Minimate Mini-Review #220 - Vincent and Mia's Night Out

#220 - Vincent and Mia's Night Out

Hired gun Vincent Vega has been asked to entertain the boss' wife, Mia Wallace, while the boss is out of town. After the pair win a twist contest at theme restaurant Jack Rabbit Slim's, it seems like the night is a success, but a careless mistake leads Vince to seek out the help of two casual acquaintances, Lance and Jody.

This is only the second Pulp Fiction Minimates set, and we've already got our second Vinnie Vega. Are we going to have to start a Wolverine list for him? This is far from a double-dip, though: while he may be wearing the same jacket, he's traded in his necktie for a bolo and he's got his hair pulled back into a ponytail. There's a silly look on his face, because who thinks about their face when they're having fun dancing? A small brown stripe painted on the front of his feet shows us that he's just wearing his socks - otherwise he'd scuff the dance floor! There are plain black feet included if you so desire, but we gladly would have traded those away if it meant we got new "Batusi" hands for him. We'd even have given up his gun, since it's not an important part of these scenes.

It's a widely believed fact that Kill Bill is not only a fictional movie in our world, but in the world shared by Tarantino films, as well; the reason it's so over-the-top and cartoonishly violent is because it's the type of movie that Long Beach Mike and Tony Rocky-Horror could walk into a theatre and buy a ticket for. So then the only question left to ask is whether Mrs. Mia Wallace is playing the Bride, or if they just found an actress who looked like her (since the movie is clearly a reworking of her failed Fox Force Five pilot). The Minimate has a nice likeness, and new hair to create her distinctive pageboy. She's wearing the Tarantino uniform, with small black wrinkles painted on the torso, and a new waist piece to create the untucked lower edge. She's barefoot in the package, but includes an extra pair of feet with shoes painted on, though they're black rather than the appropriate gold.

Back in the '90s, people didn't wear exercise clothes all the time to relax, so since Lance is a guy who would almost never need to leave his house, he's chilling in boxer shorts, a T-shirt, and a bathrobe. He's also got a flannel tied around his waist, though on this figure that's more of a ninja belt than a full shirt. The robe has flared sleeves, and in a pinch could probably be used as a stand-in for the overcoat Mia was wearing when she came home from her date. There's a bit of a pattern painted on his drawers, and he's wearing sandals. The figure has a decent Eric Stoltz likeness, but it was almost Quentin Tarantino: he was going to play Lance, until he decided he'd rather be behind the camera for the overdose scene. Sadly, Lance's top is plain white: in the movie, he was wearing a Speed Racer shirt, so how cool would it have been if they'd printed a logoless image of their Speed Racer on the chest?

Lance's wife Jody was played by Rosanna Arquette, but the part almost went to Pam Grier - the only reason she lost out was that it was too hard to believe her getting pushed around by Lance. Like her hubby, Jody is wearing a bathrobe, though she's got hers tied up. Beneath it she's wearing a dark grey T-shirt, and nothing else (because putting on a robe is easier than putting on pants when you don't want unexpected houseguests to see your underwear). The lower edge of the robe is the skirt piece we've seen on a lot of Minimates over the years, but the angle at which is sits on the waist (and the resultant gap between her upper and lower halves) says the mold may be wearing out. She's got new hair, and the likeness is tops - though that may be more attributable to all the piercings painted on than anything else.

Though it may seem like it, these Minimates are not the first Pulp Fiction toys ever made: in 2004, NECA tried to get into the block figure market with Ge-Oms, and Pulp Fiction was the movie they did it with. Nobody ever bought them (you may remember them from the deep, deep discount bin at the back of your local Suncoast video store), but one of the four-packs had this exact selection of characters. In this exact same order! That's just unusual.

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4 Responses to Minimate Mini-Review #220 - Vincent and Mia's Night Out

  1. fightthedead118 says:

    and its happening again with the bonnie situation set, look up the geom set the clean up

  2. Soundwinder says:

    I never heard that theory about Kill Bill being a movie in the QT-verse. And the IMDB page for that Futurama episode didn't immediately bring up anything to suggest that. Could you give me some more detail?

    • Soundwinder says:

      Oh, I'm dumb. You were explaining the "widely believed fact" joke.

      • yo go re says:

        I was!

        Here's a quote from QT himself:

        ''What I always tell people is that I have two universes, okay? 'There's the Quentin universe, the 'movie' universe that 'Reservoir Dogs,' 'True Romance,' and 'Pulp Fiction' take place in. That universe is realer than real life. Then I have what I call a 'movie movie' universe. Basically, okay, when the characters in 'Dogs' or 'Pulp Fiction' go to the movies, these are the movies they see. So that's 'From Dusk Till Dawn' and 'Natural Born Killers.' This is the first time I've directed a movie in the 'movie movie' universe. I just wanted to do something fun...''

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