Thank you to Mattel for sending along these new Avatar figures from the movie. Below is a review of Movie Masters Col. Quaritch.
Package Description
This ramrod straight, lifelong soldier will do everything in his power to complete his mission. Col. Quaritch’s current goal is to secure unobtainium for the RDA – at any cost.
Package Design
The packaging has a nice tubular design suggestive of the avatar tanks shown in the movie trailers. The figures are clearly visible while still being able to make out clearly the background pictures. The packaging easily stands up on a level surface.
Appearance
Quaritch has a completely new sculpt for this 6 inch figure. The proportions are good and do not suffer from some of the size issues of the 4 inch figures. The style is very similar to Mattel’s DC Universe and Batman Movie Masters figures. The look of the joints and amount of detail in the sculpt are consistent. However the smaller muscles and more realistic attire make this figure stylistically stand out from most other lines in this scale.
For this figure Mattel could not rely on muscle lines to add a lot of texture, so there are a lot of sculpting and painting details put into his clothes. Individual pockets and straps are sculpted and painted in the vest. Stitches are sculpted into the knees of his pants. The painted camouflage also helps draw attention away from the large areas of skin that have little detailing except for a tattoo on the left arm. Where it counted, Mattel did the paint for the camouflage very well. There are some areas where the paint is a little sloppy, like on the belt buckle and watch. But these are hardly noticeable on the figure. For paint, this figure would have been perfect if some more paint had gone into the guns, like painting panel lines black. As is, his guns are unrealistic, ugly colors and don’t do the figure justice.
For the most part joint transitions look smooth. The torso joint is the worst of the bunch because of the small visible gap, but for the most part the figure is fluid. The head sculpt is excellent and captures the look of the actor fairly well. A different facial expression to match his character would have been nice though. The quiet stoic expression just doesn’t quite fit Quaritch. Overall Mattel did a superb job of capturing the look and feel of the character. Realistically, the only improvement I would ask for from Mattel would be to paint the guns. It’s obvious a lot of work was put into capturing the look and feel of the man. The sculpt is up to par on his weapon, but needs a little paint to complete a great figure.
Articulation
Quaritch the same articulation as DC Universe Classics. The shoulders and elbows are ball joints. The head is a ball but gets little up/down movement. The hip joints are the same design as DC Universe classics figures, able to move out and forward. There’s a cut at the waist for twisting. The knees and ankles are pin joints. The knees bend slightly less than ninety degrees. There is no cut for the foot to rotate. There are cuts in the wrist. The ab joint hardly moves. Overall he has slightly less articulation than the 4 inch figure because of the switch from ball to pin in the knees and ankles. If range of motion in the ab joint and head were greater, then I would be happy with the articulation changes. As is there’s plenty of room for improvement.
Poseability
Articulation range of motion is the biggest problem for this figure. It limits the poses he can do, and takes away some of the better military poses. Even crouching slightly can look awkward because of the lack of ankle swivel. The poses he can do look good, but its really the quality sculpt and paint job that bail him out. Quaritch isn’t a very dynamic figure, but he does look good holding his gun on the shelf. Undoubtedly he will look better on display with a Na’vi figure, but this figure holds its own. It would be hard to find other military style figures to pose him with that are similar stylistically. The best bet for working him into an existing collection is to buy a Na’vi figure to go with him, but he would be fine on display by himself as well.
Avatar I-tag
Each of these figures comes with a tag. By going to www.avataritag.com you can download some software that will create a computer model of the character. This model is projected onto the tag using a webcam plugged into your computer. It’s a cool feature, but I couldn’t get it to work. At the loading screen, it found my webcam and turned it on, but never showed any picture, i-tag or not. I’m hoping there are still some bugs to work out; I’ll post an update if I get this feature to work later.
Final Judgment: 25/30
As a stand alone figure Quaritch has a lot of good features. The body sculpt, gear, and paint job are all fairly realistic and capture the look and feel of the character. If you’re a fan of the character this figure is definitely worth getting over the 4 inch version. He does have a little bit of a generic GI Joe feel by himself on the shelf, but that is easily alleviated by posing him with a Na’vi figure. The only real disappointment was the range of motion in some of the joints. Overall this figure is a very good buy for 6 inch scale fans, but don’t expect him to go well with most existing lines.
