JUNGLE HUNTER PREDATOR

I love Predator, more than the Alien serires in fact tough for some reason i have very little merchadise about the creature. For years i seen hundreds of Predator figures of all sizes and prices and yet i been happy with only two Hoy Toys figures, that are in fact more than perfect renditions of the monster. And yet....NECA is always there, tempting me until i finally fall into his 125 (and still growing) Predators collection.

I didnt wanted anything fancy or bizarre (like Alien), instead i chose the genesis of Predator, the Jungle Hunter from the very first movie on his "Ultimate" edition because the original is always the best and most well remebered. This guy is on scale with most of the basic action figures and can stand on his ownwith no problem thanks to his flat feet (they kinda looks like shoes) and he is basically a head taller than the human figures.

He is articulated on the head, whoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knes and ankles toigh is is not as movable as i was expecting....most of his articulations works great but the head, chest and waist are just cut articulations, they move left and rigth but not up and down, soo he cant tilt his head at all of crouch. I am surprised NECA give him such basic movement for this scale.

Also, it seems the shoulder ball joints have paint on it soo the paint got dry and dont let me move the shoulders at all. I can move the arms up and down but i cant open his arms. I try to use some oil to lose them but they are 100% stuck and each time i try to apply forse, i feel like i am going to broke his elbows instead.

But aside of this odd issue, this guy have literally cables conected to his shoulder pad soo that prevent the movement as well. He also have a cable conecting between his wrist band and shoulder pad and each time i move his elbow i must be extremelly carefull not to broke this thin plastic cable. Is odd a character that is almost nude have problems like this because the Hot Toys figures have exactly the same issues...

The articulations are not as good as i was expecting but still is not difficult to give him some pretty natural poses and the sculpt is really fantastic. His body is cast on semi transluscent plastic with a rugged texture that catch the light nicelly and looks weirdlly natural...not human but not remptilian at all. Also the net thingy over his body and all the mechanical parts on his armour have pretty intrincated sculpting.

The paint is really good as well, no issue here since the dark patterns ons his skin is consistent and the silver  paint on the arour matches perfectly. Some of the black paint on the net pattern is not on the net actually, but thats pretty difficult to notice.

The clothing on his waist, the metal pads on his legs and shoulder as well as the quills on his head are made with soft plastic. The quills tough are not as soft as the Hot Toys version soo they are kinda stiff. Another soft plastic section are the blades on his wrist. They come out from his device pretty easy and are extra soft tough looks convincing enough. Also his ornaments - the collar made of little bones and the bones and skulls around his torso - are made with soft plastic and looks resistant enough to play with them.

He is loaded with accesoryes. First he have an extra pair of open hands that looks pretty good and are easy to swap....almost, since the wrists blades demands extra carefullnes while changing the hand.He also have an extra mask exactly as the one on his face, soo you can posing him holding it or removing it and also have an extra head with no mask.

The face with no mask is spectacular. Nicelly sculpted but with an amazing paint job, i love his yellow tiny eyes in the black sockets and the pink on the inside of his mouth looks fantastic. I just wish they added an extra piece for an open mouth expression.

He also have a big back pack that fits on his back nicelly with the help of two pegs. Its easy to install and uninstall tough it restrict his head movement, the sculpt is really complex and it have a laser gun on top. The laser have an articulated arm as well as a ball jointed head to point to any direction.

There is also an effect piece for the laser, a blue and white transluscent thingy that goes on the mouth of the laser but sadly, the articulated arm on the weapon make it fall over and over again thanks to the extra weigth of the effect. Now i wonder why they added an articulated arm to the laser? Is of no use and only prevents a good display of the shooting effect. I ended kind of fixing it by adding a little piece of wood on the articulation of the laser soo it stay stuck but i am really tempted to use glue as well.

Lastly, he have a couple of skulls, one with a spinal cord and one without it. But looks creppy to looks realistic and crude at this scale tougth they are clean of any blood and gore unlike the Hot Toys version. Predator can hold the basic skull on his hands pretty easy, but make him hold the spinal cord one is really difficult since his hands are made of hard plastic and i struggled to not brike his fingers or the spinal cord.

Overall, i have some issues here and there, like the stuck articulations, the difficult to put some accesoryes and the lousy laser but is unffair to compare this with Hot Toys and given how cheap was this guy, i think he is really good and looks really fantastic on the shelf. I am not very excited to keep buying Predators tough, i think this represent the character pretty good as it is tough i am tempted to buy the Xeno from the first Alien movie.

BERSERKER PREDATOR

Originally i only planed toget one single Predator, since i saw soo many of this guys and most of them looks really amazing, i didnt wanted to fill my room with Predators. But destiny wanted something else… it wanted me to meet a guy who wanted to get rid of one of his figures… the poor predator was dusty and had his “leather” leash on his armour broke, soo this guy wanted 100$ for his Berserker Predator.

100$ is not cheap, but things change when you notice the real price of this guy back in the day and the price he boast now day. I could not rests since this figures are pretty rare here in my country and eded getting him, cleaning him and adding glue to his armour and he is as good as new for half his real price!!

 Aside of that, the Berserker Predator was the most unique design from the Predators movie and given his price, i never consider getting him at all. Hot Toys did a great job with him tough he have a couple of flaws that make it obvious how really old is he.

He is big. BIG. Huge and i think he is the tallest figure i actually have. He is bigger than the Gecco statues and he is pretty heavy. He can stand on his own perfectly tough he still comes with the standar Hot Toys base (wich is kinda useless given how big this guy is). The scale is a problem tough since it seems this guy is supposed to be taller than the “standar” Predators, but he have the same scale as the City Hunter Predator. I think 6 years ago many people complaigned about it to Hot Toys and is understandable since scale is one of the most basic issues when you have a full collection of characters already stablished like Hot Toys have.

I am up to ignore the scale tough.

His articulations are fantastic and strong and since he dosnt have the fish-net outfit of the City Hunter Predator and his armour is pretty light (he is almost nude), his arms and legs can move freelly around as much as we want. Out of all the Hot Toys i have, he is the one with best articulations along side Batman.

His armour have a cooper like texture and color, and while its design helps to the articulations, the whole thing keeps in place thanks to the leather straps. This makes it really delicate actually, since you can hold him from the torax and remove one of the straps by accident. I can see why he didnt ahd the straps in place when i bought him.

I have to say his boots are hilarious and pretty damn cute since i never saw a Predator wearing shoes.

The real threat are his quills and his body. His quills are fantastic looking and have a disturbing and real texture, they give a lot of life to his silhouette and the red tips make him totally different looking than the City Hunter Predator (or the rest of the predators actually).

His body have extremelly sexy shapes (those pecs!!!) and the reptile texture is really amazing. The other Predators have a skin with a “meaty” texture… not human but not really animal either. This guy here is just a big lizard, full of scales with a natural and detailed pattern and theres not a single mistake on the paint in here. The red marks are vibrant and the ones on his chest looks almost iridescent.

He comes with his BioMask that can be plugged to his back and with the push of a button, turn on his laser sight thanks to a LED on his helmet. The light is actually pretty soft but is a nice little extra (this is way i didnt take pictures). The mask have the coolest design with the lower jaw bone as a trophy, that makes him looks really savage.

But here comes the only issue i have with him. Unlike the Cuty Hunter Predator, the BioMask dosnt comes with a lower mandibles portion to fit inside the “madibles hole”. Instead the mask is only placed over his face and thats it…is supposed to fit and stay in, but in reallity it keeps falling over and over again even if i dont touch him.

This is an extremelly lazy design for such an expensive and high end product. But this is a pretty old figure as well soo i guess Hot Toys was still experimenting back then. I am glad the most rescent Predators have this detail fixed.

Details on his armour includes the plasma cannon on his shoulder that can be removed and have an articulated arm to move around (The barrel also rolls perfectly) and the detonator on his arm wich is revealed after opening the small door near his hand. This is actually not a detonator at all, since it dosnt have a screen to how th show the cowntdown, but instead i think this is the manual control of the Predators ship.

Once the mask is removed (wich is extremelly easy) his revealed face is really good looking. His forehead is bright red and looks almost painfull, since it seems his head is bursting open. He dosnt have the green radioactive eyes of the other Predators, but instead he have yellow pupils with the resy of the eye in blood red deliniated by a black shadow under them, he is really demonic looking.

The sculpt of his interlocked mandibles is really nice and sharp too and this sections can be removed and exchanged for the open mandibles segments. His look is amazing, he looks even more frighting and evil, tough i have to say, Hot Toys didnt manage to nail the perfect look in here. In the movie, his lower jaw is pretty elongated and looks almost insectoid, in here, the mandibles are a little too short and make him looks less repulsive.

Is weird that Hot Toys miss this kind of details, tough the result is not as unerving and sad as The Boss.

He also comes with a short blade on his gauntlet. This shirt blade can be removed and exchanged for a medium size blade and a long sized blade for real combat. This blades are all made of real metall and are pretty sharp.

He also comes with this (pretty usefull) extra hands and a skull trophy. This trophy was the biggest disapointment of the package since is pretty much the same it comes with the City Hunter Predator, soo now i have two bloody skulls that looks exactly the same. Really? Hot Toys? More than 100$ for your toys and you rescicle accesoryes?

And thats all he have. Out of all the Hot Toys i have, he is the one with less accesoryes and extras, but it makes sence since he dosnt used any tool or trick in the film, after all, it seems he only have his cannon and his blade and i am actually glad they didnt add a lot of useless shit since every accesory of him looks good on the display.

Even if his face is not 100% accurate and he is supposed to be taller, i am pretty happy with him and how he looks on display with the City Hunter Predator. Get this guys is really adictive!! I am now pretty damn tempted to get the Tracker Predator with his hound or the Elder Predator.

CITY HUNTER PREDATOR

For years i saw this guys at store and always wanted one of them or a Sideshow statue. The Predator is one of my favorite characters and movies and seen all the amazing figures they produce of him made my mouth drool.

After looking at almost all of them and see theyr prices…i finally decide for this guy: Hot Toys City Hunter Predator from Predator 2.

I wanted the classic one from the first movie but is pretty rare and expensive for now. They other guys from Predators are pretty good looking but they cant have theyr mask removed of they dont have many accesoryes and are pretty expensive. This guy had a pretty descent price and is loaded with more accesoryes than the rest and also, being the main antagonist of the Predator 2 movie, he is pretty close to the classic design.

I had a lot of troubles taking a photo of the box since its pretty damn dark and it have the text made with red shiny foil. I wasnt able to take a descent image of it but the box is pretty elegant and damn ominous with the masked figure in the shadows and the main title shining in a violent red.

He comes with the standar Hot Toys base with his name and logo but this time the base is pretty useless because he is HUGE!! While the other rigures “sit” in the support, hes really way to big for it and need to stand on his own most of the time. Gladlly, his gigantic feet make him stand pretty nicelly without the base help.

His skin looks….weet and organic wough he dosnt have the hairs in between his abs he shows on the movie. The armour is brown, unlike the classic predator, and have a pretty intrincate design with some greenish rust here and there.

He have this big claws/razor blades on one of his gautlets and they are made with actuall metal! They shine and they cat cut skin as well. While this blades are pretty amazing looking, they cant be removed soo he have a lot of problems moving his wrist thanks to them. I also cut my self a lot of times triying to change his hand.

He also have a “bones bag” that hangs on his left side (to store medicines or maybe small trophys?)  and on the back side he have this small metalic box that can be removed and be opened. Inside theres all the medical tools he uses to operate his severed arm and injuries. This tools cant be removed but are an amazing detail and shows how obsesive are Hot Toys to make this toys.

His left arm gauntlet can be opened and show the self destruct system he uses in the movie. He also have a left hand designed to push those little buttons.

The next accesory is a mask. I dont know why a mask but i watched the movie again to find out and he use it when they shot him with a shotgun. Maybe the mask is some kind of anestesic device? It dosnt sound as a good idea use anestecic while in the middle of a hunt but the cord can be attached to his back (wich make it even more strange. and as an odd feature, he have a second mask that can be placed on his hand. Why did they produce two masks instead of one? I really dont know…it seems like a waste of material for me.

On his left leg he have a net shooter. He can introduce his fingers of one of his extra hands inside and is supposed to shot a metalic net to his prey. Sadly theres no net in here.

On his right leg he have this articulated disc holder with a deadly disc on it. This disc was used on the movie to cut his right arm and is also the weapon Harrigan uses to kill him in the final battle. The disc can be separated a little bit soo his fingers can fit inside the little goles and is one of the best accesoryes he have.

On his left shoulder he have a laser gun wich is smaller than the Classic Predator one. The laser gun is pretty small bus is pretty articulated and can look and tilt at any direction. It can also be placed behind his back when is not used in battle.

He also have an extra left arm. A severed left arm when Harrigan use the disc to cut him and make him fall into the skycraper. The severed arm is pretty gruesome and the blood have a green radioactive shine on it. I am deffinetly not displaying him like this.

Theres also this odd looking machine that looks like a small relic, all rusty and full of grey liquid with two robotic looking points at each side. This thing looks pretty archaic and also have an art deco feel on it. But once you open it, is also a spear. The points open in both ends and grow into a spear as big as the predator. The design is pretty amazing and the pointy parts are pretty sharp…

He would not be a good hunter if he didnt had a trophy too. A skull with an spine attached to it, all bloody and with meat hanging from the bones this is the best accesory he have in my opinion.

Aside of all those items and the extra hands he have, i must mention his mask. Not the gas mask but the actual full mask he use. Its pretty dark and grim looking and fit perfectly on his face but it also have cords with an electric system that can be attached to his back. And with the push of a little button, led lights turns on on the left side of his mask.

The light is not pretty strong but is a pretty cool detail.

He have two extra mandibles that can be attached to hise faces withot any of the mask. A pair of mandibles to give him a serious look and a pair to display him roaring/screaming. I am glad they do this instead of him him extra heads and both madibles have a pretty amazing sculpt.

The inside of the mouth looks weet and meaty and the colors on his skin looks pretty organic. Almost like a natural camouflage. Theres blacknes around his eyes and his eye balls are radioactive green wich gives him  apretty evil and malevolent look.

His quills are made of ruber material and flows extremelly good around his head. The quills have an amazing movement and texture but i am afraid is gonna be a pain in the ass cleanin them from the dust.

Just like all Hot Toys figures, his articulations are good (not great) but are hidnered by his outfit. He is nude, you say, but the armour pads on his shoulders prevent his arms to move too much and the net covering his body dosnt let him move his legs too much. Its really a shame that such a big and expensive toy have this articulation problems but all Hot Toys products are the same soo i was expecting it.

As final comment i should add hes on perfect scale with other Hot Toys. He is a couple of inches taller than Snake, Chris and the Resident Evil girls and i am glad HT dont have scale issues like Square Enix have with theyr Play Arts Kai.

The articulations are a shame but aside of that i am pretty damn happy with this guy. Is a pretty impresive Predator and…makes me….want…to buy…more of his brothers…..