Jurassic Park Series 2: Ellie Sattler

Year of release: 1993-1994

Accessories:

-Firing Grappling Hook

-Beacon Locater Backpack

-Ankylosaurus hatchling

-Collector’s Card # 55

Description: Ellie stands in a neutral pose with her arms slightly raised. She has long blond hair, tied in a knot at the back. Her eyes and eyebrows are brown however, while her face has a rather emotionless look to it. Ellie wears a dark pink shirt (no sleeves, short or otherwise) with a blue shirt underneath (seen only under her neck). Her shirt is tied tight around her waist by a black belt which sports a pocket on the left side. She has brown short pants and a blue tag with a black JP logo on her right upper leg. A second black belt, holding what appears to be a small camera, dangles on her left hip, while a flash light is found attached to her right hip. She wears white shoes with blue socks sticking out. Above her left hand she appears to be wearing some sort of wrist band, but it’s not painted in a different colour than the rest of her arm.

Ellie comes with a large weapon, called a Grappling Hook. It’s basically a metallic grey tube with some protrusions sticking out, like a handle and a spyglass. Attached to the weapon is a long black string, which in itself is attached to a large orange dart with three curved hooks on it. When loaded into the launch tube of the Grappling Hook, pressing the orange button on the weapon makes the hooked dart being launched, capable of being hooked around any target in range. Ellie also comes with a Beacon Locater Backpack, which appears to be a dark blue radio box with beige straps attached to it so Ellie can carry it on her back. On top it has a small orange antenna. It looks sophisticated, but doesn’t do anything.

An Ankylosaurus hatchling completes this set. It’s a small round turtle like creature, instantly recognizable by the big armour plating on its back, as well as a club on the end of its tail. It walks on four legs. Its head has a triangular shape to it, with a sharp parrot like beak and small red eyes with black irises. The underside of the critter (belly, throat, most of the legs, lower part of the tail and club) are painted white, while the armour, upper parts of the club and head are dark purple. In-between the armour and the white colouring there is a very light shade of blue (only on the flanks and head). A small black JP logo can be found on its right hind leg. The animal stands in a slight walking pose, its mouth opened and the tail pointing downwards.

Analysis: being yet another retooled JPS1 figure, Ellie is still rather good looking and remains fairly movie accurate (though her outfit is less so than on her previous incarnation). Her outfit looks a lot like what Ellie Sattler wore in the movie, though the original light pink paint job of the JPS1 figure was a better match. Though she has no action features of her own, her weapon provides some.

The Grappling Hook is fun to play with, but has several minor downsides. Fortunately it works quite well. Loading the weapon and firing it makes the hook being launched with some force over a respectable distance, though of course limited by the range of the string. It’s a good weapon, but its new paint job is less appealing than the green JPS1 version (which wasn't great either): metallic grey and orange just don't match in a visibly pleasing way. Other than that, the hook is also lightly build and has often trouble doing damage to figures. Also, because the hooks are bend back pretty close to the dart itself they often miss grabbing any parts of targets, so they usually don’t hook onto something, unless by a lucky shot. They might hook around the little Anky's tail, but otherwise this hatchling doesn't have to fear being a successful target for this particular weapon. Also, the string easily get entangled with itself, forming knots which are hard to unravel. Apart from these issues, the grappling hook is a good enough weapon.

Ellie also comes with a radio transmitter pack, which is plain redundant. It has no functions at all. It can be strapped around the figure’s back, but is heavy enough to make her fall over and only seems a burden. Its boring paint job also doesn’t help (this time, the antenna is orange instead of green: not much of an interesting change). If it had been left out altogether, it wouldn’t have been missed. Apparently the designers couldn’t come up with a more interesting extra accessory.

The Ankylosaurus hatchling also doesn’t sport a very good colour scheme. It would surely stand out in a crowd, or a primordial landscape for that matter, which seems an evolutionary error, since even an armoured creature like this would be an easily located prey for all kinds of predators. Maybe an adult Ankylosaurus might be strong enough not to have to care about being in plain sight, but this seems less the case for a hatchling which is surely prone to attacks by carnivores. Nonetheless, it’s still a very cuddly little baby with an innocent but sheepish facial expression. It’s a decent enough dinosaur figure, but not the best hatchling of this second toy line.

Playability: good enough. Ellie herself has the typical range of poseable body parts, namely arms, legs and head. The Grappling Hook is a fine weapon, though it’s hard to really grab anything and its range is limited because of the string (which also has a tendency to get intertwined with itself). Unfortunately the hooks are easily damaged, often breaking off when handled to roughly. The radio transmitter pack does nothing and is basically a useless burden to the figure. The baby Ankylosaurus features no poseable body parts, which is of course usual for hatchling figures.

Realism: Ellie’s outfit is still reminiscent to what her movie counterpart, as performed by Laura Dern, wore in the JP movie, but qua colour scheme it's less similar. The retooled head does resemble her more closely, but it's still a far cry from an exact match: nevertheless, this is a very acceptable toy version of Laura Dern. Her weapon is a bit over the top (especially the colours), but can be handy in dangerous encounters with prehistoric vermin (though a weapon like this wasn’t featured in the movie, nor was the radio pack). Ankylosaurus wasn't featured in the movie (but would be seen all too briefly in Jurassic Park III). Unfortunately, of all the hatchlings of the first two toy lines, this species would be the only one not to get an adult figure ever (Parasaurolophus got one for TLWS1, Brachiosaurus for JP III Wave 2), making this the only released Ankylosaurus in JP toys history (an adult Ankylosaurus was scheduled for JP: Chaos Effect, but sadly remained unreleased). Lonely little beastie...

Repaint: as mentioned above, this is a retooled version of JPS1 Ellie Sattler, featuring a new paint job (and this time not only on the human figure but also repainted accessories), a different head sculpt and a new hatchling. None of the parts of this set would be repainted again for later toy lines.

Overall rating: 7/10. Ellie is still a pretty decent figure (as well as the only woman in the first toy lines), though the changes didn't improve her that much. Her weapon is still fifty-fifty, as is the hatchling (cute as it may be). JPS2 Ellie is definitely harder to find than her Series 1 counterpart (though not exactly rare), apparently being released in the USA only. If you feel you need a female action figure and prefer this one over JPS1 Ellie, you'll probably have to look online for it.