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For some reason, I can remember that one of the dinosaur books I had as a kid included a picture of a Diplodocus-style sauropod, with a quote from a paleontologist in the caption saying that “for most people, this is literally Mr Dinosaur himself”.
Author: Johnhall
John Hall also goes by the name ‘Lithographica’
All reviews by this author
Review: Spinosaurus (1992) (Carnegie Collection by Safari Ltd.)
2.7 (14 votes)
For today’s review, we are going to travel back in time, to such an unimaginably distant era that the world as we know today it simply didn’t exist… specifically, the year 1992. For lovers of carnivorous dinosaurs, this was a simpler and more innocent time. Tyrannosaurus rex ruled with comfortable certainty as the biggest and baddest of them all; Archaeopteryx was the only dinosaur with feathers; a certain movie that was to forever confuse Deinonychus with Velociraptor in the popular imagination was still a year away from release; and we imagined that a relatively obscure carnivorous dinosaur called Spinosaurus looked something like this…
Today I am reviewing the original 1992 version of the Carnegie Collection Spinosaurus, which was in production until 1996.
Review: Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus (Sega Dinosaur King, 2014 Reissues)
4.5 (15 votes)
I sometimes wonder if there should be an international ban on the production of new models of Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops (sure, an international ban on cutting down rainforests would be more constructive and more noble, but here I’m trying to use a ridiculous opening sentence to engage the reader’s interest.
Review: Stegosaurus (CollectA)
2.7 (14 votes)
My previous review for the dinosaur toy blog was a Therizinosaur, so I spilled the obligatory ink in describing how these were among the strangest-looking dinosaurs known. Today I am reviewing the CollectA model of Stegosaurus, a dinosaur so famous that it is safe to say that any child who could describe what a dinosaur is would also be able to instantly recognise and name Stegosaurus.
Review: Nothronychus (CollectA)
3.1 (15 votes)
Review and photos by John Hall
In their reconstruction of the dinosaur Nothronychus, CollectA have produced a very good, very strange-looking model. To understand why this apparently unflattering description is a compliment and not a contradiction in terms, we need to review just a little background on Nothronychus and the therizinosaurs – the truly remarkable group of dinosaurs to which Nothronychus belongs.
In their reconstruction of the dinosaur Nothronychus, CollectA have produced a very good, very strange-looking model. To understand why this apparently unflattering description is a compliment and not a contradiction in terms, we need to review just a little background on Nothronychus and the therizinosaurs – the truly remarkable group of dinosaurs to which Nothronychus belongs.
Review: Cryolophosaurus (CollectA)
1.7 (18 votes)
Guest post by John Hall
Many people are fascinated by the mythology of Atlantis, the legend that there was once an entire continent that was lost to the rest of the world when Atlantis sunk beneath the waves during some awful, ancient cataclysm. Less widely appreciated however, is the fact that the icy wastes of Antarctica represent a real-life Atlantis – real in the sense that Antarctica truly is a “lost continent”, a world completely obliterated by an ancient climate disaster.
Many people are fascinated by the mythology of Atlantis, the legend that there was once an entire continent that was lost to the rest of the world when Atlantis sunk beneath the waves during some awful, ancient cataclysm. Less widely appreciated however, is the fact that the icy wastes of Antarctica represent a real-life Atlantis – real in the sense that Antarctica truly is a “lost continent”, a world completely obliterated by an ancient climate disaster.
Review: Triceratops (Version 2, Carnegie Collection by Safari Ltd)
3.4 (11 votes)
Guest review by John Hall.
Let’s face it – if you’re reading this blog you have known since your age could be measured in single digits that Triceratops was a late Cretaceous ceratopsian from North America whose name means “three horned face”… etc., etc., etc.
Let’s face it – if you’re reading this blog you have known since your age could be measured in single digits that Triceratops was a late Cretaceous ceratopsian from North America whose name means “three horned face”… etc., etc., etc.