Dilophosaurus (Electronic Deluxe)(Terra Series by Battat)

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It was a truly sad day for the entire dinosaur toy community when Battat Terra sculptor Dan LoRusso passed away in 2015. He was immensely talented, meticulous in his research, and most importantly of all, friendly and kind. At the time of his death, he had begun working on sculpts of Majungasaurus, Plateosaurus, and Yutyrannus for the Terra line. We can only imagine what those would have been like (terrific, no doubt). But we don’t need any imagination for the five new sculpts that he had already completed, or the eight remaining repaints of the original Battat dinosaurs.

For reasons unknown, Battat has chosen not to release any of these toys. Instead, in 2018, they released upsized electronic versions of six of their theropods. These were available at Target in the United States and The Bay in Canada. As well, Indigo, another major Canadian retail chain, carried the Utahraptor and the Dilophosaurus, which is the subject of this review.

Now, if you clicked on the link for the unreleased repaints, you saw a Dilophosaurus decked out in light grey with dark green stripes, a blood red crest, and orange markings on its neck. Looks very spiffy if you ask me. This toy, however, is coloured just like the original release, with dark green and salmon pink for the main colours, a dull red crest, beige claws, white teeth, and translucent red for the eyes and tongue, which we will touch on more later.

Unlike its smaller ancestor, the new Dilophosaurus is sculpted with its head and tail swaying to the left and both feet planted on the ground. This gives it a length of 28.5 cm long and a height of 18.5 cm. The legs rotate a little at the hips, so it’s possible to rear the animal up for a maximum height of 23.5 cm. When posed horizontally, the toy stands rather well. Pushing down on the left arm activates a throaty roar and causes the eyes and tongue to light up. The sound effects are decidedly inferior to the ones produced by Mattel’s Roarivore and Savage Strike toys, although I can see kids still getting a kick out of this feature.

But as you can plainly see from these images, this toy leaves much to be desired. First off, the right side has no less than six wretchedly ugly screwholes, just like the ones that possibly helped cause Hasbro to lose the Jurassic World license. Second and more importantly, the detailing on this figure is utterly minimal. Only basic wrinkling all over the body, with a few bumps and scales here and there. The claws are not merely blunt, but rounded, and the jaws have far too few teeth. Shabby.

As I mentioned before, Battat has not been at all forthcoming about why they are not releasing the rest of the figures I linked to in the introduction, but I reckon I speak for a great many collectors when I say that I sure wish they would. Probably won’t happen, but who knows? In any case, unless you’re a super hardcore Dilophosaurus fan or a Battat completist, I don’t recommend going to the effort of tracking this toy down. If you’re looking to buy your child or some other youngster a big, noisy toy dinosaur to play with, go with one from Mattel instead.