Review and photographs by Dilopho
What do you think of when I say “Stegosaurus“? A graceful, lumbering giant with huge elegant plates and deadly spikes, carefully making his way through a tropical Jurassic forest? Well, it’s clear that this wasn’t always the answer. A few decades ago, Stegosaurus was just another terrible lizard. A slow, dumb belly-dragger with a mean attitude. And AAA recreates this accurately.
While this Stegosaurus isn’t THAT inaccurate, it’s far from being acceptable as a good representation in modern day. But then again, when this figure was made, it was the current view on this strange, plated wanderer. It is large, wide, and heavy–in fact, it’s one of the heaviest AAA dinosaur figures, but also one of the smallest herbivores. What sort of strange world did the AAA sculptor live in where Velociraptor was bigger than Stegosaurus? I don’t know, but maybe the Schleich sculptors went to live there. Anyway, back to the figure!
The colour scheme is really nice. It’s colourful, like a Collecta, but without being too silly. I could definitely see this colour scheme on a living Stegosaurus! The lush green fades into a firey red, with dark green stripes overlapping them. It gives the feeling of some exotic lizard, which is quite fitting, as that is basically what this Stegosaurus was intended to be.
This figure, obviously, has many flaws. The feet, as expected, are like a cross between elephant and alligator, and the tail is ridiculously fat compared to the rest of the animal. The head, on the other hand, is too thin. From the front view, it looks like some strange monster. Even the thagomizer (I love that word!) is weirdly proportioned–this is not the mighty spiked slugger that you’re used to. It’s more like . . . a weaponized stump.
Another point of interest with AAA dinosaurs is the strange line of fat that separates the side from the belly. Look at it going between the front and back legs . . . what is that? And why does it have snake-like scutes on the underside? It’s all very strange (and it appears to lack knees!). The longer you look at these figures, the more flaws you find. But the solution to this is to remember that these guys were made before dinosaurs were, well, dinosaurs. They were just oversized lizards back then.
Overall, surprisingly, I recommend this! It’s a well-made figure, but if it’s your first Stegosaurus, I recommend ANY other one. Collecta, Schleich, Papo . . . take your pick. This one is the old man who turns up at the Stegosaurus family meeting to talk about the “good old days” when Brontosaurus was the most famous dinosaur and “Pterodactyl” was a thing. But who doesn’t like old people? Heh heh! To put it simply: it’s terrible at being a Stegosaurus, but it’s great at being a charming reminder of how we’ve understood dinosaurs through history.
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