The Lost World Series 2: Eddie Carr

Year of release: 1997-1998

Accessories:

-Tranq Bazooka

-Two missiles

-Backpack

-Tyrannosaurus hatchling

Description: this second Eddie Carr figure of the TLW toy lines stands in a totally neutral position. He wears an orange jumpsuit, with grey camouflage spots mixed in on the legs and torso, and a scaly shiny blue shirt underneath. On the left part of his chest he sports a yellow badge with the JP Site B logo. His pants carry several pockets and an odd TV-screen like ornamentation (a knee patch maybe? If so, why doesn't he have one on the other knee too?). He sports black boots, a shiny blue glove on his right hand (his left hand is exposed), a big blue arm patch over his left lower arm, and a small walkie-talkie on his back. Like the TLWS1 Eddie Carr figure, he comes with a cowboy hat, this time light grey with a brown band on it. He has black eyes and eyebrows and brown hair.

Eddie comes with a large bazooka, basically a black tube with a small box at the end and a big one up front. There's a small pin on the bottom of the big box up front, so Eddie can more easily hold this weapon. On top of the gun near the front end there’s a large red button. When the bazooka is loaded with either one of the two red missiles it comes with, pressing the button makes the missile be fired with force, with a firing range of almost two metres and a good impact force. It’s one of the more effective and powerful weapons Kenner ever produced. This set also features a black backpack with black straps so Eddie can carry it on his back. The pack has two holes in it, one for each missile.

The T-Rex hatchling is a cute little critter with large black eyes, standing tall on its legs. It stands in a walking position, left leg posed forward and right leg posed backward, with its head slightly positioned to the right as if something is attracting its attention. It’s coloured in a bright red paint job, with a large black stripe running from its snout all the way to the end of the tail, and with smaller black stripes running out of the bigger one. It has a white JP Site B logo on its right upper leg. It also has a bandage on its lower right leg, hardly noticeable because it’s coloured in the same red colour as the rest of the sculpt.

Analysis: despite being killed halfway through the movie, Eddie Carr is back in a second incarnation, wearing Urban Assault Gear, ready to take on nasty predators running loose in the big city. As such, he's sporting a very different, more elaborate outfit than his TLWS1 predecessor did. It seems to be a dinosaur-resisting suit, much more heavy and bulky in stature as the simpler gear the other Eddie figure wore, but still a neat design (and despite the obvious usefulness of some sort of protective helmet, still sporting Eddie's cowboy hat), albeit asymmetric (why not a big red arm patch on the right arm as well? Or a second knee patch?). Despite its odd looks, it's obvious Eddie is ready for close combat, with an effective weapon to match.

The best part of this set comes from the formidable bazooka. It works very well and has a great firing range for such a small weapon. It easily knocks over hatchlings, human figures and most smaller dinosaurs and even bigger ones (it partially depends on whether the targeted creatures are bipedal or not). It comes with two different missiles, so you have a choice, as well as a spare because with a range like this missiles tend to get lost. Both missiles can be stored in the backpack so you don’t have to let one of them lie loose when the other is loaded in the gun. Eddie's right arm is definitely the one to use for this weapon, since the big arm patch on his left arm gets in the way of positioning the weapon. Slight modifications have been made to this weapon for this TLWS2 figure, since it is a retooled version of the bazooka that originally came with JPS1 Robert Muldoon and was designed specifically for that figure, so few other figures could hold it (see the 'Repaint' section below). The retooling allows more figures to be capable of carrying it. Retooling not withstanding, this bazooka is still one of the best and most powerful weapons of all the JP toy lines.

The Rex hatchling is quite good, but has some minor balance issues. It falls down easily, which does make it a very good target for the bazooka, since that weapon is capable of knocking this little dinosaur over good and slinging it away a fair distance. The Rex's paint job isn’t very appealing and could have used some more work: it’s especially disappointing the bandage on its leg isn’t painted in a different colour, because it’s hard to spot the animal has a bandage there at all. Other than that, the Rex looks cute and cuddly, and is one of the more loveable hatchling figures made by Kenner.

Playability: just fine. Eddie has the usual poseable body parts, namely, head, legs and arms. The bazooka is an excellent weapon with a great firing range and a powerful impact force for such a small weapon. The new pin on its underside makes it compatible with more figures than it was originally designed for. Since there's two missiles, there's a back-up if you loose one, and to keep you from losing them you can store them in the backpack. The little T-Rex has no poseability of any kind.

Realism: 'Urban Assault Gear' would have been handy fighting the escaped Rex in the Lost World movie, but such an outfit, let alone a bazooka, was not featured in the actual film. More importantly, Eddie Carr was already dead in that part of the film, so he seems an unlikely choice to fight dinosaurs in an urban environment. Moreover, this figure doesn't resemble Eddie Carr at all, he looks more like a made-up character on Kenner's part. The Rex hatchling is quite accurate for hatchling standards, aside from the red paint job. It's not as close a match to the little Rex seen in the TLW movie as the TLWS1 Junior T-Rex figure, but comes close enough, right down to the (unpainted) bandages around its right leg.

Repaint: yes, this set is all repaints. Eddie himself has a repainted version of the body of JPS2 Alan Grant (Bola version)(which would also be repainted for the TLW Exclusive Dino Tracker Adventure Set), while his head sculpt comes from the TLWS1 Eddie Carr figure (so there is consistency in that regard). The Rex hatchling is a repaint of the baby Rex from TLWS1 Ian Malcolm. The bazooka, along with both missiles and the backpack, is a retooled and repainted version of the same weapon that originally came with JPS1/2 Robert Muldoon (this weapon, though not retooled or repainted, would also be featured in the TLW Exclusive Young T-Rex set). The differences between the original bazooka and this retooled TLWS2 version are:

-the little pin on its underside, allowing more figures to handle it;

-no hole at the back end of the bazooka;

-a slightly different paint job, still black with red highlights, but different, lighter hues of black and red. The missiles are also painted in a slightly different shade of red than the originals. The backpack remains unaltered though, and is simply a reuse. Despite the minor differences, the bazooka is effective as ever.

Overall rating: 6/10. So it's all nothing new really, but the figure got a pretty decent new paint job, the bazooka is still a kick-ass weapon and the hatchling is cute as ever. If you don't mind repaints, you might want to track this set down, though being part of the infamous TLWS2 toy line it's not the easiest set to get, having only had a limited release in the USA, and virtually no release in other territories. That said, this is probably the most common set of the TLWS2 toy line, so it's at least less hard to find than the other figures of this toy line.