Brachiosaurus (hatchling)(Jurassic Park by Kenner)

Buy on

Buy on

Buy on

While the blog is currently full of Jurassic World toys, the pool of unreviewed, original Jurassic Park toys is far from exhausted yet! In another entry in the series of figures-I’m-surprised-haven’t-been-reviewed, we’ve reached the dinosaur hatchlings that came with the human action figures released by Kenner in tandem with Jurassic Park in 1993. Every human had a companion hatchling, so there were quite a few of them, but the only one featured here so far seems to be the hatchling Baryonyx that was reviewed together with its adult congener from the series 2 line by EmperorDinobot (who will be missed).

For the first film’s lineup, Tim Murphy was paired with a hatchling Brachiosaurus, which may seem arbitrary, but at least he shared a scene with adult members of that genus, whereas for example Alan Grant was paired with a hatchling Pteranodon, which of course didn’t even appear in the film (a lost opportunity to not pair him with a Velociraptor instead, the only hatchling that even appears in the film, but I digress). The Tim figure itself looks nothing like his on-screen counterpart, but that’s probably explained by the figures having been designed before final casting for the film was completed. It looks more like Austin O’Brien, who would later star in the knock-off film Prehysteria, which actually did feature a baby Brachiosaurus…

The Tim figure also came equipped with night vision goggles (as seen in the film), a “retracting snare” (not so much seen in the film), and a cage to trap the poor dinosaur in. As with the other Kenner toys, there was also a collector’s card featuring a scene not seen in the film, with Tim observing the Brachiosaurus emerging from its egg, and here he at least looks a bit more like actor Joseph Mazzello. Since I have two of the Brachiosaurus hatchling, I’ve tried to pose both of them together in the photos here to show them from most angles.

The hatchling Brachiosaurus itself actually looks pretty convincing as a juvenile version of the Brachiosaurus as seen in the film. The colour-scheme is similar, and it has “cute” baby features like a proportionally large head, big eyes, and stubby limbs. It is dark blue on most of the body, much lighter blue on its underside, and the eyes are shiny and black. Unfortunately, the teeth and claws are the same colour as the surrounding skin. Interestingly, the photos on the back of the packaging indicate that at least the prototype had a different pattern, with dark blue stripes, lighter blue flanks, a very light blue belly, and, most importantly, white teeth. It of course also has the big, white JP stamp on its left leg.

The figure stands in a majestic, mid-stride pose, is about 8 cm long from tail to front and a little short of 7 cm tall. By comparison, the Tim figure is 10 cm tall. The skin seems to have the same wrinkly texture as seen on the adults in the film, and the feet are quite elephantine, as was the custom at the time. The paint and plastic also works together to give it a shiny, yet realistic surface that seems to match what’s seen in the film, and which I find quite pleasing and life-like; pretty well-done for such a small figure, same for its level of sculpted detail in general. It seems quite true to Crash McCreery’s design-style for the film’s dinosaurs.

I don’t think there’s much more to say about the figure than it’s a shame a baby Brachiosaurus wasn’t featured in the film itself, because this would have been the perfect design for it. Unlike the hatchling Tyrannosaurus figure, which looked quite wretched (nothing like what it turned out to be in The Lost World), and perhaps we’ll return to that one day. On this note, it’s also a shame there wasn’t a larger, adult Brachiosaurus figure released with the first film, perhaps it would have been too enormous, but there was the strange little Dakin figure which has been reviewed here.

Now that larger Brachiosaurus figures have been released with subsequent Jurassic toy-lines, this could maybe be worth obtaining to serve as a companion baby for those. I’m sure they’re easy to get, and I wouldn’t worry about getting the throwaway gear (literally, I think I threw most of mine away) or even Tim Murphy himself, as he doesn’t look like much more than a generic 90s kid. The cage is kind of cool, though, as it can open and close its lid (as you can see, I at least kept that).