Jurassic Part 1

Good to see ya again this week! Today in long overdue celebration of the news that Jurassic Park 4 has been put on hold (hopefully forever), lets look at some great minis from a great franchise!

Welcome to Jurassic Park!

The majority of this post will be taking a look at some miniatures from a Jurassic Park 3 line. When the movie rolled around in 2001, Hasbro made an effort to merchandise the hell out of it. As any dinosaur movie should be. Despite the fact that George Lucas managed to ruin lives , the toy line still managed to have some neat stuff in it. Of most importance here is some miniature Jurassic Park dinosaurs. These came in red, blind, plastic packages with the JP3 logo on them. You got three per pack, for somewhere close to $2.00 I think. Needless to say I bought a few packs. I believe each pack came with a collection sheet as well, but I don;t have any now. There looked to be a fair amount of them (shame I can't remember much more on the specifics) that you could collect. These packages were identical in concept to the miniature Pokemon they released a few years before. But sadly, the dinosaurs did not get the same awesome collector case treatment that the Pokemon figures did. Bummer. Anyhow, considering their awfully small size, they pack in a lot of detail. These average about half the size of most Safari LTD miniatures. Nice figures, and like what I assume to be every figure in this line, there is at least one color variation for each. These two seem to try to mimic the colors of the Brach from JP1, and the white one being from JP3. That was always my guess anyhow. It might of been a little better if they didn't try to paint the eyes though.

How many Ceras do you think there are on this island?

Up next is the Triceratops, an adult and juvenile. The adult has a color scheme close to the first movie's version. While the juvenile I assume to just be the alternate color (so I think there had to be an adult that matched). Neat little figures, and if you can see it, on the hind leg of the infant the JP3 logo is actually stamped there! They really put effort into these paint apps! Some of the logos have worn off on these guys however, while the rest of their paint job remains fine. These are my favorite Triceratops from within the box.

One is the loneliest number...

This one is rather cool, its the only Chasmosaur I have too come to think of it. I like his color scheme and stripes. Though its not really practical. Would of loved to of seen a darker color alt though. Neat frill, good sculpt, what more can I say, other than I would like more of him?

Dat set of plates

Almost perfect! If it weren't for the oddly flat Thagomizer, this figure would be perfect! Unless I'm missing something here and its just fine. In which case, perfect! Best Stegosaur I own by far. Great detail, and the plates aren't symmetrical! So cool! Your brain would have to be the size of a walnut to disagree. See what I said there?

Of course. Of course...

How did they even get this DNA? I don't even... In extended Jurassic Park fiction you will find this a lot. Somehow they manage to obtain DNA almost everything remotely prehistoric. Including gigantic aquatic reptilian predators. Surprised there hasn't been a Jurassic Park novel, or comic or something that shows them having a private park somewhere on the Siberian tundra with Mammoths, Smilodon, and Megatherium. Know what, do it, I'd probably read it anyhow. Just don't have terror birds fill in for raptors. If you are just going to reskin raptors for "tension" don't bother. Try something fresh.

Because I'm back in black!

Since this is a JP3 line you were bound to see this one way or another. A male raptor based on the ones from the film. Overall, I actually don't mind this figure. Its pretty cool to have at least one Dromeosaur in black. Too bad I didn't get an albino one too.

King of Disappointment

Given all the other figures from this series, I am rather disappointed in the T.rex. He is just a solid color with some black spots painted on for good measure. The raptor is at least more convincing when it does basically the same thing. This guy... Just looks like he was splashed with a little paint after being freshly molded and they went with it. No idea how his alt was, I can only hope it was painted better.

Thats MUCH better!

Since I can't leave off on a disappointing Tyrannosaur, here is some from a different set of JP toys. These are from Kenner's Microverse line. Yet another Mighty Max style toy line. The large T.rex is from a set of dinosaurs, that included a Parasaurolphus (next week!), a Stegosaur, and a human. While the juveniles are from duplicate playsets. Cool figures with the adult having pose-able legs. Great figures, and yet another reason to miss Kenner.

Before I leave off, remember the teaser from last week? Well... Drum roll please....

This was what was inside that capsule. For 50 cents at a Wal-mart vending machine, this is a something known as GroBubbles a vending machine toy that is actually seeds you can grow within the capsule! Just add water! I will post progress pictures every week as these grow, hopefully I can actually get them to grow. Even I can't mess up "just add water". I think. This is definitely a first for vending machine toys. Hopefully we start seeing other cool new stuff in vending machines in the future. Imagine one filled with something that lets you grow brine shrimp or something. The possibilities are very neat here.

Catch you all next week! Phil, out!