Tag Archives: Qui-Gon Jinn

#4087: Qui-Gon Jinn — Jedi Duel

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

QUI-GON JINN — JEDI DUEL

STAR WARS: EPISODE I (HASBRO)

“A wise and powerful Jedi, Qui-Gon Jinn discovers young Anakin Skywalker, proving to be a pivotal event to the future of the Jedi and to the entire galaxy for generations to come.”

Hey, remember last week when I said my Episode I collection was just Obi-Wans and Qui-Gons?  Well, I wasn’t lying. I wouldn’t do that to you, dear reader.  No, I believe in always telling the truth.  Unless a lie is funnier.  Then I might lie.  But is only having a collection of Obi-Wans and Qui-Gons from Episode I all that funny?  I don’t think so, so it’s probably not worth lying about.  Are you all keeping up with me on this?  If I’m honest, I’m mostly just monologuing a bit here so that I don’t have to come up with anything else to say in this intro.  Here’s Qui-Gon!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Qui-Gon Jinn — Jedi Duel was released in the big initial product launch for Star Wars: Episode I from Hasbro in 1999.  He was the standard Qui-Gon, meant to pair off with the “Jedi Duel” Obi-Wan for the purposes of facing off against the “Jedi Duel” Darth Maul.  It’s all nice and tidy that way.  The figure stands just shy of 4 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation.  Like the Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon had additional movement at the elbows and wrists, allowing for better holding of his lightsaber, thereby better fitting the whole “Jedi Duel” thing.  His sculpt was unique, though similar in style to the Obi-Wan figure.  He’s maybe a bit stiff in terms of posing and how the outfit hangs, but it’s not awful.  His head looks like Qui-Gon the character, I guess, but not very much like Liam Neeson the actor; he just seems to lack Neeson’s more unique features, resulting in a far more generic sculpt that seems to rely more on the hair and beard to sell the character.  The hair hangs slightly over the shoulders, which restricts the neck movement a bit, and the lower portion of his tunic likewise restricts the hips, but he’s otherwise decently posable, which is nice for a figure of this era.  His paint work is very similar to the deluxe version I looked at two weeks ago, at least in terms of colors and general layout.  Once more, the hair and beard get a bit of grey accenting, which makes things just the slightest bit more realistic.  Qui-Gon is packed with his lightsaber and a CommTech display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I noted in my last Qui-Gon review, the deluxe was my original Qui-Gon, and this one followed shortly after, but I’d already gotten attached to the first one, and so this one was never as much of an interest for me.  I suppose he’s a better figure from a technical standpoint, but I can’t say he really does much for me that the other one doesn’t, and I still feel like the sculpt on the other one looks more like Qui-Gon.  But, as far as basic figures go, this one checks all the boxes and is far from a bad figure.

#4079: Qui-Gon Jinn

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

QUI-GON JINN

STAR WARS: EPISODE I (HASBRO)

Well, with Power of the Force officially done, and my small handful of actually new Star Wars stuff to review actually burned through, I guess it’s time to move on.  Not from Star Wars, of course.  I’m a toy site.  That would be crazy.  No, move onto the thing that followed (or actually kind of ran a bit in tandem with, I guess) Power of the Force: the Episode I tie-ins!  I’ve reviewed all of two figures from the at the time tie-ins, both of them Obi-Wan, so today I’m jumping over to the other rather important Jedi from the film, Qui-Got Jinn!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Qui-Gon Jinn is one of the three deluxe figures from Hasbro’s Star Wars: Episode I tie-in line, released alongside similarly deluxe versions of Obi-Wan and Darth Maul.  Like the other two, he consisted of a rather standard core figure, with an action feature activated by a kind of wonky lightsaber hilt-looking thing.  The figure stands just over 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  The deluxe figures lacked the wrist and elbow swivels of the standard figures (Obi-Wan kept one of the elbow swivels, but Qui-Gon wasn’t as lucky), and the shoulder movement was restricted by the action feature.  While Obi-Wan’s sculpt wasn’t really all that different from the standard, Qui-Gon’s is actually quite different.  He’s a lot more pre-posed, in sort of a mid-battle set-up, with his hair swept back and his teeth bared.  While it’s a bit more limiting, it’s also a more dynamic, and I feel slightly more exciting sculpt.  It’s not as crazy as some of the Saga figures got, though, and he’s more stable on his feet.  Qui-Gon’s color work is pretty good.  Nothing crazy for the era, with the body work mostly focusing on base color stuff.  The head’s a bit more involved, with the hair getting some grey streaks in it.  Qui-Gon was packed with his standard lightsaber, as well as the larger “control” saber, which clipped around the figure’s waist and could activate the action feature.  As with Obi-Wan, I lost that one at some point, because I was some sort of silly child.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got a fair bit of Episode I related stuff for my birthday the year the movie came out, and I recall this Qui-Gon was amongst the bunch.  He was specifically my first Qui-Gon figure, and I recall being pretty excited to get him.  I got the standard not to long after (I think he may have just been a slightly delayed birthday present, truth be told), but I always liked this one a little bit more.  He’s not exactly a figure with a lot going on, but over 25 years out, I do still quite like him, and he’s probably still my favorite Qui-on figure.

#2817: Qui-Gon Jinn

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

QUI-GON JINN

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES (HASBRO)

“A venerable if maverick Jedi Master, Qui-Gon Jinn was a student of the living Force. Qui-Gon lived for the moment, espousing a philosophy of ‘feel, don’t think, use your instincts.'”

Though opinions have changed a bit on the prequel trilogy in the two decades since it began, the movies, especially The Phantom Menace, have been the slowest to find their way into The Black Series, with really just a trickle of items, every so often.  In the case of TPM, we aren’t even averaging one figure a year, and don’t have much of the core cast yet.  I’d gotten all but one of the ones released up to this point, and now, I finally got that one.  So, today, I’m looking at arguably the film’s lead character (even if he’s not part of any of the films that follow), Qui-Gon Jinn.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Qui-Gon Jinn was figure 40 in the Phase III Star Wars: The Black Series line-up.  He was released in the spring of May 2017, as part of the assortment that also included the Royal Guard, Lando Calrissian, and the Tusken Raider.  It was one of those sets that showed up more in theory than anything else, since it was the last assortment before the change-over for Last Jedi product, and earlier Rogue One launch product was still lingering.  Qui-Gon was only our second TPM figure, following up on the Darth Maul from the very first assortment.  The figure stands a little over 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 27 points of articulation.  Compared to more recent figures, Qui-Gon is definitely more restricted on the movement front, but it’s still pretty workable.  Additionally, given that Neeson’s portrayal of Qui-Gon had him generally being more reserved in his movements, it works alright for the character.  His sculpt was a wholly unique one, and has only been shared with the recent re-issue of the same character.  It’s a pretty good one, honestly.  Neeson’s tall and lanky build is captured well, and the details on his clothes are fairly impressive.  The head sculpt also does look quite a bit like him.  It’s a little bit harder to see it with the older style paint work, but the likeness is very definitely there (something that the recent re-issue with the new paint only further pushed).  The hair does get in the way of the neck movement a little bit, but that’s really hard to avoid, unless you’re going to try rooted hair or some other nonsense, and that’s just not gonna work at this scale.  The paint work definitely does mark this figure’s biggest short comings, but, honestly, it’s not quite as bad as you might expect.  The face is definitely not as life-like as later releases, but nor is it quite as lifeless as some of the figures that closely preceded it.  It’s an okay middle ground.  Additionally, they’ve actually gone to the trouble of giving him some accenting on his robes, so that they aren’t just all flat molded plastic colors.  It certainly looks much better that way.  Qui-Gon was packed with his lightaber, as well as two alternate left hands, one for gripping, and the other in open pose.  While it’s too bad we couldn’t at least get a robe for him, the alternate hand was still kind of a big deal at the time, and even now, that’s more than we get with a lot of the Jedi figures.  Heck, it’s more than we got with TPM Obi-Wan.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Full disclosure: this section’s about to get a little sad and sentimental.  This is the first review I’ve written since my wife’s passing, which will have been almost a full month ago as you read this, but is, for me, four very long days behind me.  Obviously, this soon after, I am still finding my footing and my new normal, but Jess did not want me to stop writing, and she was quite adamant about that.  So, I am going to try to keep writing, at least a little bit.  Qui-Gon being the subject of this review, is a bit serendipitous, I suppose.  I already had him on the schedule a month ago, but it feels appropriate, since one of our earliest conversations was about The Phantom Menace and how Qui-Gon was always her favorite character in the prequels.  I remember her being frustrated that I never found this figure when it was new.  When I did finally pick it up just this year, she was quite excited when I showed him to her.  It’s an excitement I’m going to miss as my collection continues, but one I’m going to try to keep in my own mind moving forward.