If you you are looking for an up-to-date, scientifically accurate dinosaur, this guy isn’t for you. However, if you like cool, vicious-looking, fun to play with dinosaurs, this figure is perfect.If you want to look at the Kenner Utahraptor with a scientist’s eye, there are very many problems; The short and bendy tail, the wrong positioning of the hands, the huge feet, the lack of feathers, and the over-sized claws. Regardless, I like to think of it as a mutated “park” animal, that would be stalking in the jungles of Isla Sorna (Jurassic park site B).
There are many things I like about this “raptor”. The big teeth, the huge claws, the tiger-like paint scheme. The sculpt has very nice detail, I especially like the little scales on the fingers and toes. It is about 15 inches long, and made of a very soft rubber. There is a button underneath his tail “skin”, when you press it his legs kick forward, his mouth opens up a bit, and he lets out a terrifying “scream” (it sounds like a halloween doormat).
When Jurassic Park was being made, they made the “velociraptors” about the size of utahraptors, although utahraptors hadn’t been discovered yet. Not long after Jurassic Park was made, utahraptor was discovered, and it fit almost perfectly to the body shape of the Jurassic Park velociraptors. In kenner’s toyline, there were already Utahraptor-sized velociraptors in scale with the humans, so when they did make a toy utahraptor, it was way oversized compared to the humans. In real life, the “raptor” would have been about thirteen feet tall, and about 25-26 feet long- much larger than a normal Utahraptor.
All in all, this is a pretty nice toy, although it is unsatisfactory when it comes to accuracy. This toy is out of production and therefore pretty hard to find and expensive nowadays, I was lucky to get mine for $20. MIB (mint in box) samples of this toy have gone as high as $80 – it is occasionally available on Ebay with other vintage Jurassic Park figures.
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Images from JPToys.com (used with permission) – a great site for Jurassic park merchandise information!
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