The Lost World Series 1: Carnotaurus

Year of release: 1997

Accessories:

-Seven pieces of capture gear

-Dino damage piece

Description: this rather odd carnivore stands in a neutral pose, tall on its hind legs with its tail raised high above the ground. The last few centimetres of the tail are curved upward, making the tail resembling a hook of sorts. The figure has a very strange looking short head, with large nostrils and small horns above the eyes, resembling a bull (hence the name Carnotaurus, ‘meat bull’). The head is positioned in such a way that the animal spends its days looking down, as if ogling potential prey. This dinosaur comes with a chomping action: pulling the right leg back causes the upper jaw to move upwards, making the mouth open very wide. Pushing the leg back makes the mouth close again. The creature carries a dino damage wound on its belly: removing the skin patch reveals white ribs and red muscle tissue.

The figure’s predominant colour is dark red, which is found on almost the entire head, its back and flanks, the arms and legs and the upper part of the tail. Black stripes adorn this red paint job in a chaotic pattern, running over the back and upper legs as well as the head and tail. Its claws too are black, except the ones on the sides of the lower legs (notice he has two of these on each leg, instead of the usual one). The underside of the beast (its belly, inner part of the limbs, lower part of the tail and throat) sports a sickly green paint job. It has very bright green, cat like, eyes. On its right upper leg a dark yellow JP: Site B logo is found, along with the number .26.

This dinosaur comes with no less than seven pieces of capture gear, all coloured shiny metallic reddish brown. Two of these are used to restrain the legs of the creature, while the other five form an elaborate harness around the monster’s head. This requires the figure to bend forward with its tail in the air and its face almost to the ground, making it look rather silly and not able to stand. Pulling the Carnotaurus’ leg back now makes the animal break free of its restraints.

Analysis: like the JPS2 toy line, this line features a flawed Carnotaurus figure. However, the JPS2 Carno was still a very cool figure to behold, despite its shortcomings. This Carnotaurus however, is not even really cool, and certainly no improvement over its JPS2 predecessor. It’s just too much of a disappointment.

The main problem is the overall look of this dinosaur. It’s not the paint job’s fault. Though the colouring isn’t totally imaginative it still looks fine on the figure. It’s more the odd posture this figure assumes, tall on its legs, resembling the way dinosaurs used to be depicted, as walking tightly upright, looking down at their helpless victims (at least in the carnivores’ case). The weird angle of the end of the tail also doesn’t help. The dino damage wound is located at a rather unusual spot, though it may also be considered original.

The cause of the annoying stance of this figure is the inconvenient attack action, which doesn’t really work. Though pulling the right leg back does open and close the mouth easily, the mouth doesn’t have enough force to clamp stuff between the jaws, mostly because the upper jaw hangs a bit loose. So anything it manages to grasp with its mouth, immediately slips out. Also, when the mouth is widely opened, the figure looks plain ridiculous, like it severely dislocated its upper jaw, with its tongue hanging out. Additionally, the figure is out of balance and falls over easily, unless it stands in a very upright pose. This too can be blamed on the design of the chomping action.

The capture gear doesn’t help much either. In order to properly apply the gear, the dinosaur must bend over, which it can’t without falling down, despite the leg restraints. The dinosaur-breaks-free action doesn’t really work either, since the gear doesn’t stick much to the animal.

Apart from the decent paint job, there’s very few good qualities this figure has. The savage and demonic design of the upper jaw, even though the horns are a bit tiny, as well as the bumpy and scaly body give this creature a little extra creepy character. The design of the arms, though incorrect, makes them look eerie. Overall speaking, the lousy action and annoying posture ruin an otherwise nasty looking predator.

Playability: not all that high. The creature has poseable arms and legs, though the right leg supports the chomping action and moves less smoothly, limiting options a bit. The mouth is also moveable, but is under influence of the attack option as well, and moves right back when posed separately. The dino damage wound is located at a bit of an inconvenient place, making it somewhat harder to remove, also because the arms tend to get in the way. And the capture gear adds almost nothing in this figure’s case.

Realism: Carnotaurus was not featured in the TLW movie, though it did have a memorable role as a vicious carnivore with camouflage ability in Michael Crichton’s TLW novel. It doesn’t show on this figure. It also hardly resembles the JPS2 Carnotaurus, being a clearly different take on this species of dinosaur on the designers’ part (the same thing happened to the Baryonyx). From a scientific view point, this figure isn’t accurate. Its arms are way too long and sport three fingers instead of four. The design of the head also lacks in correctness, and its horns are a bit on the small side. Still, compared to human figures, this creature’s size is more or less realistic.

Repaint: no. This figure would not be repainted for following toy lines either.

Overall rating: 4/10. A missed opportunity to improve on one of the most infamous and popular predatory dinosaurs, sporting a lame attack option, lousy capture gear and an irritating posture. To make things worse, it’s quite rare (especially in complete condition because it comes with so many small pieces), so even though it’s not a very good figure, competition to get one is pretty high, as are the prices it fetches. Be sure you really want this one before spending loads of cash on it, because you may find it’s not worth it in hindsight.