1.7 (31 votes)
With only 1,631 backers in the end (5,000 were required just to unlock the gates and the vehicle), there’s no two ways about it: Mattel’s crowdfund for Jurassic Park: The Gates has been a decisive and disappointing failure. Many collectors are dearly hoping that the Bull T. rex will still eventually be released on its own (I’d probably buy one if that ended up being the case), but only time will tell.
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This was really strangely timed. To put up a crowdfunder with no new movie in the offing and fan meltdown after Dominion isn’t a great idea to me. Had they tied it into the movie, while interest was high it might have gone further?
I was looking forward to this iconic Gate for my 1/20 scale dinosaur model display … well, turned out Mattel didn’t think this through … putting the “Buck TRex” as an “unlock” item PO’d the fans who only wanted the TRex and raised the price for the gate for those of us who only wanted the Gate.
I don’t need to tell you about the division this caused in the fickle JP fandom which made the JP pages downright unpleasant to visit.
Happily, there IS a “silver lining”. Ramen Toy is teasing a kickstarter for a 20″ JP-Gate “cousin”. Fingers crossed that they manage to pull it off.
Me, I never gave a fig about the human figures or the vehicles or the playsets back in the days of Kenner. All I cared about were the dinosaurs. Indeed, the only time I ever bought human figures was when they came in two-packs with dinosaurs that I wanted, and I just gave the humans away the first chance I got. And now it’s 2023 and while I have purchased a great many Mattel dinosaurs for my two young boys, I still haven’t bothered with vehicles or human figures. So the only item in this set that caught my eye was the Bull. It is easily my favourite of all the T. rexes that have appeared in the franchise. I probably would snap it up if it were available on its own at retail.
Mattel really did screw up with this one.