The Lost World Series 1: Nick van Owen

Year of release: 1997

Accessories:

-Spray gun with backpack

-Camera

-Pteranodon hatchling

Description: this figure sports beige shorts, brown gloves, shoes and utility belts, and a green shirt with a yellow vest over it. A brown knife is attached to the back of his right leg, while another knife is attached to the back of his left upper leg, coloured in the same beige as his pants so it’s hardly noticeable. The figure’s got black hair and eyes. He’s got a JP Site B patch on his left shoulder. It stands largely in a neutral position, except his right leg is stretched out somewhat. There is a variation of this figure: this particular sculpt wears a green hat with the JP Site B logo on it, while that logo is missing on his shoulder.

This figure comes with a small silver camera device, or at least something resembling a camera, which does nothing: it’s just an extra little gadget. The action of this figure is provided by the spray gun: it consists of a yellow pack with a black hose attached to it, ending in a silver gun. By putting the gun in water and pressing the yellow pack, the pack gets loaded with water. Pressing the pack again makes the gun squirt water at anything in its path. The pack can be put in a brown backpack, so that the figure can wear it on its back and hold the gun.

Along with this figure comes an adorable little Pteranodon hatchling. It’s coloured mostly beige, with some slightly shiny blue paint on its back, neck and crest. The throat and front part of the head are coloured in a yellow paint job, with black eyes and yellow pupils. The animal can stand on its legs and has its wings outstretched, as if it’s about to take flight. It has a black JP Site B logo on its right upper wing.

Analysis: this figures has its pros and cons. Nick himself looks pretty good, though the upper part of his outfit looks a bit odd and unrealistic. The two knifes are a bit out of place, since Nick didn’t have them in the movie. It’s also a shame one knife is hard to spot on this figure, making that one seem useless altogether. But other than that, this is a pretty cool figure with an okay paint job.

The spray gun isn’t very original. In fact, it’s a repaint of the weapon the JPS1 and JPS2 Dennis Nedry carried. It works the same too, so there’s no improvement or anything. This weapon may be good for people who like to play with water alongside their other action figures, risking paint wear and damaged electronics. For people who’re not keen on potential hazards to their figures the weapon is a plain redundancy. The camera thingy also doesn’t add much since it doesn’t feature any action. However, it helps Nick’s character as a video expert (which the carding claims he is, and people who’ve seen TLW know him to be) to be emphasized.

The Pteranodon hatchling is cute and sports a paint job very similar to the Giant Pteranodon figure of this toy line. The paint job is a bit bland, but the figure looks real cute. It’s also nice to see it can actually stand and not just lie down like the other small Pteranodon figures.

Playability: it could be better. The figure itself has the regular moveable body parts. The hatchling too, in the sense that it’s not poseable in any way like most hatchling figures are. The weapon does work, but it doesn’t look totally impressive and has little impact on any figures that get hit by firing water at them. Also, for people who don’t want to use water for fear of damaging other figures the weapon is more of an obstacle since they can’t do anything with it. The camera is a fun bonus gadget, but nothing more.

Realism: Nick’s face sure resembles Vince Vaughn somewhat, except it’s got less detail and his hair is too dark. The clothes this figure sports don’t resemble the outfit Nick wore in the movie, except his pants maybe. There wasn’t any type of weapon firing liquids in TLW, nor was there a type of camera similar to the camera device this figure carries.

The Pteranodon looks like a hatchling, and could very well be the offspring of the Pteranodons seen in the closing shot of TLW. However, it’s not entirely palaeontologically correct: for one thing, its crest is oversized. Another, even worse, mistake concerns the wings of this sculpt: they feature a bat like pattern, with multiple long fingers with skin stretched between them. However, real Pteranodons didn’t have wings like this. They basically has a hand with one extremely long finger and skin stretched between this finger and their body.

Repaint: the figure, hatchling and camera are new. As mentioned above however, the spray gun is a repaint from the same weapon carried by JPS1 and JPS2 Dennis Nedry. Additionally: the Pteranodon hatchling would be repainted for JP Dinosaurs 1, for a set containing a large Pteranodon figure and two of such repainted hatchlings.

Overall rating: 6/10. It’s a decent figure, but the weapon isn’t great or original. A new weapon, or even a repaint of another weapon that doesn’t require water, would have been preferable. Also, both the hatchling and the outfit of Nick himself could have been better. Both variations of this figure aren’t hard or costly to come by, so it should take little effort to acquire them if you wanted one, or both, of them.