Earlier this week I talked about the high-end life-size eFX Star-Lord Helmet prop replica that very few collectors can (or will) be buying. So today, let’s take a look at a Guardians of the Galaxy movie Star-Lord toy that pretty much all of us can afford–and many of us already have! Hasbro’s 2017 Marvel Legends Star-Lord figure is now available online for below the retail price, and it’s downright perfect–as long as you’re looking at it from the right angle…

The Right:

No one was really sure that the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie wasn’t going to bomb right up until it hit theaters and was a blockbuster, and so we didn’t get much in the way of collector’s toys for the first movie after the movie hit theaters. Merchandisers aren’t making that mistake again, though, and there will be plenty of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 love coming from toy companies all year long!

In fact, Hasbro has already announced three different Marvel Legends Star-Lord figures for 2017 (Hasbro said at Toy Fair that the Ego two-pack version will allegedly have a different head than this version). Let’s have a look at the first one…

As should be a prerequisite for Star-Lord figures from any company, Hasbro has granted us two interchangeable heads for this figure: one head with the Star-Lord helmet on, and one “unmasked” Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) head.

The Star-Lord helmet head looks spot-on to me, and is actually the head I’m likely to use most often when displaying this figure.

I’ll be talking about the faults in the Chris Pratt head in a bit, but before I get to that, I do want to commend Hasbro for the fact that the likeness of this head is light-years better than the one from 2014.

Whereas we only got the long coat version of Star-Lord for the Guardians of the Galaxy Legends 2014 figure, this time out we’re getting the short jacket version first (with a new long coat version coming in a few months). I’ve been really wanting a short jacket Peter Quill figure, so I’m glad we’re getting him early this time.

The sculpting on the jacket itself is fantastic–there’s a highly-detailed texture on the jacket that looks great up-close, and I love the aesthetic of the designs on the shoulders and cuffs.

The “body” of the jacket is a soft plastic add-on piece so that you can see Peter Quill’s shirt inside. The design on the shirt is perfectly printed on, and I was impressed Hasbro chose to paint the belt buckle on the figure.

As is the norm with Hasbro Marvel Legends, super-articulation is the name of the game. The standard super-articulation scheme is in effect here: ball-hinge head/shoulders/wrists; swivel waist/boots/thighs/biceps; double-jointed knees and elbows; hinged feet with ankle rockers; ball hips and upper torso ab crunch.

There’s a solid range of motion all-around, and even the ab crunch works better than I expected (despite the jacket overlay on the upper body). Various shooting, standing and even running poses work stably and easily. Thumbs up.

Besides the two heads, Star-Lord includes two other accessories (but no Titus Build-A-Figure piece): his Quad Blasters. Both guns have multiple colors of paint apps on them, fit nicely in the figure’s hands and look snazzy.

The guns can also be snapped onto and stored on Star-Lord’s hips, although that leads to one of this figure’s problems…

The Wrong:

There’s one major aspect of this figure that I’m having a hard time getting past–and unfortunately, it’s the Chris Pratt head. From the side, the Chris Pratt likeness on this head sculpt is absolutely incredible–we’re talking almost Hot Toys levels of “awesome” here.

But from the head-on view, looking straight at the head… it looks nothing like Chris Pratt to me. I’ve heard some folks say they really like this head, but I’m just not one of them. I don’t know if it’s the eyes on the Peter Quill head or what, but it just looks wrong to me from the front.

In addition, while I like the utility of being able to store the Quad Blaster Guns on Star-Lord’s hips, I’m not thrilled with having big pegs permanently molded into the legs. We’re not talking about holsters here–we’re talking about big squares stuck to the sides of the hips. It just looks bad.

McFarlane Toys handled this better with the removable pegs they used for their Halo figures, and I wish we had gotten something similar for this 6″ Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy 2 Star-Lord figure.

Overall: While the Chris Pratt portrait on this figure could definitely be improved and I’m not a big fan of the permanent pegs on his hips, this movie Star-Lord Marvel Legends figure is a major improvement on the original version from 2014. I’m glad that Hasbro finally gave us a short jacket Star-Lord action figure, and the sculpting on articulation are both top-notch. If the head sculpt is acceptable to you, then you’ll be satisfied having this 6″ Star-Lord in your collection.

GRADE: B+