There was a time about four years ago when I still had delusions that it was possible to be a completist with Guardians of the Galaxy merch. With the sheer mass of GOTG collectibles that have been released over the past several years, I’ve realized that goal is pretty unrealistic. But with Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord being my favorite character in the whole MCU, I’m all-in when it comes to Star-Lord toys. So when the Marvel Gallery Star-Lord Unmasked PVC statue started shipping last month, it was on its way to my home shortly thereafter. At 11″ tall and just 40 bucks, it’s a steal value-wish… but is this Chris Pratt figure actually any good…?

In a world where Kotobukiya is regularly charging $80 for 6″ snap-together PVC statues, Diamond Select Toys continues to fight the good fight value-wise with their wide range of 9″-11″ PVC statues at a crazy low $40-$45 price-point.

DST produces a diverse variety of statues from both the Marvel movies and comic books, and was one of very few companies to produce all five core members of the Guardians of the Galaxy from Vol. 2. This stategy seems to have worked out well, as all the Guardians of the Galaxy Gallery statues have now sold out from most retailers–and in fact, Star-Lord sold so well that this Unmasked Edition has been created to help meet demand the piece!

Basically, this is the same Star-Lord Gallery figure that Diamond Select released last year, but now with a much-requested Chris Pratt head instead of the masked head that came with the previous release. There were tons of people (including me) asking for this variant, and it required all-new tooling for the portrait and not just a total repaint of the old mold, so big thumbs-up to DST for producing this at all.

The 11″ PVC statue comes as one solid piece inside of a plastic clamshell that’s contained in a full-color window box. It’s colorful and classy-looking, with individualized biographical information for Starlord on the back of the box and photos of the other characters in the lineup. Really, that’s all I ever ask for in a statue box–good work, Diamond Select.

But just how good is the new Chris Pratt head sculpt…? Well… truth, be told, it’s not so great, in my opinion. In fact, after I took my photos of the piece and showed close-ups of the head to my wife, she guessed it was a figure of Hawkeye. Uh-oh.

Comparing this Star-Lord portrait to actual screenshots of Chris Pratt reveals that, well… it’s not an amazing likeness. It’s just not. The hair and eyebrow colors are too dark, the hair isn’t right, and even the eyes are the wrong color. For 40 bucks, no one (including me) is expecting a Hot Toys quality likeness, but I’m definitely disappointed in how off the paint on this piece actually is.

All that said, I’m not ready to condemn this PVC figure outright. While that head just isn’t going to stand up to any scrutiny up-close, the farther away from it you get, the better and more authentic it looks. When you’re across the room from Star-Lord, it actually looks surprisingly good. Obviously, it’s not exactly a “pro” when you have to be several feet away from a piece for it to start to look right, but it’s better than looking bad from any distance.

Besides the head, I think this is still a nice piece. The back of Star-Lord’s hair is actually shaped and textured much more authentically than the other sides of it, and I think the action-packed design of Star-Lord flying around with his jet pack and dual-wielding is an energetic concept.

The textured clothing on Star-Lord’s sleeves and holsters are a highlight of the piece, and I really dig the gradient on the thrust effect coming out of the jet pack. At this price-point, these are really nice effects!

From the side view, you can see that all of the elements of this piece come together really well when you’re not distracted looking for the Chris Pratt likeness that just isn’t present.

The sleek design of the base, the nicely-executed flame effects, the accurate blasters, the textured costume and pose… everything works when you get beyond the head, and I just wouldn’t feel right writing off this value-priced, reasonably large statue as a whole because of the shortcoming of one (admittedly important) aspect of the figure as a whole.

Overall: I’m about as big of a fan as both the Diamond Select Toys Marvel Gallery line and of Chris Pratt Star-Lord as there is, so my expectations for this particular piece were pretty high. Sadly, it’s one of the recent DST Marvel statues that I’m the most “ho-hum” about. The Chris Pratt portrait just doesn’t hold up unless you’re far away from it, and that’s the main selling point of this new version of the figure. I still think that this is a solid value for such a large and detailed PVC, but big fans of Chris Pratt are almost certain to be let down by the (lack of) likeness.

GRADE: C