Miles Dyson!!! Neca is gonna blow him away!! Come on! Come on (
awkward puberty voice crack)!!
Yeah, but a-dev, other than Ultimate Sarah Connor what new things have they made?
Well sure, nothing else entirely new...yet. Of course if John Connor, T1 Sarah, different versions of Kyle Reese, unmade variants of T1 T-800 ultimately never do get made then you shall be vindicated on this. But in the brave new world where we got a Newt action figure I can't accept that John won't be made, not while they're releasing at least
something. Consider Hot Toys, they're not releasing any new classic Terminator stuff currently so it's fair to say they're not suddenly going to drop a T2 John Connor on us. A figure like that has to come out during a hype period, piggybacking on other more marketable figures from the same film. We know well enough to have zero hope of Hot Toys making JC - the line is dead to them. Not so with NECA right now. As long as they're making
anything there's a chance.
And you don't ever look at your collection and think, "what the hell was I doing with that purchase", even with all the Arnold and T-1000s you bought?
During my most extreme Hot Toys phase yes I did look at my NECA collection and deem that I had over-purchased. However now it has reversed if anything. It's the Hot Toys stuff that I've looked at and considered trying to sell some of it off. ''Why did I bother setting up that version, without a diorama it's not much to look at and I'm probably never going to have a diorama for it, they're too space consuming and too expensive at 1:6'' etc etc Also, I'm finding the flaws on Hot Toys sculpts less easily excusable than those on NECA figures. With the bigger scale and the capability of being more lifelike it becomes a case of ''so close but so far'' when they get something wrong which is an annoying pr*cktease of a situation.
Here's an example that isn't "I went back and found my Terminator figure detoriated and fell apart". The Ultimate Tech Noir T-800. Once I got that, I looked back at the older 2011 lower body statue ones I had and just couldn't look at them. The paint jobs on some of those older figures were so bad, even if you went out of your way to pick out the best ones. Then even newer releases are just straight up crap.
In a way I don't regret that we didn't get the articulated figures in the first place because instead I get to say I have my pick from both worlds - the statue-esque figures with the more seamless aesthetic or the more fun (but not without drawbacks) articulated ones. Those old T1 legs? Love those. They weren't appropriate for every scene but they were nice beefy legs. I look at the new ones and as well as being shorter they look kinda wimpier aswell. I feel like they narrowed the thighs, even gave him a flat arse on the newer figures - plus the T1s now have a severe case of diaper going on - you can see the balljoint too much, the separation is too obvious. The long jacket of the Tech Noir hides this better than the Ultimate Police Shootout figure. Anyway the main point I'm making there is no, I don't look back on any of the earlier figures as a waste. Those initial T-1000s are probably the closest thing to that - merely for the fact they crumbled to pieces.
But at least in some cases there have been salvageable situations from all the rereleasing. You have a wider choice of paintjobs. Those early T1s did have some terrible paint jobs as you mentioned, but I was able to replace all those heads with superior painted Ultimate versions. Granted that didn't hold true for the Ultimate Uncle Bob (again as you mentioned - bad paint on that one) or the Ultimate T-1000 - I kept using the older heads for those. Oh and I've so far found the guns and accessories from all the ultimates pretty useless, warped beyond repair. Its a bummer for people who're completely relying on the Ultimates but I'm alright Jack because I have the originals too.
And honestly I've gotten a certain satisfaction in gathering the best parts and paintjobs from across the spectrum to assemble my definitive collection.
With that said, there are some really nice figure in the line. Looking at my shelf right now, my favorites are,
- original Pescadero T-800 from 2009
- final battle T-800
- my Steel Mill T-800 that I swapped the legs with the Ultimate body for a cyberdyne shootout look
- Sarah Connor
- Ultimate T-1000 (I added the original sauce head from my old broken ones and it looks great)
- Ultimate Tech Noir T-800
- that teapot T-800 I kitbashed
But then I look at all their crappy fragile Endos, that ugly blue Motorcycle T-1000 with the pretzel salt on it, their Kyle Reese, the Ultimate figure leg length issues and all the rehashes and I think, "this line is kinda ****". The bad outweighs the good.
I also love the original Motorcycle Cop T-1000, Steel Mill T-1000 (particularly if you ever got one with straight stabbing fingers and a decent approximation of the liquid metal chrome for the donut head), I love my Cyberdyne T-800 reloading his McFarlane M79, my Man or Machine figure with my own customised endo-arm, my T-800 on Harley - I know not all of this is entirely stock NECA,
Individual releases could be better, it's true. But if you've been collecting this stuff since the McFarlane movie Maniacs and NECA's cult classics all the way up to present - it is possible to have a pretty damn incredible collection the likes of which we could only dream of as kids when we had to force ourselves to like Kenner's made-up nonsense.
TLDR: I agree with you on individual points - what was/is disappointing, what should have been better, what accessories should have come with this and so on. I dunno, it's just that all that stuff doesn't quite give me the damning outlook you seem to have now for the line as a whole. But I must admit, if they never make John Connor it may sour me a bit. I
will be pissed right off, I just won't be able to help it. They made Newt. She's less important in her respective film than JC is in his. Failure to make him now would be a snub to Terminator. The excuse in that eventuality had better not be anything to do with demand, it better be something to do with Edward Furlong or Public Enemy. I refuse to believe he wouldn't sell just the same as Newt.
, shame on me.
