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There were quite a few awesome movies released in the summer of 2014, and, thanks to four of those movies being Marvel movies, Minimates really got in on the coverage. One movie covered was Guardians of the Galaxy. Today, I’ll be looking at the film’s primary hero, Star-Lord, and its primary villain, Ronan.

The Packaging

Wave 57 used the standard modern Marvel Minimates packaging, but with the official Guardians-branding placed over it.  As with a lot of the MCU-mates, it’s a little weird to see the actual non-minimate characters at the top of the box, and the packaging has a tendency to get lost in the sea of similarly packaged items from the same film, but it’s not a terrible design.  For pictures, head on over to the set’s Database entry.

The Figures

Star-Lord

“Calling himself ‘Star-Lord’, the human adventurer and fortune-seeker named Peter Jason Quill is being hunted after stealing a mysterious orb.”

Who!?! Star-Lord, legendary outlaw of—never mind. Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, made his first foray into the world of Minimates with this figure. He’s obviously based on the film version of the character, but more specifically, he’s based on Quill’s look early in the movie, primarily the opening credits scene. It’s the look Marvel was really pushing, and it’s the look that just about every figure has, but it’s unfortunately not a look he has for very long in the movie.

Star-Lord is built on the standard Minimate body, with additional sculpted pieces for his hair, coat, left wrist padding, and boots. The hair is a re-use from Tomb Raider’s Roth. I’m not sure about this piece. It seems a bit off for Star-Lord. The rest of the pieces are new to this figure. They’re all well sculpted, but there are some questionable choices. The decision to have the coat closed at the top is a strange one. In the short time he wore this coat, I don’t believe he ever had it closed like that. Perhaps it was based on some sort of early costume design or preliminary shooting. Regardless, it looks rather goofy, and makes the character look unnecessarily bulky. To DST’s credit, the work on the boots is nothing short of amazing, so they deserve props for that.

The paint on Star-Lord is alright, but sort of confusing. The coat exhibits passable work, but there’s some slop here and there. The arms are nicely detailed, and while the torso under the coat is completely blank, he features a fully detailed belt that no one will ever see. The face is an okay Chris Pratt likeness, but it seems that there was a bit of a mix up with the colors, leaving his eyebrows and stubble far too bright.

Star-Lord includes his helmet, his twin guns, a walkman with headphones, and a clear display stand. The helmet is okay, but the paint is sloppy and too light, and the sculpt is too…wide? It just doesn’t look right. The blasters are well sculpted, but the figure does have a little trouble holding them.

Star-Lord is the weakest figure in this series. Diamond obviously put in the effort, but he just ended up turning out sorta goofy.

MMC Score — 5 out of 10

Ronan

“A powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe, Ronan hunts Star-Lord in order to claim the orb and its power for himself.”

Ronan, the first Kree ever to be seen in film! That’s gotta be an accomplishment! Like Star-Lord, this is his first Minimate, though it wasn’t his last.

Ronan’s built on the usual body, with additional pieces for his headpiece and skirt. Both of these pieces are new to this figure, and they look to be accurate to the movie design. They are very nicely sculpted, and incredibly detailed. The headpiece renders the body’s neck articulation motionless, but going by how Lee Pace was moving in the movie, it seems safe to say the real piece did that too. The Kree are all about evolution. Maybe Ronan just evolved beyond the need to look to the side.

One of this figure’s greatest highlights is his paint work. While it would have been easy for Diamond to phone this one in and just do a straight black/dark grey, they have placed texture detailing on just about every surface of the figure. It helps keep the figure from being as drab as he might have otherwise been and really gives the figure that extra pop.

Ronan includes his trusty hammer and a clear display stand. Unfortunately, it seems the head of the hammer is on upside down. I don’t know how this happened, but a quick comparison shows this is very definitely the case. While it sucks, I honestly had to have it pointed out to me by someone else, so I feel like most people really aren’t going to be bothered by it. At the very least, a corrected version was offered with the comic Ronan, so there’s that.

For all that went wrong on Star-Lord, Ronan gets pretty much everything right, excepting the issue with the hammer, and as odd as it may seem, that’s honestly kind of minor, especially with replacements available.

MMC Score — 8 out of 10

Agree? Disagree? Why not vote for yourself below, or comment further over at the Minimate Multiverse MMC Review Forum.

Review and pictures by Glantern.

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