Sunday, June 28, 2009

Hot Toys Private Billy Sole Review Part I

Having reviewed Hot Toys Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer already, let's turn our attention to Hot Toys Collector's Edition MMS73 (Movie Masterpiece Series) 1/6 12-inch Action Figure Private Billy Sole, also from "Predator (1987)".

Private Billy Sole (played by Sonny Landham) was a Native American Kit Carson-style scout in Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer's (Arnold Schwarzenegger) Special Forces Team and the team's tracker. He is the first one to sense that the Predator is hunting them.

Hot Toys again delivers with a nice slip case of Billy but with landscape orientation.

Back of slip case reveals more product shots of 1/6 12-inch Private Billy Sole plus his equipment and gear.

Front cover of box packaging shows Billy in a thermal image as seen by the Predator. Back of box is identical to Dutch i.e. showing all three figures from the Hot Toys Predator series.

Hot Toys Movie Masterpiece Series 1/6 scale 12-inch Private Billy Sole from the movie "Predator" in his tray together with all his accessories

Muscular Body Instruction Manual showing how far you can go with this figure's arms before they break. Not meant to be as articulated as their standard True Type body.

Billy Sole straight out of his box, without his complete gear. Features Hot Toys muscled figure body with over 21 points of articulation.

His accessories include: AR-15/SP1 (removable 30-round magazine and opening dust cover) fitted with a Mossberg 500 12-guage shotgun underslung below the barrel, Woodlands camouflage boonie hat, two water canteens with covers, M67 "baseball" hand grenade, an M1911A1 pistol with removable magazine only (although this is incorrect as Billy and Dutch were carrying IMI Desert Eagle handguns) a machete and combat knife plus sheath.

Billy also has flak vest, H type LC-1 suspenders attached to web belt plus shoulder holster and harness

Private Billy Sole topless wearing Woodlands camouflage pants with trouser belt, wearing Nomex aviator gloves and brandishing a machete in his right hand and combat knife in his left hand.

Billy has blond hair and his face is heavily made-up with camouflage paint.

Billy wears a necklace or pouch which we can assume is part of the Native American tradition. He touches it when he senses the Predator as if calling the spirits for protection. Didn't do him any good, he got skewered!

At several points during the film he feels the presence of the Predator and becomes spooked. Billy's laughter is mimicked in the Predator's dying scene as it activates its self-destruct.

Billy with his flak vest back on

Billy with a Hot Toys 1/6 M1911A1 pistol (with removable magazine only)

Hot Toys MMS73 Movie Masterpiece 1/6 scale 12-inch collectible figure Private Billy Sole in full gear

Billy: I'm scared, Poncho.
Poncho: Bullshit. You ain't afraid of no man.
Billy: There's something out there waiting for us, and it ain't no man. We're all gonna die.














Billy with his Woodlands camouflage boonie hat - helps to conceal his blondness

Billy has a "cut" (painted) on his left cheek. His eyes are always looking up as if scanning the trees for the unseen intruder. He carries his combat knife close by his side, taped to his webbing.

His pistol is holstered in a shoulder holster secured to his web belt or pistol belt

His machete is secured in sheath by his left thigh. He wears jungle boots.

Water canteens in carrier

Ammo pouch can also be used as utility pouch with M67 "baseball" hand grenade secured

His AR-15/SP1 (removable 30-round magazine and opening dust cover) fitted with a Mossberg 500 12-guage shotgun underslung below the barrel

Who is Billy under all that heavy camouflaged paint? Check out my next post as we reveal the face behind the make-up.

Of all the members of Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer's (Arnold) team, only Private Billy Sole (Latham) is produced. Blain Cooper (Jesse Ventura) would have been nice, with his custom-made handheld 7.62mm GE M134 Minigun nicknamed "Ol Painless". There was also Mac (Bill Duke) with his M60E3 machine gun, Poncho (Richard Chaves) with his MP5 (or civilian HK94, if you want to be specific) and HK 40mm cyclinder grenade launcher, and Hawkins (Shane Black), also armed with a MP5.

Review of Hot Toys MMS90 Movie Masterpiece Series 1/6 scale 14-inch Predator from the first Predator movie here.

8 comments:

desmond said...

Alex, I guess the joint articulation of Billy's arms are not as good as Arnold, right?

alex teo said...

Hi desmond, the only difference with the Arnold "Dutch" figure is that the arms can pop out so you get some extra articulation there but on the whole, the arms are pretty stiff and don't expect them to move their arms a lot. These two (Billy and Dutch) can't do yoga to save their lives - ha! ha!

Anonymous said...

hi great reviews/photos...
i was checking out the uniform/gears of both dutch and billy and my observation is that these are vietnam war era style right???
i could use the gears for a vietnam war soldier kitbash...
About the muscle body of hot toys, are they sturdy? i mean are they worth having? i heard that these deteriorate easily? any comment/info on this?
thanks.

alex teo said...

thanks for the compliments, i try to do what i can out of passion :) you're quite right about the gear and uniform as this was about the time the movie was made and there weren't any current war then. the movies nowadays are very current with the uniforms because of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars that are going on - wearing of ACUs and digital camouflage etc.

About the muscle bodies, not much articulation as compared to the standard ones and the much older muscle bodies do crack up over time tho' it's too early to tell for these newer bodies.

Pingu727 said...

This figure is all in all awesomely detailed but im a big fan of the predator movies and Billy, being my favourite charector in the first one, has blonde hair on the figure but dark brown/black in the movies. Hot toys did a great job on him but whats with the blonde hair??!!

Pingu727 said...

Now im a big fan of the Predator movies and in the first one Billy was my favourite so naturally being into 12" figures I wanted one and when i found this hot toys Billy i was mostly pleased apart from the fact that Hot toys decided to make his hair blonde instead of black like in the movies. This was my only complaint otherwise great fig. and great review!

Unknown said...

I believe the blonde hair (the camo makeup is also not the same as the movie) was because Sonny Landham did not give permission for his likeness to be used. I remember seeing a site where the guy had the same figure and he removed the face paint with methylated spirits & redid it as in the movie. He also painted the hair black.

alex teo said...

Yup, lain, you're right :) if you check out my next post (http://toyhaven.blogspot.com/2009/06/hot-toys-private-billy-sole-part-ii.html) you can see a very good repaint done on the headsculpt showing Sonny Landham hiding under all that camouflage make-up :)