I have not been following the hype about James Cameron’s upcoming Avatar movie, (I thought he was making a movie based on that cartoon with the arrow-headed bald kid until I saw these figures) but the movie masters prototype caught my eye at SDCC. I picked a couple of the new movie masters at TRU today and took some pictures of my score. Check out some pics and thoughts after the jump.
The back of the package has a short little story teaser:
On a deadly but mineral-rich distant moon called Pandora, ex-Marine Jake Sullivan is torn between duty and honor when he finds himself caught between the heavily armed forces of Earth’s most powerful star-faring consortium and an exotic, noble alien race whose very existence is threatened by the human invaders.
Hmmm. Okay. I can tell already that Republicans are gonna love this one.
Colonol Miles Quaritch
From the package back: This ramrod straight, lifelong soldier will do everything in his power to complete his mission. Col. Quartich’s current goal is to secure unobtanium for the RDA – at any cost.
Heh. Unobtanium.
Miles comes with a rifle, a pistol that fits in a holster, a removeable flack jacket, a stand that can activate some computer game and a larger orange rifle. The bright orange makes it look to me like a gigantic nail gun or something. The accessories all have nice sharp sculpts and are made from a fairly bendy plastic. Fortunately none of my weapons are deformed despite the rubbery plastic.
The articulation is fairly close to DCUC standards, however, the ab crunch has a really limited range of motion. Really limited. Like it almost doesn’t work at all. The neck also seems to be ball jointed, but similar to some recent DCUC 9 figures it’s not very functional. It works more like a swivel joint. There is also no side ankle tilt.
The ankles are also a little odd in that they don’t tilt forward very much. He holds his weapons well, though it works a lot better without the vest as it slightly restricts his movement.
The sculpt is pretty good. The pants have some snazzy pocket and fold details and the vest has a lot of cool little straps and armor detail.
The face is a decent likeness and the scars on his head look appropriately painful. The head sculpt and the upper torso sculpt are a little ‘soft’ for my taste, though. There seems to be a lack of detail and what is there isn’t very sharp. For instance, the actor’s face has a lot of character, deep lines and strong features. They are kind of washed out here, though. I would have liked to see a little more texture on the shirt as well.
The arms also lack definition. Now, I didn’t expect him to be ripped like flash there, but the actor’s arms are a bit more cut than what we see here on the figure. Some more detail like muscle striations or veins would have helped improve the overall look.
As you can see, Miles is a little too short to be in scale with DCUC figures. He’s actually the same height as the medium build DCUC figure from head to crotch, but the legs are a bit shorter than a standard DCUC figure.
The paint job is pretty standard stuff, though the camo effect is nice. I think the face and arms of this figure would have benefited greatly from a wash or some shading similar to what Mattel does with their MOTUC figures. Another odd thing on my copy of Miles is his eyebrow paint op. The painted eyebrows seem a little high on his brow and makes his expression a little more bland.
Next up we have Avatar Jake Sully. From the bio on the cardback:
Sully is a young, former marine who has lost the use of his legs in combat. he accepts a remakable offer to join a team of scientists on a moon some 45 light years from Earth.
Jake comes with a spear and a knife that can be placed in the sheath around his neck.
Jake sports similar articulation to Miles except that his ab crunch, ankles and neck all have greater range of motion. The head and ab crunch, while having better movement than Miles’, are not perfect. The ab joint does not have a lot of forward movement and the ball jointed neck has a limited range.
For the most part I like this sculpt more than Miles’. There is a little bit more muscle definition and what little clothing Jake wears, it’s all nicely sculpted with fine detail. I especially like the forearm guard texture.
Jake is a little tough to pose because his build is long and lanky, his feet are small and he is a little top heavy.
The figure is cast in blue plastic and the stripes and white dot markings are painted over that. The stripes and dots are all nice and sharp, but I think the figure would have benefited from a wash or some light airbrush lowlights. The stripes are almost too high contrast against the rest of his skin. Some blending would make it look more natural (as natural as a lanky blue cat man can get).
Overall I like both of these figures very much. I think I will buy the third Movie Master from this film, the female named Neytiri, if I see her in the store. They don’t quite live up to the standard of previous Dark Knight and Ghostbusters movie masters figures, though. The softness of the sculpts, lack of washes and obstructed articulation bring them down a notch.
For my money they are more on par with the Hasbro marvel legends quality wise. At fifteen dollars a pop, though, I would like to see a little bit more paint and sharper sculpts.
He looks good with Kromius though, doesn’t he?
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