Jurassic Park Dinosaurs: Baryonyx and Dinosaur Tracker

Year of release: 1999

Accessories:

-Two pieces of capture gear

-Machete

-Shot gun

-Stun prod

Description: Baryonyx assumes a walking posture, with its left leg moved forward and its right leg posed backward. Its tail is not bent as much as the other Bary figures, since this figure's card is large enough to accommodate its overall length. Its back and neck are covered in rows of small bumps, while a single small horn is found on the snout. It is equipped with a whipping action: pulling the right leg back and forth makes the head spin around, as if the creature is thrashing its head. This also features a dinosaur-breaks-free-of-restraint-gear action: when the capture gear is on, the Baryonyx can break free by thrashing its head left and right. Additionally, the beast’s lower jaw snaps back when pulled down and released, making it possible for this sculpt to clasp other figures between its jaws, though the mouth can’t open really wide so most figures won’t fit.

This dinosaur figure sports brown colouring on its back, neck, head, upper part of the tail and the very upper part of the limbs. This brown gradually shifts to green, which is located on the flanks and the underside of the creature (belly, throat, lower jaw, lower part of the tail) for the most part, as well as on the rest of the limbs. The figure carries randomly patterned black spots all over its back, neck and upper tail, and features a small black horn between its nostrils, as well as blue circles around its white eyes (with cat like black pupils). The claws on both arms and legs are black, while a black JP logo is found on the right upper leg. The figure also has white teeth and the inside of its mouth, including its tongue, is red.

This Bary comes with two pieces of capture gear, which form a sort of harness around the creature’s upper body and restrain its arms and head. However, it wouldn’t stop the creature from just walking away. Both pieces are painted in dark yellow, an unusual colour for capture gear.

The Dinosaur Tracker is a broad shouldered, butch looking figure of a man, sporting a brownish yellow field suit with numerous pockets, wearing a brown shirt underneath the suit, brown arm patches, black utility belts, an almost golden ammo belt around his torso, black boots and a pair of black sunglasses. He also has black hair and a Elvis like hairdo. He stands with his legs wide apart in a bracing pose with his left leg stretched forwards and his right leg backwards. His head is a bit too small compared to his body. Pressing his legs together makes his left arm move, so it looks like he’s making slashing moves when holding one of his weapons.

He has three different weapons, none of which are capable of action features; these weapons are mere props but they’re much more realistic than most of the weapons that come with human figures. The Tracker carries a stun prod with a cross shaped end, as well as a shot gun and a machete. All weapons are coloured dull grey.

Analysis: the first JP: Dinosaurs line introduced a new concept, namely pairing human figures and their accessories with basic dinosaurs instead of hatchlings, making for the bigger dino/human 2-packs of this line (and similar sets for JPD2). For the time this was unique, a little bit of originality in a line consisting solely of repaints. One of the first such sets was this Baryonyx with Dinosaur Tracker set. It's an interesting pairing of figures, though as far as compatibility of action features goes, not the most successful match. The Tracker is too big for the Bary to clutch between its jaws and viciously spin it around, nor is his arm chop movement sufficient to take down the carnivore with whichever of the three weapons he holds. You could say this makes it a draw.

As far as the paint jobs go, this is not a bad set. Though the Bary's paint scheme is identical to that of its TLWS2 predecessor, the colouration has improved. Green and brown fits the Baryonyx well, even being reminiscent of the paint job of the old JPS2 Baryonyx. Also, the figure's details have not been forgotten this time: the claws on both hands and feet, the horn on the snout, the inside of the mouth, it's all painted. It even got some extra detailing round the eyes, though these themselves are less pretty, being simply white. Another improvement for this figure is the fact that it's tail is more stretched out due to the bigger packaging, which means that it is better balanced this time around and can stand up on its two legs more easily, while the tail doesn't hit the ground. Unfortunately this is only the case when its capture gear is not applied. The gear itself got a yellow paint job, which makes it stand out among all JP capture gear. It also adds some extra colour to this set.

The Dino Tracker paint job is not all that different from the original colouring on TLWS1 Peter Ludlow. It's somewhat darker, but overall pretty close to that we got before. Nothing has been added to this human figure, though the JP logo on his right arm has been removed for some reason. His arm chop action is still a solid feature, though it only works on smaller prey. The tall and handsome Tracker makes for a good addition to the small team of human figures of this toy line, but otherwise there's little worth of interest to him, since the Baryonyx is definitely the biggest draw of the set. After all, this line is all about the dinosaurs, eh?

Repaint: yes. This is a repaint of the original TLWS2 Baryonyx, including that figure's capture gear repainted, along with a TLWS1 Peter Ludlow repaint, including all of Ludlow's accessories save for the Raptor hatchling. Neither the Bary nor Ludlow would be repainted for later toy lines (though Ludlow's head would also be seen on an Ajay repaint in the Stegosaurus with Dinosaur Hunter set of Wave 2 of this toy line, which also featured a single brown Baryonyx figure).

Overall rating: 7/10. A decent set, with an effective and appealing, though not very original, paint job. This set is definitely harder to find than most other JPD1 Wave 1 releases, especially in MOC or complete condition. It probably will require a fair amount of patience and cash to acquire it.

The Lost World Series 1: Peter Ludlow

Year of release: 1997

Accessories:

- Three different weapons (shotgun, machete and stun prod)

-Velociraptor hatchling

Description: Ludlow is a broad shouldered, butch looking figure of a man, sporting a beige field suit with numerous pockets, and wearing a white shirt underneath the suit, brown arm patches, green utility belts, a black ammo belt, dark green boots and a pair of black sunglasses. He has black hair and a Elvis like hairdo. He stands with his legs wide apart in a walking pose with his left leg stretched forwards and his right leg backwards. He has a black InGen logo on his right sleeve. His head is somewhat too small compared to his body. Pressing his legs together makes his left arm move to the left, so it looks like he’s making slashing moves when holding one of his weapons.

He has three different weapons, none of which are capable of action features. Like with the weapons of the Dieter Stark figure, these weapons are mere props but they’re much more realistic than most of the weapons that come with human figures. Ludlow carries a stun prod with a cross shaped end, as well as a shot gun and a machete. All weapons are coloured dull grey.

The Velociraptor hatchling adds some colour to the set, sporting a bright pink/purple upper body (back of the head, back, upper tail and parts of the limbs). Other than that it’s just coloured beige. It has black irises and also a black JP Site B logo on its right upper leg. It stands in an intimidating posture, like it’s ready to jump on its prey: its body faces downward somewhat and his arms are stretched forward.

Analysis: this is quite a neat figure. Though it does not resemble the Peter Ludlow from the TLW movie in any way, it has a wonderful outfit, a decent paint job and a fun action feature. His arm slashing action works well and is easy to activate. The only downside is that the figure tends to fall down easily, because it doesn’t stand to well on its feet and is a bit out of balance. Also, the Raptor hatchling isn’t the best figure to use for this action, since it too falls down easily: it usually doesn’t need to be tackled by Ludlow’s action because it knocks over on its own accord.

Ludlow’s weapons are quite realistic (as far as JP weapons go), and add a bit of diversity to the line. They don’t feature any action options themselves, but Ludlow can use any of them for his arm slashing movement. It’s a shame they’re all sporting such a dull paint job: would it have been too much to ask to have painted them in different colours? Still, their identical colouring makes it easy for people to see they belong to the same figure.

The Raptor hatchling isn’t very good. It too has a very bland and undetailed paint job. The upper part of its body is all pink or purple (you decide for yourself what colour you want to call it), and the underside is all beige. It could have used some more detail. It’s limbs and head look pretty ugly. It’s definitely one of the lamest Raptor sculpts.

Playability: Ludlow himself, along with his array of weaponry, provides for some good action. He’s fully poseable and his arm movement adds more possibilities. The diverse range of his weapons is also a plus: it’s not just guns like Dieter Stark had. The Raptor however is of a lesser quality: like any hatchling it doesn’t have poseable parts, and it also stands in a very active and thus not neutral pose, limiting options somewhat.

Realism: as stated above, this figure reminds us in almost nothing of Peter Ludlow as performed by Arliss Howard in the TLW movie. Instead of a small bureaucrat looking out of place in the jungle, this guy is a tall tough outdoor man. His clothing is also completely different. There’s a tiny bit in the facial structure of this figure that resembles the movie’s Ludlow a bit, but that’s as far as it goes. The weapons this figure carries look like equipment seen in TLW, or at least like something that could very well have been used in that movie. Though I don’t specifically remember any shotguns or machetes, the stun prod is certainly not all too different from the prod Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare) used in the film. There are some minor differences: that prod did not have a cross shaped end, and was a bit smaller. But this device will certainly look familiar to people who’ve seen the movie.

Though no baby Raptor was featured in TLW, we did see one in the first JP movie, and this hatchling Raptor looks nothing like it. For one thing it has a different colour and looks a lot less cute. It’s recognizable as a Raptor (small bipedal carnivore with sickle shaped claws) but that’s as far as it goes.

Repaint: no. However, this figure along with its weapons would be repainted for JP Dinosaurs 1 (for the Baryonyx and Dino Tracker set). The Raptor would not be repainted.

Overall rating: 7/10. It’s a good figure with a cool action feature and a nice set of weapons, but the poor Raptor hatchling and some boring paint schemes bring it down somewhat. Still, it’s worth getting, though quite a bit harder to find than most other TLW human figures. It will also cost more when you find it.