Saturday, September 13, 2008

Kane, Nostromo crew member by Hot Toys

A totally different kind of VBSS member, Kane is an executive officer of the commercial towing spaceship Nostromo who goes on board a mysterious derelict alien spacecraft and gets his face plastered by a face hugger (that's love at first sight). From the movie "Alien (1979)" directed by Ridley Scott and starring Sigourney Weaver (this movie and its sequels will propel her to international stardom and make her a female action hero) as Warrant Officer Ripley, Tom Skerritt as Captain Dallas, John Hurt as Executive Officer Kane, Veronica Cartwright as Navigator Lambert, Ian Holm as Science Officer Ash, Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto as Engineers Brett and Parker, Hot Toys gives us not just one but two crew members of Nostromo (had enough of the xenomorphs and United States Colonial Marines (USCM) already?).

Kane comes in a very nice box with an equally nice slipcase which has a transparent cover representing his helmet with a damaged shield, showing the alien face hugger on the actual box.

The back of the slipcase tells you what you are getting when you purchase this figure

Box cover

Back of the box gives a comparison of both crew members and the reasons why I chose Kane over Dallas (can't have both, money don't grow on trees and even if it did, I ain't got no money tree either) - Dallas comes with a "portable crane" and closed alien/xenomorph egg whereas Kane comes with a open egg revealing a hugger "moving" inside, a damaged shield for his helmet and the alternate head with face hugger. The face hugger is the start of good things to come in the movie. Without the face hugger, there would be no alien/xenomorph. Also, face hugger head reminds us not to stick our faces anywhere we are not supposed to coz you never know what's gonna come out and grab ya! Dallas just broods and later gets killed - the end!

Kane in his tray - no twisties - totally collector friendly :)

The display base with opened alien egg

You can almost feel the face hugger moving inside, just like in the movie

Kane's space helmet, gloves, boots, searchlight and weapon

Kane getting ready to go outside

Now here's where the big debate has been brewing on some forums - WTF is Hot Toys doing? Who the f*** is this guy? He's certainly not John Hurt, the actor who played Kane. Hot Toys got the head sculpt of Tom Skerritt as Captain Dallas down to a T, so what happened with Kane? It's a nice sculpt but doesn't look like the actor. So we can only conclude that it's a licensing issue and not a lack of sculpting skill on Hot Toys' part. The head sculpt actually reminds one of John Holmes, famous from the porn movie "Deep Throat" - quite pun-ny if you think about it coz that's what the face hugger is doing to this guy - sticking its thing down his throat LMAO. So what if it's not John Hurt (who isn't exactly a Brad Pitt or Matt Damon)? Most collectors would probably pose Kane with the face hugger anyway IMHO

Nostromo Executive Officer Kane with his helmet on - can't tell if it's John Hurt or not once the helmet's on. Never knew that the Nostromo's space suits were coloured (Medicom's Kubrick had them coloured) coz in the movie, it was all rather dark. There's a Hot Toys body under the thin rubberised suit, like Batman's or Deunan's (not hard PVC like 33/4inch figures) so some posability can still be achieved. I doubt that the crew did gymnastics or kungfu in their space suits either so no extreme poses are expected.

The suit's very nice, especially the armored areas like the helmet and shoulder pads.


The helmet's connected to his back pack

Close-up of the back pack

The back pack lights up!! Freaking COOL


The "holster" for his weapon - very "Star Wars-like" blaster


The details on his helmet and shoulder armor is simply amazing. Hot Toys should get the licence for "Fifth Element" and make figures of the Mondoshawans, Mangalores as well as the NYPD of the future as designed by Moebius, not forgetting Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) and Leeloo (a very very young Milla Jovovich) - that'll make toy collecting almost complete!

Close-up of the helmet

The helmet lights up too!! AWESOME!!!



Kane attacked by alien 

The helmet shield can be easily switched from the clear one to the damaged one

Now that's a face even a mother couldn't love - sure looks like Kane now - ha! ha!



And there you have it - Hot Toys Executive Officer Kane from the Nostronomo - another masterpiece!!

7 comments:

  1. Ahh... Kane, the fool that started the whole Alien shebang.

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  2. Looks like Hot Toys confused John Hurt with John Cleese.
    Oh, well. Like You said, Skerrit is dead on.

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  3. hey kenny, Kane may be the fool but Ridley Scott was brilliant and James Cameron gave us the USCM, and the rest as they say, is history ;p Certainly one of those films that left a BIG impact on the movie industry.

    hi dash, the debate about Kane is still going on fast and furious with no end in sight. Some people are giving up the whole thing completely because it's not John Hurt's head sculpt.

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  4. Everything looks fine but the bottom part of the helmet covers half face of the figure. If HT makes its neck a bit longer, it is perfect!!

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  5. Yeah, the helmet's too high. Just watched the DVD again and found that it's quite off!! I think Hot Toys enthusiasm to make the helmet lights compromised the overall look :(

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  6. is the suit sculpted ? any frame behind all that plastic ?

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  7. hi wee tiong, there's no frame, just a rubberised suit like Batman's except not figure hugging, made up of four sections - top piece, two sleeves and pants.

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