Review by forumite Fooman666 (edited by Horridus)
Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs have had a profound impact on how the general public sees dinosaurs – to people who don’t know any better the subject of this review will always be their loveable little ‘spitter’.
First things first – WOW! The Jurassic Park Dilophosaurus has always had a vibrant paint job but this one takes the cake, it’s covered in bright oranges and yellows that you just couldn’t miss on a shelf. Unfortunately, any excitement caused by the colour scheme soon wears off when one looks closely at the figure. The Jurassic Park Dilophosaurus was never really accurate and this is no exception – straight away one notices the ‘trademark’ frill of this beastie. Of course, it is well known to any dinosaur fan that Dilophosaurus did not possess this feature in real life; straight away this makes anyone think of a certain scene in a Hollywood movie, in which the cute little critter turns from gentle and inquisitive to vicious, psychopathic and venom spitting. Once again it is well known that Dilophosaurus was not capable of spitting venom (it wasn’t even venomous at all). Then we come to the head, which is far too robust compared to the actual creature’s skull.
The Jurassic Park toylines have always included ‘Dino Damage’ features – in the early lines there was usually a removable piece of skin, which once removed revealed an injury. The JP3 line took this even further with ‘Dino Damage’ that was not able to be covered and instead featured a button in the middle that caused the figure to make a noise [a feature dubbed ‘Re-Ak A-Tak’ – Ed]. This Dilophosaurus is no exception, which is no surprise considering that it is simply a repaint of a figure from the JP3 line. Like the original figure, it has a small lever on its back that moves the arms and results in a different roar.
It is plainly obvious that the creature’s wrists are pronated, another thing the real animal could not do. Once we arrive at the figure’s legs any likeable aspects fall apart. They are in horrible postions, which – combined with the fact that the frill makes it extremely top heavy – results in the toy’s complete inability to stand in anything but a tripod pose.
All in all this is actually a rather atrocious figure. It’s top heavy and has poorly positioned legs and a rather short thin tail. The only thing it has going for it are the bright colours, which are simply in place to attract children. For mature collectors, the frill is easily removable with some slight modification with a pair of scissors, however even that does little to improve the figure. The Dilophosaurus toys from the original Jurassic Park line are a lot better [see here and here – Ed], and I recommend getting them and giving this figure a complete miss. If you still want it, then it is available at Toys ‘R’ Us stores around the world, and online.
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In Jurassic park, the scientists are thought to have mixed Frilled lizard [ from Australia] DNA [ stands for Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid] which explains the extandable collar around the Dilophosaurus’ neck and its ability to spit venom from 6 meters preying when threatened on its enemy’s eyes and frog DNA in order to fill in the missing gaps in the Dilophosaurus’ DNA sequence/ decoding.
[…] in the Jurassic Park 3 CamoXtreme series, and other recently released JP figures such as this Dilophosaurus. As a result the figure is imbalanced, and mine, at least, only stands unsupported when tilted […]
Tim: if your 4 year old is anything like I was at that age, they’ll probably really go for a vicious-looking dinosaur! If you really want to treat them you could go for the Jurassic Park 2009 deluxe Tyrannosaurus – pricey though…
That is one creepy looking dinosaur. It might be little too intense for my 4 year old.
I think the sculpts for JP3 and post toys are horrendous. They look like they have mushrooms for teeth.