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However, hate each other they do, to the extent that when Royce and the
human characters happen upon their make-shift hunting camp, they find a
‘traditional’ Predator bloodied, beaten, tied up and strapped to a post. And
so during a later showdown between Royce and the elected leader of the
Super Preds, known as the Berserker (or Mr Black on set) he cuts the
original Predator free, allowing him a crack at his captors… he puts up
a brave fight, but ultimately doesn’t last
long, however he certainly helps weaken and tire the
Berserker, to the extent that when Royce faces off with him… it’s on a
more even playing field than poor old Dutch ever got. But like Dutch,
Royce shows that the human spirit and instinct for survival is a
powerful force that should never be underestimated… not even by an 8
foot tall super Predator with a plasma canon strapped to his shoulder.
The other two Predators in the hunting party are the Falconer
(reviewed here as well) and the Tracker. The Tracker
was only recently announced by Hot Toys, but he looks like he’ll be
worth the wait, as not only does the have the most unique body armour
of the trio, but he also comes with one of the ‘dog ugly’ hunting
beasts as a pet. The fact that the Falconer and Tracker couldn’t come
with a face sculpt (due to the licensee forbidding it) upset many
collectors, which they are entitled to! But ultimately we
still get fantastically detailed representations of what we actually
‘see’ in the movie.
After all these are part of the Movie Masterpiece Series so we know
that HT will do their damndest to make sure they represent what we saw
on screen as closely as they can… but have they pulled it off?
Packaging
- ****
These Predators boxes are Cool with a capital ‘C’, every aspect of them
just oozes coolness. From the textured background to the red acetate
windows, I mean, what is not to like? They follow the same themes as
the Royce figure that I reviewed here,
his was intentionally oversized so the whole range could sit well
together when they got round to these big boys.
So again we have the slip over sleeve with the red acetate window
through which there is a reveal of the character. Once this is slipped
off we have a flap-fronted box that can be lifted to display the fully
constructed figure within, through the large window. Inside the figure
lies alongside his accessories and is held in place by three twisties.
Now Twisties are always a pain, but these Preds are seriously heavy,
constructed from what feels like a good few pounds of vinyl. So I’d
rather have to untwist a couple of ties and get an unbroken and
unscuffed figure arrive in one piece, than face the risk of damaged
merchandise.
I already said in my Royce review that I love these boxes, and I still
do!
Sculpting - ****
When it comes to us geeks, you can split us into numerous camps, but
the two most prevalent, much like Predators are the regular geek
(hello!) and the super geek. Your super geek tends to have a pet love,
be it Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek, Doctor Who or any number of other
franchises… but if it happens to be Predators, then this guy was always
in for a very tough ride.
Why?
Well first of all there is all the love that Stan Winston’s original
creature design has had, and then, on top of that, even the folks who
decide they like the new design of the super Preds have the chance to
nit-pick between the actual screen seen prosthetics and what Joseph
Tsang has sculpted here!
So let me start by saying I like the portrait, and judging by the
feedback on the majority of collectors forums so do most collectors.
Only the Berserker has a full head sculpt, so more on that later, first
I’ll go over the newly developed body that both the figures share. Its
designed to replicate the new pumped up physique of the super Preds,
meaning its thicker set and measures slightly taller. And that has been
another bone of contention! You see these guys are meant to tower over
the usual Preds in the same way the originals towered over humans, and
although he is a little taller, it’s not quite the difference that many
were hoping for. They still manage to look convincing when posed next
to the Royce figure, but when posed with the other regular Preds the
difference doesn’t seem extreme enough.
However, that doesn’t call into the question the quality of the
sculpting here. The new body shows super detailed work covering its
entirety, with each reptilian bump and scale picked out beautifully.
As I said above, the Berserker is the only one of the three super
Predators that reveals his face in the movie, and so he is the only one
with a full facial portrait, and once again Mr Tsang has done us proud!
If anything the new design for this guy is even more complex than what
we got on the more traditional Preds that have come before. The
forehead has more intrinsic deep sculptural form, with what looks like
exposed musculature radiating out to where the dreads attach. It’s also
worthy of note that the dreads hang down really well here with some
convincing ‘implied’ weight. The face wears a heavy feral frown and the
detailed mouth has two sets of swappable mandibles. One pair is relaxed
and closed for general posing or when wearing the mask, while the
others are in a wide-open full on roar. I found they swapped over
easily and fitted tightly with virtually no join showing. So, although
the design itself isn’t my fave Pred to date, the sculpt and
representation of the movie seen costume is virtually faultless to my
eyes, and he does look great when displayed alongside his old school
brethren.
Paint
- Berserker ****, Falconer ***1/2
Like all the Predators that came before, these guys get a full body
paint from top to toe. As I said above the basic physiology is the same
on them both, but like lizards their coloration is quite unique. The
Berserker has a dark grey and mushroom base colouration out of which
come areas of dark green with accents and flashes of red to help
high-light areas on the thighs, abdomen, chest, arms and most notably
head. The face is most complex area as the eyes, mouth interior and
general paternation, with the large exposed panels of red are picked
out beautifully. These sections look a little those illustrations of
exposed musculature
we all studied in biology class, meaning he’s even more of an ‘ugly
mother f**ker’ than the original! The paint carries on over down his
head tails or dreadlocks, going from a dark reddish brown with pewter
coloured adornments down to brighter red tips. The Falconers dreads are
much browner with a tiger stripe paternation, and they also have the
metallic coloured rings intersecting them. The dreads on both are made
from a soft rubber material than hangs very well and the position they
have been sculpted in and subsequently attached to the head is very
convincing, managing to look like they have some real weight to them.
The body on the Falconer isn’t quite as colourful, it has a similar
base colour to the Berserker, but here he has no red flashes, instead
there is a darker green down his flanks graduating into the
grey/mushroom colouration. It makes this version look much more
crocodilian in his final appearance, well, as far as the skin is
concerned anyway.
The armour on both is also painted; both are given a deep dark scorched
bronze tone, and the dark airbrushing and washes help to pick out the
pitted cast nature of the ‘alien’ metals used to construct it. So, all
in all both are impressive, but the extra detailed work on the body of
the Berserker, coupled with the great work carried out on his face,
puts him ahead by the nose he strangely doesn’t have!
Outfit
- ****
Predators aren’t your average slacks and sweaters kind of guys. No,
they like a rather more minimal and gladiatorial look. However these
new ones have ditched the fishnet body stockings, which to me is a bit
of a shame. Don’t worry, its some deviant fetishistic thing, no, I’m
not into sexual Predators. Its more that to me the body mesh made sense
in being the apparatus that could be activated to cloak the body when
in ‘invisibility’ mode, I know we are in the realms of deepest darkest
sci-fi here, so one just has to let go… but still, I liked me in Pred
in fishnets!
However, on the plus side it does mean we get an uninhibited look at
the body, and that’s no bad thing. The outfits consist of moulded boots
that mimic the actual shape of the creatures anatomy, with vaguely
industrial/Art Nouveau stylings, then we have shin guards on leather
straps (these don’t look to actually offer much in the way of
protection, but hey they certainly add to his air of badassness), the
Falconer then also has some rather cool thigh armour, which again looks
about as effective as the shin guards in actually protecting the
wearer. Next up are their Tarzan like loin-cloths, which consist of a
moulded crocodile skin effect belt that hangs down at the front to
conceal their ‘ahem’ dignity. From the sides hang thigh panels to gird
their Predatorial loins the designs of these differ from one to the
other. There are also pleather flaps hanging down from the front of the
belt on the Berserker as well.
Over there left shoulders they wear an armoured pauldron that comes
down to partially cover the chest and back, its held in position by
leather straps and in the case of the Berserker has the plasma cannon
mounted on the shoulder part, while the Falconer has a small hole into
which the transparent ‘z’ shaped rod provided can be inserted. This is
to display the deployed mecha falcon on top of, to make it look like
it’s hovering above him. They even supply a small plastic plug that can
block the hole when the rod is removed.
The masks are the most notably different features between the two
outfits. The Falconers mask is permanently attached to the head and
brings to mind a cross between the ‘Dark Lord Sauron’s’ helmet
from ‘Lord of the Rings’ and a cattle plough on an old west locomotive…
well, for me anyway. The Berserkers is more visceral by the inclusion
of some unfortunate quarries jaw being fixed to its lower half, this
makes me think of a cross between evil Ash from Army of Darkness, the
medieval Kurgan from Highlander and even a little of the bad dude from
Willow thrown in for good measure! The remainder of his mask is however
much more simple, showing that the hero Pred in all the movies, be it
THE Predator in the original, Pred 2, Scar from AvP or the Cleaner from
AvP: R, the mask they all wear shares a common design aesthetic, with
the simple crescent dome and shield shape on the muzzle.
The final look makes you think that these super Preds might be bigger
and more brutal, but they also seem a little further back down the
evolutionary scale, succumbing even more to their base animal instincts
and entering a frenzy of bloodlust when the hunt is on.
So, even though they share a lot of common elements in this category,
there are also enough subtle differences to make them great shelf
companions.
Articulation
- ***1/2
These Preds look good, in
fact its fair to say the actual bodies are the most visually impressive
we have seen to date… but at a price. That price is sadly the
articulation. It’s far from dreadful, but in their attempt to make the
body as aesthetically pleasing and close to the source material as
possible, some liberties had to be taken with the articulation.
In the past we have had what basically constituted as a classic
True-Type but Predatorised up to the max. We had double knees, elbows
and articulation in the mid torso and waist.
But now we have elbows and knees that can still achieve a good 90
degree bend, ball jointed shoulders and hips, a moveable waist, peg
jointed wrists and a neck joint that is funnily enough really rather
excellent. That is pretty much it, so don’t expect the full impressive
range we have had before, but you can still get a great number of cool
poses with a little work.
The only area I would have dearly loved to see improved is at the
ankle. Predators are famous for their squatting and crouching stances
with some angry jazz hands
thrown in when they roar. But because the boot design goes up over the
ankle, all movement is in effect lost here. However, by working with
the hip and knee articulation you can still find a good few poses where
both feet manage to be flat on the ground.
Accessories
- Berserker ***1/2 Falconer ***1/4
In the past many Predators have come with a very impressive array of
goodies, think of the Wolf Predator with his cleaner kit, or the battle
damaged Pred from Predator 2 with his haul of extras even including an
ALIEN skull, however, this time around the Preds travel light, very
light. So whilst the Falconer in my humble opinion does
actually manage an ever so slight improvement over the Berserker in
terms of ‘true’ accessories, he then manages to claw it back with his
removable helmet!
One of my favourite accessories comes in the form of the Predator
skull; it’s a beautifully sculpted piece with some lovely observations
on the texturing and form, plus its all painted convincingly and well
put together, making for another great example to add to the growing
trophy collection if you’ve been buying all the Predator 2 releases so
far.
And then we have the late addition of the actual mech-falcon. Yep, when
he was first announced he wasn’t going to come equipped with the actual
falcon (an obvious omission given his name) but Hot Toys soon realized
the oversight and corrected it. The actual falcon sculpt is nicely
detailed, and even though it doesn’t have any articulated elements, it
looks very good when compared to the screen used prop like here.
But apart from the shared elements, those being: - the figure stand,
attachable wrist blades and extra fisted hands (which are a little
different as the Falconer wears a gauntlet and glove on his left lower
arm and hand), that is it.
The wrist blades are however quite cool, as they come in three
differing lengths to mimic the stages they extend to, they are also
made of some kind of light metal alloy, which allows for a super shiny
chrome finish.
Now the Berserker doesn’t do quite as well when it comes to his
‘actual’, ‘bona fide’ proper accessories. He doesn’t do terribly, but
he’s just not that well endowed in this department. Basically he gets a
nice bloodied skull and spinal column trophy (this is not a re-use of
the previous Pred 2 ones, but is an all new sculpt), some extra roaring
mandibles and I guess you could, if feeling generous include the
mask/helmet and plasma caster as accessories, even though they are more
intrinsic parts of his outfit. I did however have a slight problem with
the helmet on the Berserker, as have a few others, (Michael included)
in so much as the light up feature doesn’t function on mine. I cleaned
the battery, bought another battery futzed and took it out, put it in
the other way up, then tried it all again, but alas nothing! This is
definitely gonna have to count against him a little, but unlike the
Iron Man power suits for which the light up function is a deal breaker,
here its more of a nice little bonus. I think I’ve only lit up the
original Preds mask a handful of times, so although slightly miffed,
I’m far from heart broken. The Falconers light up function was however
working just fine and lights up brightly at the flick of a switch. I
found the mandibles swapped over easily and the mask attached to the
face well when he has the closed mandibles in position. The extra hands
also swapped over easily, there are some spare wrist pegs included, but
I’m pretty sure you wont be needing them (unless yours takes a shelf
dive). Lastly we get the two classic black figure stands. I got both
the figures to stand well and solidly, but they are a very hefty pair,
so if in doubt these may come in handy for those that like the figure
base look.
So that is essentially it, definitely not the strongest show in this
section, and a little weak when compared to what we are used to in this
category from Hot Toys Predators of the past. However, the addition of
those new bulked up super Pred base bodies, which seem to be made out
of expensive vinyl rather than the cheaper ABS plastic, must have added
quite a bit to production costs. So maybe the ‘accessories’ are the
section that has to suffer in the name of this new change.
Fun
Factor - *** 1/2
Anybody who owns a 1/6th Hot Toys Predator will tell you how cool they
are, and they will also let you know that your first will almost
certainly not be your last. They really are plastic crack and more
addictive than freebasing heroin on a rollercoaster… ahem, I would
imagine!
Both these new additions will certainly enhance your shelf display, and
the new aesthetic that Rodriguez has gone for means they stand out
strongly in their own right when placed with your Preds of the more
classic designs. Of course if you are a blinkered old school Pred fan
then this wont count for much, but whilst I still think Stan the mans
original creation is a monster design up there with the very best of
them, I can still look upon these very favourably, and though the
Rodriguez entry in the canon of Predator movies isn’t the very best,
it’s certainly very far from the worst as well, but anyone who has seen
AvP: Requiem will already know that!
Of course taking into account the price and fragile nature of some
parts of these figures it should be plane to all, but the brain dead or
seriously mega rich that these aren’t intended as children’s play
things. In fact little Johnny could have his eye out on those wrist
blades alone. However to any serious adult collectors (and lets face
it, they are about the only ones able to afford to feed this particular
addiction), then these will almost certainly give a large dollop of fun
to the enlightened!
Value
- ***
At the event this figure was JP¥ 18,000, which (based on the exchange
rate on 14/03/11) works out as $220, which is a lot of moolah! Of
course the economy in Japan is such that everything is more expensive
‘relatively’ than it is in the US, Europe or Hong Kong for that matter.
As a comparrison I looked up the price of the Prince of Persia: Dastan
figure which has an asking price of JP¥ 20,000 ($245) in
Japan compared to an RRP price of $170 in the US. So I guess the price
for Friend if he ever does make it to the west will be about $150 to
$160 per unit.
But right here, right now I’m basing it on the Tokyo price converted to
US dollars, which still seems a little steep.
Overall-
Falconer ***1/4 Berserker ***3/4
Ultimately Hot Toys hands were tied in that they weren’t permitted to
give us a head sculpt with the Falconer, however it does mean that the
Berserker manages to pull ahead when comparing overall, even when I
take into account the fact that his targeting laser didn’t work. The
fact of the matter is however, that when finally kitted up, posed and
displayed these two do look hugely impressive, and when Royce is put
next them the height difference makes them look pretty hulking. The
only thing missing now is the Tracker Predator, but with Hot Toys
recent announcement that he’s coming
soon, it means the trinity can once again be united, and the
three standing together will make for onehelluva display!
And
if they were to also give us the regular Predator we saw imprisoned in
the hunting camp as well, then I know for a fact that there would be a
whole bunch of very, very happy people indeed, its gotta be worth a
punt Hot Toys!
Where to buy
Sideshow did have both for $194.99 but he has now sold out, so its time
to get on their waitlist, or try some of the site sponsors below-.
Big
Bad Toy Store have both listed as in stock for
$189.99
Alter
Ego has the Falconer for $194.99.
Urban
Collector has the Berserker for £189.99 and the Falconer for
$184.99.
Fan
Boy has the Falconer for a very reasonable $179.99.
Alternatively
you can try
eBay where prices seem to be ranging from $150 right up to
$350 (well, you cant blame them for trying), so happy hunting.
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