Review of John Connor, T-600 sixth scale action figures
Terminator: Salvation

Introduction

I have a dirty little secret to share - I haven't seen Terminator: Salvation. Yes, I know, but there were so many big movies hitting all at the same time this year, that this one fell through the cracks, and is going to end up on the rental list. Hey, I'll miss out on that terrific cinema experience, but I think I can live without that and enjoy it just as well at home.

Of course, that makes it a little tougher to truly appreciate the current releases from Hot Toys with their Terminator: Salvation series of figures, but not impossible. I've already reviewed the T-700 and the T-700 Diorama, and tonight I'm checking out the Sideshow exclusive T-600 and the first John Connor. I say first, because Hot Toys has already announced a 'final battle' version as well, complete with bloody injuries and extra Hydrobot. Don't be shocked if a Sideshow exclusive version of that one pops up too.

There's also another T-600 coming with weathered skin, and Sideshow has an exclusive edition of that one as well, this time with an extra skin 'face'. And of course, Marcus Wright is coming out any day now.  Hot Toys also currently has a poll up at their website asking what you'd like to see next in the Terminator line (with most folks hoping for an Arnold T-800), so it doesn't look like we've seen the end of this line.

These are Hot Toys, so 'cheap' isn't a word you'll ever hear uttered, but this two run anywhere from $140 - $180 or so, and as you might imagine it's very dependent on the retailer. As always, I have some excellent suggestions in my Where to Buy section.

Packaging - ****
You'll note that I skipped the packaged photo this time, although I do really like what they've done. I wanted to include more photos of the figures though, and you can see what it looks like (albeit with slightly different sleeve graphics) in the T-700 diorama review I did.

The outer sleeve has shots of either John or the T-600, and it only half covers the very cool Styrofoam box. The box is in two halves, and is formed to appear as machinery, like something right out of the film. The sharply cut formations also spell out both the name of the movie and the character inside.

The sleeve slides off, and inside are all the various parts and pieces, held in place with plastic liners. It's all quite collector friendly, since you won't need to damage anything to get them out, but you may find other reasons not to put them back in their foam coffins. More on that later.

There are a few pieces of round tape that hold the plastic liners in place, but you could theoretically re-use these, or just do what I did and ball them up and trash them. The liners stay in place just fine without them.

I really do wish they'd add in some instructions for assembly, though. They have a small sheet to explain how to turn on the light and switch the batteries, but I could figure that one out for myself. On the other hand, getting the backpack on the T-600, or putting together all the various pieces of John's outfit was far more puzzling than it should have been.

Sculpting - ****
This is another outstanding sculpt from Hot Toys, both of the Christian Bale John Connor, and the uber-evil T-600 Endoskeleton.

This is an Endoskeleton. I have no idea how you could ever confuse this thing with a human, no matter what skin you put on the outside, because he's HUGE. He stands a whopping 13 1/2" tall, towering over John Connor - and over the future T-700.

All that bulk is truly impressive on the shelf. They've given him the finely textured look to the various faux metal parts, making it look like wrought iron. Other areas, like the pistons, are smooth and clean. The sculpt works extremely well with the articulation. allowing for far more posability than we've seen in any Endoskeleton before.

There's also more use of metal, including springs, rods, pins, screws and those cool springy tubes. Most of the rods used with the pistons are plastic, but connector rods (like those that the two pistons attach to above the knee) are metal. He has a much more solid feel to his construction than past HT Endos.

John Connor is an amazingly good portrait, one of Hot Toys best. It is just as realistic as ever, but it captures the character and actor better than some of their other recent attempts, such as Robert Downey Jr./Tony Stark.

The sculptors at Hot Toys can take everyone else to school on how to create perfect hair, skin texture and lifelike eyes. Enterbay might be nipping at their heels, but they'll have to produce a greater quantity of figures before they can claim a seat at the head table with HT.

There are still nits you can pick on the likeness, but even someone who has never seen a single trailer for the movie will know instantly that this is Christian Bale.

Both figures stand great on their own, and John's only set of hands are sculpted to work with the accessories, particularly the rifle.

Paint - ****
The paint work on both figures is just about as perfect as you can get. I don't know who sold their soul to the devil to get this kind of production paint work on a regular basis, but I'd like to thank him or her for their sacrifice.

The paint work on the textured skin and hair is what makes the exceptional sculpt stand out. With a weaker paint job, the beauty of the sculpt wouldn't have a chance to come through, but here you can appreciate just how great every aspect of the work is.

I do have a slight rub mark on John's forehead, but you can only see it under bright light and at just the right angle. I suspect it was caused by the packaging.

The T-600 has a wash designed to enhance the appearance of wrought or cast iron. Steel looks like steel, and some of the pieces have a worn, rough look. This is what a realistic metallic paint job looks like, and it is the kind of thing that spoils us for any other company.

Articulation - ****
John comes on the usual TrueType body, and you can't argue with perfection. He has all the range of movement you expect from the TT, and can hold natural, flowing poses without any trouble at all. I also found him more disposed to action poses, although the rubber boots tend to inhibit the ankles slightly.

But while you expect all that with John Connor, it's really the T-600 that astounds.  I've talked about the engineering marvels that Hot Toys has produced before - the T-800 Endo, the T-700 Endo, and the Robo-Cop. But the all pale in comparison to this big guy!

The neck is completely unrestricted, with no pistons in the way and only springy tubes attaching from the body to the head. The jaw is also articulated, although I tend to prefer him with his mouth closed over open.

The ball jointed shoulders work extremely well, moving up, down, in and out, and allowing the arms to spin forward and back. They feel very sturdy, and have a much greater range of movement than past Endos.

That's true of all the joints, actually, including the knees, elbows, waist and hips. The fingers have three pin joints each, and can wrap around and hold the weapon perfectly.

There's cut joints at the calves too, and the ankles are the 10th wonder of the world. The pistons move smoothly, allowing the foot to move not just forward and back, but side to side, so the feet can remain flat on the floor in deeper stances.

The hips allow for deeper stances too, something the other Endo's have not been able to do. All of the joints and all of the pistons seem very sturdy, very solid, and less likely to break than past versions.

Accessories - T-600 ***1/2; John ****
Both figures are well equipped, although John has far more tchotchkes than the Endo.

The Endo comes with his huge Gatling style weapon, with rubbery ammo belt and ammo backpack. The regular version comes with a wide base designed to look like scaffolding or a factory floor. The exclusive also has an 'environmental base', which is more like dirt and girders, mixed in a pile. Both bases have a connecting point for the back arm of the base.

The gun fits over his right arm perfectly, and there's an extra belt that helps hold it in place. You can easily wrap his fingers around the grip as well. The ammo belt runs from the gun to the pack, where it fits in the top.

Getting the pack on his back is quite the trick. I found that I had to adjust the back straps so they were as long as possible first. Then I put one side on over and arm, already connected, and snapped the other side together. Finally, I snapped the two shoulder straps together, and snapped the waist belt in place. You may have to tighten the waist up a bit too, which may be easier to do before the pack is on. I did mine after it was in place, and it was a bit frustrating. A knife and some needle nose pliers were very helpful.

This is one of the reasons that you may not want to put this guy back in the box once you have him out and outfitted. Sure, you don't have to damage the package to get him out, but you may damage your nerves putting him together more than once.

John Connor wasn't quite as frustrating, but I had to guess quite a bit at where things were supposed to go.

His key weapon is the M4A1 rifle, complete with scope and flashlight. There's a spring action which can be moved with the handle on the left side, but I'd be careful pulling on it - it's very easy to break the handle. The barrel extends, the stock extends, and the scope is even removable. The flashlight has a plastic cover, and even an itty bitty wire that connects it to the gun. He can hold the gun in one or both hands, in just about any position, and this is the weapon most folks will be displaying him with.

There are six extra clips for this gun, and I fit these on his back in the small packs. However, there's only enough for four of the six, so I'm not sure what to do with the other two.

There's also the smaller gun, which fits perfectly in his hard plastic holster. There's two additional magazines for the handgun too, and I found that the pack on his chest (upper right side) fits them perfectly.

The holster fits on the right leg pack, although that was a tad frustrating. the pack on the left leg can hold all four demolition blocks. It was a tight fit, but I think that's where they belong.

There's a 'line launcher', a gun that fires a pronged projectile. The projectile can be removed from the end of the gun, and the prongs tuck in tight or fold out.

You always need a knife, and Connor has a small tactical blade that fits in a sheath on another pack. I found that this fit best on the harness on his right side. The blade is small, and looks better on his body than in his hand.

Finally, there's his headset which is attached to a very complex looking radio. The radio sports a terrific sculpt, and included a clear plastic screen. The head set fits on his left ear tightly, and I found that by attaching the pouch for the radio on the left side of his chest, I could wrap the cord around under his arm, out of the way.

That's a ton of extras, and John also has the required display stand. It's not fancy schmancy, like the ones that you get with the Endo, and you don't really need it except for extreme poses, but it's a nice addition.

Light Feature - John N/A; T-600 ***1/2
John doesn't have anything that lights up, so he gets a big N/A in this category.

But the Endo has light up eyes, activated with a small button on the back. The batteries are included, but I found that they were wore out mighty fast. After just 15 minutes or so, the eyes were dead.

The button works quite well, but once you have the backpack in place, you'll need to use something very thin, like a knife blade, to reach inside and press it. I almost stabbed myself in the stomach with the knife though, and I can only imagine how embarrassing that obituary would be.

Outfit - T-600 N/A; John ****
The T-600 doesn't really have an outfit, although it is worth noting that he wears the cloth bandanna on his right wrist.

Connor has a very complex outfit, including one of the nicest leather jackets I've ever seen in this scale.

This is his flight jacket, complete with faux lambskin liner. The fit is perfect, and the zipper is properly scaled. It's a thing of beauty, no doubt about it.

There's also a T-shirt underneath it, although I wasn't going to strip him down to find it. The pants look terrific, with knee pads sewn right on. I did find that it was tough to keep the pads on the knee area with all the harness' holding the pant legs pretty much in place, but that's a minor nit.

The boot sculpt is great, but they do look a little small to me. But maybe John has small feet. The pants tuck into them pretty easily, and these boots are the actual feet - there's no feet inside there.

Over all of this is his tactical full body harness. Thank God this thing came all put together - it was frustrating enough just figuring out where to put the various pouches. There's actually a buckle on the front that you can snap together to bring the harness tighter across his chest, but I liked the look better with it unsnapped.

He wears a red bandanna on his left arm. I'm assuming this has particularly special meaning in the film, since it's such an obvious addition to the outfit.

The costume is outstanding, and reminds me once again that Hot Toys is still at the top of the heap in this category.

Fun Factor - ***
These are more sturdy than several recent Hot Toys releases, and I was particularly surprised by how solid the T-600 was. You could still manage to break something, but you'd have to go out of your way to do it, unlike some of the more fragile recent release.

Of course, that still doesn't make these great toys for an eight year old, but older kids that know how to take care of something like this, and who are big sci-fi fans, are sure to love them.

Value - John ***; T-600 **1/2
It might be hard to believe - but even at $150, you're getting your money's worth. These are excellent figures, proving once again that Hot Toys is the master right now.

You can find John for as little as $125 at some of my sponsors, and that's an excellent price considering the number of accessories and detailing on the costume.

Things to Watch Out For -
Take your time with the various pouches and packs. I'd follow my instructions above on getting the pack on the T-600, as the endeavor can be down right frustrating otherwise. Be sure you have enough room in the shoulder harness belts, and you really can't have too much.

Overall - ****
There's a lot of nice sixth scale figures on the market right now, and with old stand bys like Sideshow and Medicom and new kids on the block like Enterbay and Go Hero, it's certainly an amazing time to be a collector. But Hot Toys continues to prove that they are the leader in the market right now, with not just amazing sculpts, or perfect paint, but excellent articulation, accessories, costumes, packaging, and even special electronic features that set them apart. It's one thing to be the leader in a single category, but with releases like these, they are at the top of the game in every one.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ****
Sculpting - ****
Paint - ****
Articulation - ****
Accessories - T-600 ***1/2; John ****
Outfit - T-600 N/A; John ****
Light Up Feature - John N/A; T-600 ***1/2
Fun Factor - ***
Value - Connor ***; T-600 **1/2
Overall - ****

Where to Buy 
Online options include these site sponsors:

- Sideshow has a wait list for either John or the T-600, as well as their upcoming skin wearing T-600. A little birdie tells me there might be an exclusive version of the Final Battle John too, but it's not available to order yet.

- or you can search ebay for a deal.

Related Links -
As I mentioned earlier, I've reviewed their T-800 Endoskeleton, T-700 Skeleton, and T-700 diorama. Marcus Wright should be here any day!

You should also hit the Search Reviews page, in case any other applicable reviews were done after this one was published.

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