Review
By Roselaar:
Description: Skinner is a very muscular, gorilla like guy, featuring a very butch and menacing appearance with scars to match. He has a darker skin tone than most other human figures and has a bald head, big brown eyebrows with small brown eyes, and a white circular beard and moustache on the lower part of his face. He also carries several scars and scratches on his face and head, but the biggest clue as to his dangerous life style is the huge claw marks on his left arm (which is probably why he wears a big arm patch over that arm). Skinner has a very evil looking facial expression, making it obvious he's a bad guy. This fact is also reflected in his attire.
He has a white necklace with what appear to be teeth (probably from medium sized predators) on it, over an orange 'netted' shirt, with a gold belt around his waist which carries a small white skull. He wears pants sporting two shades of green, the darker one being found on the more scaly parts, which look like crocodile skin. He also has a green gun holster strapped to his right upper leg, with a decently sized grey hand gun in it. Around his left knee he sports grey bandages, another hint at an unfortunate animal encounter. Skinner's outfit is completed by a pair of big brown boots, and a small red arm band around his left wrist. Additionally though, there's the removable arm patch, which also seems to be partially made out of scaly animal skin. It has a three-way colour scheme, brown on top, orange in the middle and brown below, being tied together by small green stitchings It was specifically designed to fit over Skinner's left arm, though other human figures can also wear it to some extent (but never a perfect fit).
Skinner comes with various accessories, none of them featuring an action option interestingly enough (it seems the dino damage is Skinner's main feature). He has a small knife, seemingly made from some carnivorous creature's lower jaw (though it sports a rather metallic and shiny paint job which doesn't make it look like bone), and also a big Tranq rifle (same metallic grey colour as the knife). This gun looks rather realistic, compared to the weapons of most other Kenner figures, since it's not overly big in order to accommodate some action feature. The only thing that looks out of place is the big handle at the end, so Skinner can hold it more easily with his big hands. The gun can be split in half at the middle, so it can fit in Skinner's ammo case. This case is just a big grey box, no ammo inside, which can be used to store both the gun and knife in. It has a handle up front so Skinner can hold the case.
A Baryonyx hatchling (though the exact typology of this critter is debatable) completes the set. It's a small and somewhat rat like animal, moving on four legs and being posed in a walking stance, with its left front leg raised as if taking a step and his left hind leg posed backwards. Its tail is positioned upwards, like he's wagging it like a dog would. It has a somewhat crocodilian face with big nostrils at the end of the snout and large red eyes (black irises) near the back of the head. He sports white teeth with a pink tongue between them. The underside of this figure (throat, belly, lower part of the tail, inner parts of the legs) are painted grey, while the upper parts of the head, neck, back and tail are coloured dark blue. Between this grey and dark blue the hatchling sports lighter blue colouring, most apparent at the head and flanks. On its left upper leg this Bary carries a white JP logo.
Analysis: this is a highly unusual JP figure. Obviously the Dino Trackers/Evil raiders are solely an invention on Kenner's part, so the designers got to use their imagination, and did so with pleasure. Hence this big hulking Skinner which looks more like a World Wrestling champion than a character you could see in a Jurassic Park movie. Nonetheless, this is quite a cool figure and a welcome addition to the range of bad guys. He looks very mean, certainly not someone you would want to mess with, though it appears several dinosaurs did just that and at least one of them got pretty successful. The Evil Raiders add an extra element to the JP line. Now you can pit the human figures not only against dinosaurs (which are of course the true heroes of the JP franchise and usually just kill the human figures), but also against other human figures. After all, poor Dennis Nedry was the only bad guy so far, but he seems likeable compared to these Evil Raiders, who are just out to kill dinosaurs for fun and greed. Like Nedry though, the Evil Raiders come with dino damage wounds, as punishment for their crimes. No tearing off limbs this time, just huge bite marks which can be covered up for decency.
Skinner comes with some nice, but actionless, equipment. The knife is just a gadget, though with an interesting design. The gun can be split in two: one could argue this can be construed as dino damage, but otherwise it just doesn't fit in the ammo case, which seems the main reason. The ammo case, again, is a nice extra gadget (and useful for storing small parts you might otherwise lose), but doesn't do much otherwise. The back of the figure's card shows the case being folded out and posed standing upright as some kind of hideout with the gun on top, so Skinner can hide behind it and shoot unsuspecting dinosaurs, but this is just silly, because Skinner is way too big a fellow to hide behind a box without going unnoticed. Skinner's stuff is probably some of the most realistic equipment of the various JP human figures, but a real action feature would have been nice.
The little Baryonyx is a mixed bag. He has a decent paint job, the interplay between both shades of blue and its demonic red eyes is quite sweet, though the grey is dull by comparison. His head sculpt is ugly though with those big nostrils and its grinning expression. Cute is not the word I'd use for this baby.
Playability: decent enough. Skinner has the typical range of poseable body parts, namely head, arms and legs. Even though this set lacks action features, the diversity of Skinner's tools and the dino damage provide enough options to use accordingly. Like other hatchlings baby Bary sports no poseability of any kind.
Realism: irrelevant in this case. Being an invention by Kenner's toy designers rules out the need for likeness to any particular actor. Realism isn't something the designers cared much for in Skinner's case, so they just went all out and came up with a cool looking bad guy, sporting an outfit which clearly makes him look like a bad guy, stereotyping as that may be. Skinner's accessories are pretty realistic by comparison (apart from the knife maybe). A rifle like this doesn't seem too unlikely to have been used in the JP movies, and an ammo case sure would have come in handy too.
Which leaves us with the controversial part of this set, the hatchling. It's usually labelled a Baryonyx (and it says so on the card of this figure too), but its only Bary-esque features are the long snout (resembling a crocodile) and the elongated third claw on each hand (a feature Baryonyx had in reality, and which is also found on the adult JPS2 Baryonyx figure). Other than that, this hatchling looks nothing like a Baryonyx, and certainly very unlike its adult counterpart of this toy line. However, this hatchling looks quite similar to the (sadly unreleased) JPS2 Ornithosuchus figure, sporting a similar blue paint job and walking on four legs instead of two. For this reason, the hatchling is often called an Ornithosuchus. However, since the card calls it a Baryonyx, I did the same here. Don't be surprised if you find both names to be in use when referring to this particular baby dinosaur.
Repaint: nope. No part of this set, neither Skinner nor his accessories, would be repainted for later JP toy lines. The Skinner figure would be partially repainted for Kenner's Congo toy line though.
Overall rating: 8/10. Skinner himself is a highly imaginative and fun figure with a cool dino damage wound. His accessories may not provide solid action, they're pretty good looking and something else from the oversized stuff seen on other human figures. The enigmatic hatchling is good enough, but nothing overly special. Skinner is one of the rarer JPS2 figures and can be difficult to find. This figure was released in the USA in lower quantities than most other JPS2 figures, and it only had a very limited release in Europe. Though this figure comes recommended to people who don't care much about movie accuracy (there's basically none to be found here), don't be surprised if you see this figure going for higher prices than you're used to on human figures.
|
