Review
By Roselaar:
Description: Carter wears a sort of harness over his upper body, resembling scaly dinosaur skin, though I’m not sure whether it’s actually supposed to be just that. The armour sports a dark grey paint job, as do the accompanying shoulder, elbow, and knee patches, as well as his utility belt. He’s got a black shirt under his harness, and also wears black gloves and boots. His pants are reminiscent of military camouflage pants, with the same grey paint job as the armour, now adorned with white stripes. The helmet is a bit of an oddity; it certainly isn’t functional, since there’s nothing covering his eyes, so in a high speed chase his face would get rather dusty. The lower front part of the helmet sports a white spot, like a surgeon’s mouth cap. The helmet also sports thirteen red stripes in an asymmetrical pattern, making it look mean. Enhancing the figure’s toughness is a large black gun which has a pin on its right side. Carter has a hole in his back, so the gun can be pinned there and he can carry the gun on his back. The gun is pretty detailed and realistic by Kenner standards, but has no action features.
I’m not an expert on bikes, so as a layman I can skip getting all technical here and I can say this bike has quite an accurate look, again by Kenner standards. It has less of a ‘toy’ look than the good old JPS2 Strike Cycle, the only other bike of the JP toy lines at the time. The bike consists of four parts, partly because it has a blast apart dino damage action feature: there’s the front part of the bike with the front wheel, which can be clicked to the back end of the bike. Additionally, there’s a black piece that can be attached to the upper part of the front: the figure can hold this with both hands. Also, the fourth part of the bike, the dino snare, can be attached to this piece on its left side. It also has a small pin sticking out of its right side, the gun this set comes with (which has a small hole in it) can be attached here, something I expect not everyone might have noticed.
The bike sports a greenish grey paint job for the most part, with black and red highlights, in accordance with Carter’s own paint job. The driver’s seat is painted red with grey stripes. Interestingly, the lower parts of the bike (including part of both wheels) are painted in light brown tones and spots, indicating this bike has been driving through sand or mud (it’s a dirt bike after all!), giving it a little history. The very back end of the aft side of the bike is actually a button: pressing it makes the bike break down into pieces with some force, as if being attacked by a dinosaur. As mentioned, the bike comes with a snare, several inches in length, which can be attached to the bike. The snare has a noose at one end which can be wrapped around a dinosaur figure: part of the snare can be moved forward, tightening the noose, ensnaring the dinosaur. This set comes with some stickers supposed to be put on the bike: two TLW logo stickers, two InGen logo stickers (so it’s clear this bike is InGen property) and a pair of stickers with respectively two red Parasaurolophus heads and two yellow Velociraptor heads, which can be stamped on the snare, indicating its purpose.
Analysis: this is a neat bike. The paint job is rather gritty and dark, adding some realism. The snare takes some away however: when attached to the bike it looks silly. But given the limited range of options regarding the act of dinosaur catching using bikes, it’ll have to do. The ‘blast apart’ damage feature is fun, but too “clean”. The bike basically splits in two pieces (sometimes three, when the black part carrying the snare also comes loose), but the damage looks too artificial and not as chaotic as the damage a genuine creature attack would cause. Most of Kenner’s TLW vehicles sporting dino damage action suffered from this lack of realism though. At least the blasting action works properly. The snare action is basically the same as with JPS1 Tim Murphy’s snare: pull on it and the noose will tighten, thus gripping the dinosaur firmly. It’s not very imaginative, but also works.
Carter himself is a bit over the top with his “dino skin armour”, but looks butch enough to get away with it. The paint job, similar to the bike, adds some consistency within this set and makes it clear the bike and figure belong together (though of course other Kenner figures also fit on this bike). The gun, attachable to both the figure and the bike, only adds some options to the set. It suggests Carter can use the gun without using his hands, as if firing on dinosaurs in front of him during a chase.
Playability: Carter provides for the basic Kenner playability, sporting poseable limbs and head, and standing in a reasonably neutral pose. The gun adds some little extra possibilities, since it can be attached to both the figure and the bike. The bike itself is not bad, though the snare hinders playability somewhat; fortunately it’s detachable. The dino damage action, though not very extensive or realistic, is a cool additional feature. The only bothersome thing is the lack of support, so that the bike can’t stand up straight, but has to lean onto something or lie down. The overall playability of this set is good enough.
Realism: the person called Carter we saw in the TLW movie never wore an outfit like this, nor did he ride a bike (though he did drive a car). The little we get to see of this figure’s face, the eyes, eyebrows and nose, doesn’t resemble Carter’s facial features much: Carter had much heavier and darker eyebrows in the movie. This figure might as well be a regular InGen “Marlboro Man”, or another Dino Tracker, instead of the real Carter. The gun, though monotonous in colour, is pretty realistic but I’m not sure this type of weaponry was used by InGen’s personnel in the movie.
When we ignore the snare, the bike doesn’t look much unlike the bikes we saw during the dino chase scene in the movie. It’s probably not the same model, but realistic enough.
Repaint: no. Neither the bike nor the figure would be repainted for other toy lines, though a repaint was originally planned for the unreleased Chaos Effect: Night Hunter series.
Overall rating: 7/10. It may have some downsides, but it’s one of the more realistic vehicles of this toy line and comes with a badass figure, certainly a match for most prehistoric critters. It’s worth tracking down and relatively common, so it shouldn’t prove too expensive or hard to find.
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