Terminator: Salvation
When I heard about another Terminator film being done I was apprehensive. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines wasn’t worthy of the the series, which started with the original in 1984 and continued with Judgement Day in 1991. Considering how director James Cameron pushed the envelope on both of those movies in terms of action, drama, and special effects, the third installment was a poor substitute. I mean why would Skynet go from a hulk like Arnold, to a bad-ass metamorph like Robert Patrick, to a crappy girl Terminator who can remote control cars? I fail to see the logic in that progression.
Likewise, while I watch Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, it’s not wowing me. All melodrama, very little action, and if you watch The Big Bang Theory, you’re probably familiar with Sheldon and Leonard’s debate about Summer Glau’s character. “T-800 > T-1000 > Nubile Teenage Killer Robot” does not really compute. Hmm… Nubile Teenage Killer Robot. NTKR? The only thing the series really has going for it are Glau, Headey, and Jacobsen. And their hotness is overpowered by the suck of that 90210 guy and Shirley Manson.
In addition to the crappy stuff that the franchise has been putting out, Hollywood decided to put the cleverly named “McG” at the helm of the fourth film in the series. While I will admit that I thouroughly enjoyed the Charlie’s Angels movies, the annoucement painted pictures of Brett Ratner’s X-men. Could this guy who’s known for his fun-filled comedies give something so dark as a Terminator movie? Could he keep it straight and give us something that didn’t result in a Dis Continuity and make us want to ret con the entire story out of canon?
Well the answer is “yes”. While Salvation is by no means a Terminator 2, “McG” reins in his funny bone and gives us something that sounds and looks like it belongs in the franchise. It has the action that you’ve come to expect from one of these flicks and a few nods to the films that came before. The atmosphere of 2018 Earth is appropriately dark, dirty, and filled with nasty robots waiting to crush pink, squishy humans.
The best part about part 4 of the series is that we finally get a look at the post-Judgement Day Earth. Pos-apocalyptic landscapes make for damned entertaining movies. Judge Dredd, Twelve Monkeys, The Road Warrior, the entire zombie genre. They’re are alot of them in my collection that I enjoy watching. Ever seen Red Dawn? Patrick Swayze as a resistance commando. Ever seen Steel Dawn? Patrick Swayze as a desert road warrior, with swords. Dirty Dancing? Patrick Swayze as a dance instructor in a post-apocalyptic Catskills Mountain Resort.
The man is a CHAMELEON!
But I digress. We only ever got to see the the scorched Earth in little flashbacks and dream sequences, so getting a look at how the people of the Terminator future-verse live is pretty cool. It’s sort of like a low-tech Matrix setting. You’ll see alot of wrecked cars and rubble. Smoke, and fire. Dust. Debris. Skulls being stepped on. Robots being smashed. The usual.
We also get a few new Terminator models. By now you’ve probably seen the trailer and seen the different Hunter/Killer models. There’s a cool new gimick for a bunch of them where they “volt-in” for easy transport. Or more like those Russian Matryoshka dolls; big one, little one, litter one.
We also get a look at some of the older models, before Cyberdyne got it’s fingers into cybernetics. The T-600 looks kind of silly with it’s little bandana and torn coat, but the T-800 still rocks. There is also a new Terminator infiltrator, but if I go too much into it people will start screaming SPOILER! Honestly, the twist isn’t that much of a shock as McG and friends aren’t making Dark City or Soylent Green here.
My favorite by far is the new road Hunter/Killer. I think Ducati had something to do with it’s construction, which is why it looks so great, but the real reason I like it is due to a nice little nod to T2. Connor sets up a trap for one of them by turning up an old school boom box playing “You Could Be Mine” by Guns ‘n’ Roses. This is almost as cool as Karl Urban calling Spock a “Green-blooded Hobgoblin”
Speaking of Star Trek, I think Abrams successful relaunch of a franchise has left me spoiled. Though T4 is a fun romp, there are parts where it drags. It’s mostly parts where they need to develop character, blah blah blah, but I would have preferred some extended guerilla fighting since the writing isn’t all that great.
What action scenes there are are fun though, and the effects team seems to know what they’re doing. There aren’t any cheesy frame animated sequences here. According to “McG”, he wanted a real actor or animatronic on stage with the actors as much as possible which really does get a much nicer result.
Casting is another thing that is pretty good. Bale is a good Connor, though I think he may be channeling a little to much Dark Knight leftovers. There are times when he starts using that weird voice and your totally taking out of the picture. I like Sam Worthington’s Marcus. Though he’s a new character, you really begin to cheer for him more and more as the story progresses. Helena Bonham Carter is pretty good as a Cyberdyne doctor early on in the film, and she looks great as when she reappears as one of the bad guys.
The standout is Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese. I swear as soon as he came on screen and opened his mouth I could just see him as a young Michael Biehn. Having just seen him as Chekov in Star Trek made it twice as nice. I really want to see more of this guy.
Another person I want to see more of is Moon Bloodgood. “McG” sure knows how to pick his eye candy. She is like a hotter, taller version of Kristin Kreuk, but she knows how to act. And despite being in full flight gear for most of the picture, she still looks unbeliably sexy. Here’s hoping that topless scene is featured as an extra when the 2 disc set comes along!
I was hoping to see more from Bryce Dallas Howard as Connor’s girlfriend (wife?). I think it’s a nod to the third movie since I remember there were lines in there that said that he had a wife who fought with him. Howard is a welcome improvement over Claire Danes, but she really doesn’t have all that much to do other than look worried.
Which brings me the real reason that this isn’t a great movie. It feels more like an introduction to a new trilogy. You know the old tag line, “the beginning of the end”? Well this is it. It feels like we’re watching a TV pilot with a big budget rather than a stand alone movie. It doesn’t help that the lame ending tries to milk a few tears out of the audience by giving us a half-assed redux of Arnold’s sacrifice at the end of T2.
I’m really hoping that it does well enough to give us a few more.
Yoko (Movie Version)
What’s better than one redhead in a bikini and hot pants? Two redheads in bikinis and hot pants with really big guns!
Having already bought the TV Version of Yoko, I couldn’t resist getting the second, more “mature” Kaiyodo release. Apparently, this version is supposed to be Yoko after several years. She’s grown into her role (whatever that is - I really need to watch this series) and filled out her - ahem. Well, you know. Just look at the pics.
Now if you bought the first one, you might ask, “why buy a second figure?”. Well when you get right down to it, you shouldn’t. At p1,300.00, these toys aren’t cheap. You can get a Leader Class Transformer figure at Toy Kingdom for around that much and they’re a heck of a lot bigger than either of these two. For that matter, you could probably invest that money somewhere else. In fact, stop reading this review and go to a bank. It’s too late for us. Save yourself.
However, if you’re still reading, there are 3 people who should be getting this. If you’re a lonely geek who enjoys having plastic representations of fantasy females adorning his shelf (raises hand), then yes, you should fork over the grand to get this thing, even if you have already bought the first one. If you’re an old collector who knows how to unload unwanted figures, then you can also get this one, keep the parts you want and sell the other figure cheap. It’s actually a better buy than the first release because it has better paint applications, more accessories, and bigger - ahem. Well, look at the pictures.
The best of the new accessories is the new guns. No not the above guns. The actual, bullet firing kinds. In addition to the sniper rifle, she also has a nice new pistol that fits right into her right hand. It’s a little loose, but that just means that it’s easier to slip in and out. A good thing because her trigger hand looks really delicate. You’re going to want to be real careful not to lose parts from these guys. I keep all my small Revoltech parts in 35mm film canisters so they don’t get lost.
The second new weapon is an assault rifle. It looks like it’s the main body of her rifle broken down, but it looks lethal. I really like this one and it’s normally the one I display her with.
In addition to her two new guns, Kaiyodo included a slightly darker version of her sniper rifle. It’s the same mold, so you can have one of the Yokos hold both if you wanted and really have a kick-ass heroine blowing holes in your robots.
She also comes with a pair of chopsticks.
Say what? Yeah. Y’know how her hair is held up by those two yellow sticks? well she has a pair of them and extra hands so she can use them as weapons. Too cool.
And as is apparent from the pictures, she also comes with extra hair, molded to look as if she’s let it down for the day. It’s a very nice include and differentiates it a lot from the first one. And she still has the pony tail from the first figure as well, so you’re getting two in one basically.
Overall, I’d say this figure is well worth the p1,300.00. It’s a very well made figure, with several nice add-ins to give you plenty of display options. If you haven’t bought the first one, then I’d suggest you mosey on over to WasabiToys, or GreatToys and pick one up ASAP. They’re not going to last very long.
Revoltech Yoko
I don’t buy very many anime figures. Mostly because I’m not a fan of a lot of the TV series these toys are often based on. Japanese storytelling sensibilities are the complete opposite of Western storytelling, and as a kid who spent most of his Elementary school days in the library, wading through aliterations to Japanese mytho-historical figures can be tedious. Compound that with either overly exuberant fan-subs with often vague allusions to Japanese pop-culture or barely intelligible translations from Chinese pirates who downloaded the mpeg from a Pakistani, who copied it from some Russian who recieved it via email from his Pinoy Multiply contact, who got it through torrent from some geek in his basement in Arkansas who burned it from the original courtesy of a Japanese friend.
It’s just too much trouble.
So the only time you’ll see me in Greenhills picking up Japanese toys is when there is a high concentration of what scientists call “bewbage”. The Fräulein Revoltech Yoko figure from “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann” definitely has a high ration of this wonderful natural resource. Ask me about this Anime series and I will look at you blankly, an perhaps drool. All I know is that it has a girl with red hair and a big gun running around in cowboy boots, hot pants and a bikini top. Who cares about the rest?
The figure comes in the standard Revoltech box. It’s white, rectangular, with pretty pictures. It does what a box is supposed to do. The figure is housed in nice plastic tray that is taped shut. No twisties, no annoying excess plastic over arms which you need to cut through. You just open the cover and lift out the figure. All the parts are either held on the tray, or in back of it in small plastic bags. It’s very collector friendly, though if you’re not careful, the small parts may bounce out and disappear.
Speaking of accesories, she’s got a few. The best part are the extra hands. I’m a big supporter of extra hands and think all toys for kids over a certain age should have them. Toybiz experimented with hand articulation back in the day with their Marvel Legends line, but it wasn’t really that effective, especially with the smaller figures. You got all kinds of weird ones and you could never get them to make either a proper fist, or a proper open gesture. Yoko’s got quite a few in different gestures, from open palms, to relaxed, to a peace sign (one of those allusions to Japanese pop-culture that aggravate me so).
She also comes with an extra head… and extra bangs. What? yeah. She’s got an extra hair piece that goes in front of her face; one with glasses, one without. The two heads mean you can choose which figure you want to display, either Cute-as-a-button Yoko, or Gonna-kick-your-heinie-into-next-Tuesday Yoko. Both are a nice touch and the system for changing them is more effective than the Figma line’s method of changing parts. You basically pull off the head, remove the hair (front and back pieces sandwich the face) and Revoltech neck joint, and then place the parts on the new head and put it back on the neck. Sort of like one of them 3-D puzzles.
The last accessory she comes with is the BFG.The thing is taller than she is if you stand it up. You can just imagine the cartridge that this sonofabitch uses. As in WHAMMO! and you’ve got a hole in your tank (or ginormous robot, as the case may be). In any sensible universe, a little girl like this could not hold this thing up, let alone take the recoul, but this is anime, son. Where all girls are blessed with hour-glass figures, technicolor hair, dinner plate eyes, and a penchant for wearing beachwear in public.
The gun is very delicate, which is a drawback. I can’t fault the manufacturer’s though, since it looks like this was the way the show’s creators designed it, but you’re going to want to be extra careful handling it and storing it. Both the bolt handle and the gun mount are supported/attached by very very thin pieces of plastic. If you’re careless with either, they’ll snap and you’re gonna have a tough time getting them back on. The mount is actually detachable (there are two, on folded, one extended), but it’s so hard to remove from the fragile barrel, that you might want to think twice before doing so.
The extended gun mount does allow her to take a sniper position though. With a little work, you can even have her lying down with it, just like a real commando. Let’s see your puny 1/18th G.I. Joes do that, Hasbro! If you have a desert diorama and some large mecha models scattered around, she’d make a great addition to it. Though I’d imagine she’d be a bit out of scale.
The only real drawback with Fraulein Revoltech figures is the line’s main draw, the articulation. The line boast of it’s “Revolver” joints which are great. They allow a good range of motion and are racheted so that you can have your figures pose in some nice stances, but there are some things that detract from it. For one thing, Revoltech figures are infamous for becoming loose really fast. I have several and in a about a week you’ll notice the joints don’t hold as well. Since some joints (like the elbow) don’t have alot of room to support a Revolver joint, they’re stuck with a more basic peg. These get loose even faster than the ratcheted ones. There are supposed to be pliers that are specially made to adjust these joints, but I’ve yet to see one, and considering it’d be imported, I’m thinking it would be expensive.
Despite that, I think the Revoltech line is one of the best ones out there right now. Price is a little steep (they run about p1,200-p1,500 normally, depending on the figure’s popularity), but they’re high-quality, imported figures. It’s expected that they’d be more expensive than your average Hasbro toy. If you want to collect something with a little variety, or want some female toys to spice up the sausage fest you’ve got going on your shelf, these Frauleins aren’t a bad way to go.
They’re really fun to look at, too.
Aerial Rivals & Team Leaders
Here’s another review of another Target exclusive boxset, the Transformers Universe Legends Class 5-Packs; Aerial Rivals and Special Team Leaders.
For those of you who aren’t giant Transformer geeks, Hasbro started classifying their Transformer toys by complexity, size and price when the Cybertron line came out. They had classes before then (back in G1 days it was limited to the small, medium, and not-so-large bots), but since 2005’s toys, they’ve been pretty standardized. They had the “Legend” at $3, “Scout” at $7, “Deluxe” at $10, “Voyager” at $20, “Ultra” at $25, “Leader” at $35, and “Supreme” at $45 (values are approximate and vary quite alot).
Don’t ask my why they chose those designations; they don’t make any sense to me. Frankly, it would have made alot more sense to call them something that would refer to their size. Instead of “Supreme” call him “Ginormous”. “Humongo”. “Pequeño”, “Medianamente”, and “Grande” would have been good.
“I’m looking for the Pequeño Bumblebee…”
See?
Anyway, here in the PI, Legends Class Transformers go for about p300 now. Thanks to the 50% sale of the line, we can pick up these cute little buggers in single cards for just p150 a pop. Even better, if you choose to buy these two boxsets, you can get it for only p600, just p120 each! Normally I’d say “YEAH! GO GO GO!” if I heard this (though it would take me some time to run the numbers - math is my Kryptonite). But in this case I’d say “STOP!”
You counted the number of figures and divided the price among them, but did you count the number of GOOD figures? Sadly, I only like 2. Ramjet and Thrust are great little figures. While they don’t look anything like their G1 counterparts, the Coneheads, they still look as if they can kick som Autobot tailpipe.
If you have a Cybertron Starscream, or the Voyager Dirge from the Target Exclusive 2-Pack, then you know what these two do. Transformation and features are virtually the same, just smaller. Both have the pop out weapons (without the Cybertron key) and a great simplified transformation scheme. They’ve also got really great leg and foot articulation that allows them to really pose.
And that’s it. Those are really the only bots I’d recommend from both these sets. You can ignore the rest of Thrust and Ramet’s batch. Blades is virtually a statue with almost no useful articulation and Skydive is annoying as hell with clown feet and his useless shield piece that doesn’t know where to go. Air Raid while better than those two still has problems. He stays true to the original Cybertron Jetfire mold, but the small scale means he can’t bend at the knees unless you move his boots into odd positions.
The other set, called the “Special Team Leaders” because it features the names of team captains from various combiner teams in G1, fares even worse. It’s hard to believe that a cool character like Scattershot (and G1 toy by the way) becomes a repaint of the Vector Prime. It looks nice enough, but his lack of articulation means fail. Hot Zone looks ok in robot mode (still no joints), but if you transform him, he’s a truck with a huge bed trailer with nothing on it. You’d think they’d give him a ladder. No such luck. Silverbolt looks nothing like the concorde he used to be. Now he’s just another of the Aerialbots. His vehicle mode looks ok, plus he’s got a gun in robot mode, but he doesn’t look like a “Leader” at all.
Razor Claw and Hun-Gurrr fare the worst. Both are robot/animal transformers so in a bigger form, they would have a lot more parts to move around to make each of the forms look passable. With this little canvas though, both of their forms look half-assed, with bend-me-over-and-your-done changes.
Really, there is a reason these are the last of the Transformers on sale to go. Despite getting 5 toys for only p600, none of them are must haves, or even kinda wants. If you’re a completist, or if you want some bots to fill the spaces on your shelves, okay buy. If you’re looking for quality toys, or if your looking for a gift for some kid, there are far better things to get than these poorly done figures.
Springer vs. Ratbat
There’s this blogger that makes a living off being online. Alot of people say this must be a dream job, just sitting back, writing about shit, going places, meeting people, but the reality is, he puts a hell of a lot of work into marketing himself online. The dude needs to be everywhere and needs to maintain an online presence at all times. He is a member of every social network out there and quite a few forum boards in related hobbies. He has an email list, micro-blogging accounts, and contacts up the wazoo. All of this he has to keep track of and keep updated so that traffic to his blog is constant.
Hasbro is a lot like that. Toy molds cost money. Lots of it. They want to make the most of any one mold. Repaints is one way of doing that, but there are others as well. One would be re-issues. Another is the “exclusive” release. The one I particularly enjoy is the boxset.
Whenever a big toy company releases a boxset it usually means two or more figures that were hard to find or discontinued are being reissued again with new paints. That is exactly the case with this one. “Battle Beneath the Streets” as it says on the box, contains two robots, one Voyager and one Deluxe. Though I don’t think you’re saving any money at retail (I think they went for p2000 when they came out), they’re now avaible at p1000 thanks to these recent overstock sales on Transformers. This is great seeing as this product was a Target exclusive in the states; us Pinoys can pretty much find them with no trouble.
The two robots included are Springer and Ratbat. Springer is a repaint of the Cybertron Voyager Evac. I like the green better than the blue gray, white and orange of the original. If you prefer red, Evac was re-done and sold a second time in the Movie line, but seeing as toy goes for p1000 as well, this set is a better buy. Ratbat is a repaint of Cybertron Sideways, which again had a weird color combination. I was absent during the Cybertron days so I have no idea why they all look like jeepneys.
In the G1 continuity, Springer was a triple-changer. He could turn from car to robot to helicopter. Each of those forms was easily termed as “bad-ass”. In the animated movie, he had a pretty big role and some of the coolest sequences. The original toy, like most of the G1 figures, was pretty boring. Alot of sacrifices had to be made in order to give hime 3 forms, and he looked nothing like the cool bot on screen.
Thought this rendition is a good toy, it isn’t much of a Springer. His one alt mode is a rescue choper. Frankly, it looks pretty sissy next to the old futuristic copter. There aren’t any guns, instead, he has working “winch weapon”. What does a “winch weapon” do, pray tell?
The toys is pretty good though if you’re not as biased as I am. Looking at it from a kids perspective, you gotta love it. Not only does the winch work (you press the button and it zips right back), there’s also a second gimmick where you press a button and the rotors sping. I played with it for an hour making helicopter sounds and strafing bystanders. Very cool.
Ratbat is much better in my opinion. Although he’s even less like his G1 counterpart than Springer is (he used to be a bat with a rat head - duh), he went up on the bad ass meter. The Sideways mold really looks good in old RB’s colors. I’m telling you, purple and black. You can never go wrong if you paint a villian in purple and black.
He’s sort of a weird jet. It’s not that odd kind of cybertronian “jet” that Bay tried to force down our throats when he gave us Megatron. This is more recognizable as a spacecraft. The transformation to the vehicle is pretty good and everything fits together nicely.
In their robot modes, their even better. Springer still doesn’t quite live up to the old days, but at least he has the rotorblades as a secondary weapon. He’s got alot of useful articulation too. His winch still works, if you want to play at him lassoing Decepticons.
But I still think Ratbat is the better of the pair. He’s alot more articulated, since his smaller size allows the use of ball joints and his weapons (wing-blades and an something that looks like an energon bow caster) are more menacing. Really, with all the joints on him, he’s like a Decepticon ninja. Plus he has some really good light-piping for that evil eye action.
There is also a Cybertron Key gimmick. I’ll just say that you stick the key in and stuff pops out. It’s not really something that wows me. I pretty much just leave them one way or the other.
Overall, the set really is worth it, especially if your on a budget. If you’re looking for a gift for a godson, this is the thing. Hell, if it’s a goddaughter, give her one anyway. Lord knows Barbies are boring as shit.
If you're looking for biased, one-sided views of toys and other assorted geekery, then you're in the right place. If you want objective, you'll need a blog written by someone who isn't an obsessive geek.
These are my views on various toys, movies, places, and things, along with assorted pictures and the the occasional link to stuff I find sufficiently geeky.
Enjoy your stay and leave a comment.
Slangards
I may give you a half-way serious answer.
