The Lost World Series 1: Cyclops Velociraptor

Year of release: 1997

Accessories:

-One piece of capture gear

Description: unlike most other TLW dinosaurs, this dinosaur stands in a very active pose, with its legs in a walking mode, left arm outstretched and right arm held back, its head raised upwards and its mouth opened, and the end of its tail bent to the left. The animal takes an attack posture and looks ready to jump on an adversary with an agitated overall look. It has seemingly every right to be agitated since its body shows numerous signs of near misses with larger carnivores: it has scratches and scars all over his body, some small and hardly noticeable, others large and plain in sight. The largest scars look like claw marks and can be found on its back, its tail and its upper left leg. Other noteworthy signs of abuse are the end of the tail, which isn’t just bent, but looks more like the bone has been broken and caused a deformity, as well as the left eye, which is all white and undoubtedly doesn’t work anymore, hence the nickname ‘Cyclops’ attached to this figure. Additionally, this figure has rather large feet to keep it from falling over (though it often does so regardless). Its sickle like claws are a bit small and the toe they’re on is stuck way too much towards the back of the foot.

The animal has a very simple attack action which has little to do with its attack posture. When the tail is moved from side to side, the head swings along (as well as the other way around) as if the animal is making snapping movements. The animal comes with a single long piece of capture gear (coloured silvery metallic grey, like most pieces of capture gear of this toy line), which can be attached to the right leg on one side and applied around the jaws on the other. Swinging the tail around should cause the animal trashing off its capture gear, though it’s harder to accomplish that than one might think at first.

The animal sports a somewhat unconventional paint job as far as Raptors go; it’s not brown or red like most other Raptor figures. This Raptor is mostly dark green and this colour can be found on its flanks, head, side of the tail, arms and legs. The underside of the creature (belly, throat, lower jaw, underside of the tail) is painted in a sort of yellow colour. Similarly, the upper parts of the animal (back, upper tail, neck, upper part of the head, as well as in a semi-circle around the upper legs) sport a beige paint job with stripes sticking out of it and running along its tail, flanks and neck. Its claws are painted white, its normal eye is brightly yellow with a red pupil, it has a large red tongue, and small white teeth. Additionally, a yellow JP Site B logo can be found on its right upper leg, marked with the number .13.

Analysis: though this figure has an interesting design, it has some major flaws. The paint job is very un-Raptor like and not overly appealing either. It’s feet are ridiculously large and it’s a shame its mouth can’t be closed. The attack action isn’t very impressive (though original enough) and looks a bit silly, but is quite fun to perform though. The dinosaur-breaks-free-of-restraint-gear action doesn’t work properly, since the head swinging usually lacks the force to actually trash of the restraint. Also, the gear is badly designed, since in real life a Raptor would get it off easily (it probably would use his arms to pull it off since they’re not restrained).

Still, the history one can think up for this animal is quite interesting. How did this poor Raptor get so beat up and utterly ravaged? Is it an older Raptor who’s had a lot of run-ins with larger predators and so far was lucky to got out of it alive? Or is it an under appreciated member of the Raptor pack which has been abused by its aggressive brethren because it has an odd colour? You decide for yourself what this battle scarred carnivore’s background is.

Playability: not too great. Though he has the usual moveable body parts, as well as a moveable head and tail, the pose this animal takes on stands in the way of good playability options (like with most of Hasbro’s JP toys). Also, it’s annoying its mouth can’t be closed. The single piece of restraint gear doesn’t add much options either.

Realism: this Raptor doesn’t look much like the Raptors seen in TLW, mostly because of the difference in colouring. None of the Raptors in the movie (or any of the movies) had this amount of scarring, though it would be interesting to see in a future JP movie and is certainly a credit to the creativity of the designers. It’s not entirely anatomically correct: like most Raptor toys as well as the Raptors seen in the movie it’s oversized compared to the humans, since real Velociraptors were about half this size. This Raptor also has incorrect feet and the inside of its mouth looks rather phoney.

Repaint: no. However, this dinosaur would be repainted several times: once for JP Dinosaurs 1 (including capture gear), a second time for JP Dinosaurs 2, and lastly, a third time for the JP III Wal-Mart exclusive Dino Tracker Adventure set.

Overall rating: 6/10. The scarring design is undoubtedly the great redeeming feature, since besides that this figure hasn’t got much to offer apart from a funky action move. This figure isn’t hard to find in the USA, but wasn’t released in other territories overseas where it is substantially harder to locate. Usually Ebay provides the solution, though at mixed costs. You decide for yourself whether it’s worth the effort.