole lot of what I feel to be overly forgiving opinions in the MMS238 thread lately. I didn't say anything there because I guess $h!tting on people's ''hey look at my new figure'' parade is generally considered a bit petty. As I said though if anyone is interested in my view here it is here. MMS238 is by no means a FOTY. It can be worked with, certainly, and brought up to a great standard, but the stock figure is not what it should have been.
That said, I am not without a positive outlook believe it or not. I look at my Terminator collection in awe everyday - in most part because of what Hot Toys have given us - even if that is by added expenditure on my own part to combine bits and pieces from various different releases to create what I consider a near perfect figure - the awesomeness of my collection is nevertheless predominantly due to what HT has given us over the years. And I look at not only Terminator but the other iconic stuff of my childhood, the Reeve Supermans the Keaton Batmans and his Batmobile, the Hulks, Spidermans, Robocop and eventually the Marty McFly's and Deloreans....stuff of my dreams really. So while I might criticise individual releases and make sarcastic statements about excessive Iron Mans and, from here on out, Star Wars figures, it has to be admitted even by someone like me that they've given us a heck of a lot.
For the TLDR crowd - yeah, don't blame you
Please mail all your 238 figures to me thanks
You mean the ones with the MMS117/136 chest pieces that I shouldn't have had to take from other figures in order to make the 238 proportionally more accurate? Those ones? No. No I'm keeping those
Anywho, I'm off to bed. I can't wait to log in tomorrow to find out what drunk me thought it was so important to post and any reactions to it
Have good night man
It being a Saturday night, drunk opinion to follow - drunk but honest (i.e. what my sober persona really feels and, later, will possibly regret having said):
Bulking up the neck was nowhere near enough for me. The body size is just wrong, simple as. Everyone seems to love the 238 figure now, ''FOTY'' and so on and so forth, but I just can't get on board with that. HT ****ed up too much on that one. I still consider it a relatively half-arsed release compared to the 136.
MMS136 catered to every need all the way up to the Arm surgery scene while having accurate proportions. That particular sized headsculpt really matched that particular sized body with those particularly tailored clothes. It worked. Even with what I consider to be an imperfect Schwarzenegger likeness with the very same ''squashed'' appearance of MMS117 - it still looks like a better recreation of the T1 character. I guess no matter what improvements of the facial likeness that you achieve, if you don't nail the head/body ratio it just looks wrong. This is simply of vital importance with an action figure of Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is a guy who dedicated the earlier part of his life to body-building and became known initially specifically for that. If you make a figure of him that is either too small or too big this is very noticeable. You are very noticeably in error. This is why it wrecks my head that the body they provided for a ****ing Michael Shannon figure somehow ends up having bigger biceps than a figure representing Arnold Schwarzenegger - sorry but that is just ****ing ridiculous. I cannot accept that - no matter what improvements there is in the headsculpt. What's the point in taking some steps forward and some steps back. Why bother improving anything in that case.
So, body size was a major, major blunder.
If it was even just that and that alone.....could I even grant it FOTY on the basis of other attributes.....no. Sorry but no. Unlike the T2 figures the MMS238 package completely omits scenes from T1 - no eye surgery because it does not provide a bandaged forearm and handsculpt - it does not provide any tools or the towel for said scene - ''who gives a ****'' some will say - ''why not give a ****'' I say - this could have been a DX figure, A. And B, the MMS136 covered the entire first segment of the movie so why couldn't the MMS238 cover the rest, especially if it were a DX? It also lacked a clean vest and jacket which were pretty big disappointments for many of us who wanted to accurately recreate the ''I'll be back'' moment - again some will say ''who gives a ****?'' - well sorry but a few of us did. Unless I'm mistaken it's the very first time Arnie spoke that most famous of lines in a movie and considering the worthiness of a Police Shootout Terminator figure as a DX (which commonly have interchangeable clothes) a few of us wondered why we weren't given any options in this case. I mean why, why a DX stand and not make it a DX figure? I'm a major T2 fan and yet I see no reason why they shouldn't give T1 as high calibre treatment as T2 when it comes to figures - without T1 there would be no T2. T1 is a ****ing significant film. Why not a DX.
Aaaaand if a sparsity of display options weren't enough they didn't even really nail the sculpts or the paintjob on MMS238. The sculpting of the hair isn't terribly bad as I feel it is on pretty much every T2 release but it isn't completely right either - again pretty much a ''hey, whatever'' job to be honest. I've seen low end companies do better with sculpted hair and I've seen larger scale rooted hair be more accurate too. Seems to me when it comes to sculpting Arnie's hair, HT just doesn't really give a ****. They don't think it's particularly important to his likeness. Needless to say I disagree ****ing strongly What else....the human eye on either of the 238 sculpts doesn't really look like Arnie, I just don't see it. Definitely better on the 136 sculpts. This could be a matter of paint, I'm not sure. But speaking of paint, this aspect was idealised on the 238 sculpts. Arnie's makeup was very pale and clammy by the time of both the Police Station Shootout and the Tanker Truck pursuit and the final paint-jobs on the figure do not reflect this. See Rorywan's paintjob for how it should have been done.
What else....the vest is too short, and it is. Some people have looked at movie shots and said that it looks fine - it doesn't. Yeah the length of the vest may look correct but people aren't taking account of all the folds and creases it has in the movie. To have the figure's vest at a movie accurate length you have to completely iron out these folds and creases. It's a relatively minor point compared to the others but there it is, I figure why leave it out if so much else is a problem.
Lastly (I promise), the boots....while a superior sculpt to anything that went before, they are very small (the smallest in fact) and when you combine them with almost the largest headsculpts HT have made for a Terminator figure - the largest being the infamous MMS02 hamburger head - it looks stupid. It looks like he is wearing teeny tiny wickle wickle booties, ****in' Leprechaun booties and as an Irishman I'm not unaware of the magnitude of that comparison. On the other hand these same boots transferred onto the MMS136 figure looks perfectly fine because of that figure's smaller head.
Anyway that's that. In summation, if anyone cares about my opinion and is trying to choose between MMS136 and MMS238, personally I say get MMS136 and if you want to improve that figure's accuracy get the pants and boots from MMS238 separately. If you do that you've got yourself a really cool Terminator, in fact the original appearance of a Terminator. You don't necessarily need the leathers look that followed which actually became kind of cliched within the franchise. You would instead have a unique looking figure on your shelf that, while not a perfect facial resemblance of Arnie, at least very much embodies him in it's proportions and the character of the face.
I know some will utterly disagree with my opinion on the MMS238 figure, some will even think me a ****ing idiot, but that's that. I get PMed a fair bit by people asking for my opinion on such matters due to the reputation I seem to have built up on SSF over the years. Repetitively posting your views will do that, even if my time would have been better spent doing something else But anyway I've just been seeing a whole lot of what I feel to be overly forgiving opinions in the MMS238 thread lately. I didn't say anything there because I guess $h!tting on people's ''hey look at my new figure'' parade is generally considered a bit petty. As I said though if anyone is interested in my view here it is here. MMS238 is by no means a FOTY. It can be worked with, certainly, and brought up to a great standard, but the stock figure is not what it should have been.
That said, I am not without a positive outlook believe it or not. I look at my Terminator collection in awe everyday - in most part because of what Hot Toys have given us - even if that is by added expenditure on my own part to combine bits and pieces from various different releases to create what I consider a near perfect figure - the awesomeness of my collection is nevertheless predominantly due to what HT has given us over the years. And I look at not only Terminator but the other iconic stuff of my childhood, the Reeve Supermans the Keaton Batmans and his Batmobile, the Hulks, Spidermans, Robocop and eventually the Marty McFly's and Deloreans....stuff of my dreams really. So while I might criticise individual releases and make sarcastic statements about excessive Iron Mans and, from here on out, Star Wars figures, it has to be admitted even by someone like me that they've given us a heck of a lot.
For the TLDR crowd - yeah, don't blame you
So I posted last night.....
So I posted last night.....
I enjoyed the read man.So I posted last night.....
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