Velociraptor is one of the best known dinosaurs in the world, and it owes its popularity to Jurassic Park. On screen, it is a cunning and deadly foe that is smart, fast, social, and hunts in groups so it can lay traps for its quarry. In reality, it was small 3ft dinosaur from Mongolia that had feathers. I decided a long time ago to not treat this movie version to seriously, and just go along with it. To paraphrase the screen writer Jay Wolpert on his thoughts about adapting a novel, “go read the book, it’s a great book, but I am not making a book, I’m making a movie. That is how I feel about the Jurassic Park Velociraptor, its purpose is to entertain and delight the crowd.
When I first saw the Jurassic World toys, I was not impressed. At the time, it was just pictures on the web; and I thought to myself, could they be better once released? As time went on, the negativity grew about the style and quality of the toy line. I decided to wait for them to be released, and try to keep an open mind.
About the toy: The toy in height is 9in (23cm), and its length is around 6.6in (17cm). It is a big toy, it is bigger than many of its Jurassic World brethren and taller than the JP III Velociraptors. The pose is dynamic and cool. The head is looking ahead, mouth open, as the body is low to the ground, with the tail coming up high, looking like a cat that is ready to pounce on its prey. The head is sculpted really nice. Inside the open maw, are the rows of small, non uniform, sharp teeth, and a tongue.
The first negative is the stability of the toy. It does balance on its two feet, but not very well. It can also be positioned on its toes in a three, or four point stance to make it stable. In case you were wondering, YES, the toe claw is present. True to the movie, on the arms the wrists are pronated, in fact they almost look broken, with the three fingers spread out.
This toy has a few interesting gimmicks. The electronics are very good and can be activated in two different ways. You can press the dino wound and it screams, almost as a warning not to touch its wound. The other electronic sound is a longer, interesting growl that is activated when the tail is moved up and down. Along with making the growl, the arms swing up and then come back down to their default position. You can change the default point by moving the arms. One more interesting note on the dino wound, it glows red when touched. In a strange way, it reminds me of E.T.’s glowing heart.
The paint job is really nice on this figure. With the name blue, I did expect some blue on the toy, but Hasbro decided to paint it in a base green, with a cream underside. The striping is black, and it is painted horizontally along the head and back, while the tail has vertical, tiger stripes. The teeth are white and were painted a little sloppy. The tongue and mouth are pink. The eyes are great. The basic color is orange, and then the iris is yellow and is outlined in black, with the pupil as a slit. It looks like a cat’s eye.
The texture is nice, with lots of skin folds around the neck, arms, legs, and tail. It has nice looking scales on its head and body. There are muscle bulges on the arms and legs, with skin creases on the joints. Unfortunately, one side of the body has screw holes. It could have been worse, but they are noticeable.
Overall Appraisal: It is a nice figure. It might be one of the most accurate Jurassic Park film representations of a Velociraptor in toy form. I am not going to back that statement with a money back guarantee, but it is a really nice sculpt; in a dynamic pose, with good electronics, and an attractive paint job. The negatives are few, but important. It does have stability issues, limited reposing ability, and screw holes on one side.
It is a toy most kids will enjoy. The main frustration for kids will be the the arm swinging action, as it is difficult to use while playing. Here’s why: You need one hand to be on the tail, and due to the stability issues already present on the figure plus the force needed to move the tail, the other hand is needed to hold the legs to keep it stable. So when the tail is moved, it puts the kids fingers in the way of the moving arms, which makes it awkward to use. Kids will figure it out, but it is frustrating. This plastic toy should hold up to some rough style play, but I would keep it inside, away from water and the sandbox. I will recommend “blue” as one of the better, if not best toy from the current Jurassic World line up.
Currently available at Amazon.com.
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While I’m not impressed with the JW toys this one appears to be an improvement over the JP3 Velociraptor toys but I’m not sure why I would think that. Meh, I think I’ll stick to the Kenner toys of old. Great review though!
I have one of these, and you pull the tail down in order to make the arms move and the growl happen. I guess I never tried the leg squeezing thing.
You are correct, it is the tail that is needed to move the arms. I didn’t notice that I never completed my thought on that section. Sorry for the mistake, it has been updated correctly.