#222 THE LOST WORLD – IAN MALCOLM & DIETER STARK (1997)

I have already talked (shortly) about the Jurassic Park toyline and about the figures from the first movie. Three years after Jurassic Park, The Lost World was premiered, and a new bunch of toys were ready to be deployed in all toystores worldwide. It was already 1997, and by this time, there were already a lot of videogames and computers that were far more interesting for children than action figures. Maybe for that reason, these figures didn’t sold very well at the time, and were sold out very cheap. I think I bought each blister for around 0,50 Euros a few months after they were released (I payed in pesetas, since there were no Euros yet). Unfortunately there were only two models left, otherwise I would have bought all of them.

One of these two characters in Ian Malcolm, the chaos theory expert that also appeared in the first movie (was one of the most important characters)… For the second movie, the figure was released, and, interestingly, the figure wears black suit a sunglasses, just like in the first movie. In the second movie, he never wears sunglasses. In this same wave, there was a second figure of Ian, and it was one that came with a delta wing (this one was sold boxed, not carded). Something else worth mentioning is that the image on the cardback has a different head from the one that was finally used.

This figure came with a baby T-Rex.

The weapons are “recycled” from other series and collections. For example, the backpack/trap is very similar to one originally released with a Batman figure (also by Kenner), while weapons for other figures had already been available in JP figures or even G.I.Joe (Hasbro). The videocamera from Nick Van Owen was originally released with Scoop, by since Kenner was purchased by Hasbro in 1991, the cast was probably just “borrowed”.

The second figure is a secondary character, Dieter Stark, one of the evil dinosaur hunters and the “weapons specialist” in the Roland Tembo’s group. The figure does not resemble the actor at all, but it is still a nice figure. It came with two different guns, something rare in this toy-line were each figure came with some rocket launcher, water gun, trap or something with some action feature. These is probably so because the figure of Dieter Stark was more expensive to produce due to a built-in magnet in the chest.

The figure came with a Compsogathus that could attach to the chest of the figure by means of another magnet placed in its mouth, reproducing the way in which the character dies in the film.

 

The figures are very nice, although they are practically identical to the 3 years older JP figures: too few points of articulation, but cool accessories and action features. The best of the series was again the dinosaurs and also the cool vehicles. However, due to its late year of issue, they are not as interesting as other toy lines. 1997 is already at the limit of the toys I intend to show in this blog.

There were different cardbacks in this collection, this one is the "simplest" one with just 6 characters and 2 dinosaurs.

Also interesting to mention is that these figures were one of the first one to be “cloned” rather than bootlegged. I remember the copies were available in 1 Euro shops (at one euro) and the figures looked exactly the same, including the card. I think I still have one Nick Van Owen bootleg somewhere…

Figures copyright is from 1996, but they were released in 1997.

I have the figures doubled and would change them for another figures from this or any other series.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: IAN MALCOLM & DIETER STARK
• Toy Line: The Lost World (Wave 1)
• Year: 1997
• Company: Kenner (U.S.A.)
• Scale of the figures: Around 11 cms