Poe Dameron - Elite Series

An ace pilot, Poe Dameron is a leader in the Resistance's fight against the evil First Order. He soars into battle behind the controls of a modern X-wing fighter.

Right around Christmas, Disney Store revealed/announced/put up for sale three “surprise” Elite Series figures. While two-thirds were lazy reissues (depending upon your own point of view), one, Poe Dameron, was a welcomed addition to the line. Wearing his Resistance X-wing pilot gear, Poe Dameron now enters the die cast figure world with a pretty decent effort, but still far from complete satisfaction as far as we’re concerned. Right off the bat, we’re irritated that Disney Store has followed in the similar footsteps of Hasbro’s Build A Weapon line, because this Elite Series version of Poe Dameron comes with that horrid “banana visor” issue on his removable helmet. (At least it doesn’t completely cover his eyes.) Still, with a collectible of this caliber and MSRP, we expect more from Disney Store. It really is unsettling that they took this route. Collectors need realistic interpretations of their favorite Star Wars characters. This doesn’t cut it.

Another issue we have which seems to plague ALL human characters in this line is the porcelain quality of his face. There is not depth or personality in his face. It’s too smooth and “fake” in appearance. We see the potential in the sculpt, but the final figure just doesn’t capture a lifelike interpretation of the character. That being said, we are impressed with the sculpt. But in all honesty, Disney Store has not had many issues with capturing accurate frames of various Star Wars characters. So we expected Poe Dameron to look this good. His X-wing pilot uniform appears to be not colored perfectly to what was seen in the film, for all intents and purposes the uniform looks pretty good and has all of the detail you’d expect it to have. The Rebel Alliance symbols are accurately displayed on his helmet and his flight bib and details like the ammo belt and flight straps are nicely recreated. Aside from a strangely posed and chubby flat left hand, this figure could have been excellent.

A nice feature to Poe Dameron is his functioning holster. It houses his blaster pistol like a glove when not in use. And he is able to hold it into his positioned/formed right hand to pose at any First Order enemy. It is gold in color, something that surprises us a bit, and looks quite different that anything Hasbro has provided us with to date. But the shape and design of it has so much more detail that you can really appreciate just how complex these gun designs are. Poe Dameron also comes with a display stand. It isn’t too useful, but it does help keep the line uniform. One little foot peg on the stand isn’t enough to support the figure, so you need to ensure that the figure is balanced appropriately before you leave it unattended. Even then, we’re not sure how well the stand will help you keep these figures standing. Poe Dameron has decent paint operations, nice accessories (minus one glaring error) and a nice sculpt. We just think metal limits how accurate a figure can be.