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.