Jurassic Park Series 2: Ian Malcolm

Year of release: 1993-1994

Accessories:

-Launching Tranq Missile gun

-Tranq Missile Dart

-Backpack

-Gallimimus hatchling

-Collector’s Card # 41

Description: Ian Malcolm is stylishly dressed in an all black suit, except for his shoes which are grey. He has a long sleeved jacket on which extends over the upper parts of his pants. On his shirt he has a silver tag with a black JP logo on it. He dons black sunglasses, has black curly hair and a rather smug look on his face. His pants are rather tight compared to those of other figures, making Ian look somewhat thin despite his broad shoulders. He stands in a largely neutral pose, except for his right lower arm which is raised a little, to facilitate him holding the big missile launcher.

The Tranq Missile gun is quite a big and bulky piece of equipment; when loaded it's almost as big as Ian himself. It's basically a big tube with protrusions sticking out. It has a small handle on its front underside and a big pin at the back, and a long extra handle sticking out its end. A small round button is found on top for firing the missile. It has small circular holes on the handles and the front part. It sports an entirely, somewhat shiny, metallic grey paint job. The missile is almost as long as the launcher itself. It consists of a transparent green tube with a tripod apparatus on top. It has a thick triangular collar, which is retractable. There's a small hole in the dart itself so it can be stored on the backpack.

The backpack is a very strange looking device. It's mostly black, covered with small holes and protrusions sticking out (including a big one for storing the missile. In the middle of the pack there are two tubes with a large hole sticking out on their lower part. These are coloured the same transparent green as the missile, giving the impression of a tranquillizer fluid of sorts, which the backpack “contains” so the missile can be “refilled” when attaching it to the pack. The backpack is quite flat by comparison, which gives the impression there's not as much to it as you would at first glance think due to its complex design. The pack has shiny metallic grey straps on it so Malcolm can carry it on his back.

Lastly, this set comes with a baby Gallimimus. This hatchling is sitting down, its limbs held close to its body and its tail raised in the air. It has a big head with a rather long snout and huge yellow eyes with black pupils: overall, the head has a very bird like quality. Its mouth is opened, showing a tiny red tongue. This creature has a mostly brown paint job: its entire body sports this colour, save for a big blue stripe running from the middle of its face over the neck and back down to the end of the tail. A series of eight small red stripes runs over this blue stripe. Concluding, little Galli features a white JP logo on its left leg.

Analysis: Malcolm is quite a neat figure, being almost totally movie accurate. Even though his paint job is rather monochromatic, he wears black with style, as Malcolm did in the film. In fact, the grey shoes, though adding some diversion, seem out of place. His unique style of clothes makes him distinct from the other figures. His jacket, which runs down over his pants and “hangs loose” next to his hips, isn't something seen on other JP figures. Basically, this dude is as cool as the coolness his clothing style exerts.

The same can't be said for his missile launcher. It too looks quite cool, but it's less special than it looks. The primary argument against it is the fact it's simply oversized. Malcolm has a very tough time holding it and being able to stand up straight, unless he leans backwards (something he can't do very well because the jacket gets in the way of the poseability of his legs). There's also not many places Ian can grip the gun, except for the small handle on the underside and the long one at the back of the weapon. The big pin on the underside, which one might expect would be the obvious place to hold the gun, is useless. Despite these negative points, the gun works: pressing the button launches the missile over a decent distance with a good impact force. However, in this regard it's inferior to Muldoon's bazooka, which also has the argument of originality in its favour. This Tranq Missile Launcher is basically the same type of weapon, just bigger and bulkier.

However, this gun has originality in another regard: interactivity. The missile can “interact” with the backpack. Not only can it be stored on a peg on the pack, the missile can be attached to the pack via the tripod protrusions on top of it. Moving the collar on the dart back and forth thus gives the impression of refilling the missile's tranq fluids. Of course, it's all make-belief, but it's not something seen on other figures' weaponry. As for the backpack itself, the straps should have been a little longer, since now they only fit very tightly on Malcolm, and putting the pack on his back isn't easy. Also, it would have helped if the pack was a bit bigger, since it would have helped both balancing Ian as he holds the gun, and it would have made it look more impressive: when you turn the pack around now it's basically hollow.

The baby Galli is quite a disappointing hatchling. Although it has a very nice head sculpt, looking plain cute and cuddly, its body is quite ugly. The way its limbs are attached to its body makes it look like a deformed foetus with legs that are grown together instead of apart. Its paint job isn't very good either: though it's identical to that of the adult Gallimimus figure of this toy line, which doesn't make it look bad, it causes an over-abundance of brown on this baby. Still, good to see the designers bothered to paint its tiny tongue. 

 

Playability: not bad. Ian has poseable arms, legs and head, though his legs can't move as far backwards as those of other figures because the jacket gets in their way. There's no poseability found on the little Gallimimus. The backpack has some issues when it comes to putting it on and taking it off of Malcolm, but has an interesting interactive relationship with the missile. The launcher has some design flaws, but works well enough.

Realism: this Malcolm figure is without a doubt the most movie accurate of all the JPS1/2 human figures. His outfit is largely identical, especially when it comes to the paint job (which wasn't difficult to screw up, because it's basically all black). The head sculpt is pretty accurate too, down to his smug grin and sunglasses, though his hair is a little bit too long. Malcolm's accessories weren't featured in the film, and they look a bit too elaborate to exist in reality. Gallimimus was seen in the film, but no hatchlings, adult Gallis only.

Repaint: no, unlike several other JPS2 figures this is a completely new sculpt, with unique accessories and a new hatchling. Though its head sculpt would be repainted for the TLWS1 Malcolm figures, the rest of the figure would not be, nor would any of his accessories and hatchling.

Overall rating: 7/10. A very good figure, but a lousy hatchling and half decent accessories. Malcolm himself is obviously the main draw of this set. This figure seems to have been released in the US only, but it's definitely one of the more common JPS2 figures: it's not hard to find on Ebay and usually doesn't go for very high prices either.