Jurassic Park Series 1: Tim Murphy

Year of release: 1993

Accessories:

-Retracting Snare

-Night Goggles

-Cage

-Brachiosaurus hatchling

-Collector’s Card # 9 (alternate card for 1994 re-release)

Description: Tim stands in a largely neutral pose, though his lower right arm is raised a bit, and his left leg is moved to his side, making him take on a relaxed posture. Tim’s hair, eyes and eyebrows are all painted in the same shade of brown. He wears a white T-shirt with a blue collar. Around his chest he carries a (non removable) dark brown utility belt, while a blue JP tag is found under this belt on the right side of the chest. He has khaki pants on and wears white sport shoes and socks. His facial expression is rather emotionless.

Tim comes with a retracting snare, which is basically a long red tube with a handle on the lower back side so the figure can hold it. A black string runs through the snare, attached to a removable red piece at the very end of the tube. The string can be roped around a creature’s limbs or neck after which pulling the red end back makes the noose tighten, thus trapping the creature. If the creature in question is small enough it might fit into the cage (coloured shiny metallic silver), though it was designed for the Brachiosaurus hatchling. It has a hole in it for the little Sauropod to stick its neck out, but this might provide other small animals a means of escape. The cage can be opened and closed, but doesn’t spring open on its own accord. Tim also comes with night goggles, coloured all dark grey. They can be placed around his head, though it doesn’t always stay in place.

The Brachiosaurus hatchling stands in a walking mode with its left legs moved backward and its right legs posed forward, its front right leg raised as if taking a step. The tail and neck are in a neutral position though. The beastie is painted entirely dark grey, except for its throat, belly and inner parts of the legs, which are coloured light grey. It has small black eyes and carries a white JP logo on its left hind leg.

Analysis: another figure people remember well from the old days and tend to get nostalgic over is Tim Murphy. Tim sports a very simple and realistic outfit, though the utility belt seems out of place. Being a kid he and his JPS2 counterpart are somewhat smaller than most other Kenner figures, though still bigger than children really are compared to adults. His clothing is a bit dull, too much white. A blue shirt with white collar would probably be more movie accurate and more appealing, but this will do.

His accessories provide for some decent playability options. The night goggles are a perfect fit and set loose fond memories of the movie. However, more detailed colouring would have been appreciated. The snare and cage where obviously designed with the Brachiosaurus hatchling in mind, but work well on other smaller dinosaurs as well (particularly the snare). The snare does its job, though it’s not as much fun to operate as most other weapons of this toy line. Also, Tim has trouble holding it because it’s rather large and he often falls over when he has it in his hands. It’s best to make him lean on it, creating a sort of tripod pose. The cage is a really swell extra and is capable of carrying most of the JPS1/2 hatchlings and even Coelophysis figures.

The baby Brachiosaurus is really cute, though his odd grinning expression makes him look a bit silly. Its paint job is also a bit dull, but not too dissimilar from the colour schemes of its movie relatives.

Playability: pretty decent. Tim has both poseable arms and legs and can move his head around. The snare does its job, though it doesn’t provide for as much action as most of the other weapons in this toy line. The night goggles and cage are mere extra gadgets, but quite neat. Though the goggles were designed to fit around Tim’s head they are also applicable on several other Kenner figures, while the cage fits many hatchling figures. The Brachiosaurus, like all hatchlings, doesn’t have any poseable body parts.

Realism: Tim doesn’t resemble his movie counterpart (as played by Joseph Mazello) much, but is an obvious toy version of him. The utility or ammo belt he sports seems odd, but his attire is otherwise not unrealistic for a boy visiting a theme park on a tropical island, though not movie accurate. Though Tim is somewhat smaller than the adult human figures, he’s still a bit oversized considering he’s just a kid.

The retracting snare wasn’t featured in the movie, but is not an unrealistic piece of equipment. It looks somewhat similar to snares used by the InGen hunters in the TLW movie. The cage also seems a plausible instrument to contain small dinosaurs, but it too wasn’t seen in the film. The night goggles were of course featured in the first JP movie, but weren’t this monochromatic.

The little Brachiosaurus looks a lot like the large Sauropods seen in the film, though with darker colouring. The shape of the head makes it stand out as a Brachiosaurus, though the designers made the mistake of putting its nostrils on the snout instead of the forehead. Unfortunately Kenner never produced a big Brachiosaurus figure.

Repaint: since this figure belongs to the very first JP toy line, it’s obviously not repainted. However, the figure would be repainted for the JP Series 2 line, featuring a new head sculpt but the exact same set of accessories, though this time including a Parasaurolophus hatchling instead. The Brachiosaurus would be repainted for the JPS2 toy line and included in a set with Harpoon Harrison.

Overall rating: 7/10. Though another classic figure, Tim and the baby Sauropod don’t provide for much action but are good figures all the same. The nice accessories make up for the lack of action options to some extent. This figure is also very common, and can be found easily (even MOC) at low costs.