Before the Schwarzenegger-powered T-800 became the beloved protagonist of at least one decent sequel, he was the terrifying murder machine that ran Sarah Conner and Kyle Reese nearly into the ground in the original Terminator movie.
In a movie filled with iconic moments and looks, the two most often mentioned for the T-800 would of course be the “Tech Noir” shootout and the one-bot attack on the police precinct. NECA has visited these two before, of course, but the additional articulation and add-on of their “ultimate” series have finally done justice to one of cinema’s greatest bad guys.
Obviously, the biggest change over the previous version is the articulation. Upgrading the previously very static version to a modern NECA body that allows for significantly more movement. The hips, knee and ankle joints add a lot to the lower half, and that helps with giving him much better posing options. The upper body is less so, with a still-restricted torso and a swiveling elbow that doesn’t give him a ton of range to hold his weapons outside some rather straight-arm poses. He does retain the ball-jointed neck of the original, which lends itself to swapping between the three included heads, and same for the ball-jointed wrists, so you can swap between the standard and bloodied gloves.
Sculpt and paint are another solid outing, with one of the best painted versions of the battle-damaged T-800 NECA has done yet. The distressing and bullet holes on the jacket are also standout.
As with most of the “Ultimate” line, the big draw here is the accessories. As I mentioned above, the T-800 includes three heads: eye damaged, sunglasses, and more damaged, as well as two sets of hands, though these are the same sculpted positions, just deco’ed differently.
He does make gains in the armament, though, with the inclusion of the SPAS-12 Pump/Semi Shotgun and the AR-18 rifle. Both are configured stockless, as the Terminator doesn’t have issues with recoil, and the AR-18 has two 40-round magazine taped together “jungle style.” It’s an interesting side-note that even in 1984, it would have been very difficult to get this weapon (or the Uzi) over the counter in a gun store. In the book, it’s explained that the T-800 took the civilian-legal versions back to the hotel and converted them (to full auto) himself. The old S&W15 revolver would have been much less of a problem and is included here for when the T-800 expended his ammo during the final car chase.
So while this was the Terminator version I wanted the most following the “Ultimate T2” version, I’m maybe not quite as satisfied with this one as I was it’s successor. While he kills it in the looks department, the new articulation doesn’t quite knock it out of the park like I hoped. Still, at the under $30, this is a tough figure to beat.
