Described in 1979 by Jack Horner (and Robert Makela), the “good mother lizard” and its communal nesting sites in Montana were discovered just in time to corroborate the notion that dinosaurs were active, warm blooded, bird-like animals, that invested time in rearing their offspring. Maiasaura became a poster child for the Dinosaur Renaissance and along with Jack Horner was featured in countless publications and documentaries during the 80’s and 90’s. Maiasaura was also featured in the Jurassic Park novels and although it didn’t make it to the big screen adaptation it’s describer would end up being the film’s dinosaur consultant. Although never seen on-screen, Maiasaura is still a canon species. Keen eyed viewers will see an info-sheet on it in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. All of this makes Mattel’s Maiasaura a welcome addition to their assortment of Jurassic World dinosaur toys.
The Mattel Maiasaura is part of their Wild Roar line, which means that it is a mid-sized figure that makes sounds. Most of the sounds are generic roars but there is one standout noise that sounds like a goose-like honk, a sound popularly associated with ornithopods. The action feature is the emphasis here and there’s not much articulation. Pulling down on the tail lifts the head up while sounds are emitted. The forelimbs are on universal joints but the hindlimbs are not articulated.
The toy measures 12.75” (32 cm) long while the actual Maiasaura reached an estimated length of 30’ (9 meters). This puts the toy at 1/28 in scale, too small to scale accurately with Mattel’s humans, vehicles, and the bulk of their dinosaurs.
The figure has a decent posture and proportions, with a graceful swan-like neck, dainty forelimbs, high hips, and a decently lengthy tail. It has the lean build that was in vogue from the 80’s until quite recently. Nowadays the trend is to bulk ornithopods up, but this look has only recently begun to be implemented in the hobby.
The figure has the distinctive “roman nose” of Maiasaura but lacks the solid crest that runs between the eyes, instead having just a small horn between them. Haolonggood made a similar mistake with their Maiasaura too, giving it a horn over each eye but not connecting them. Such are the perils of only using lateral views as references when designing a dinosaur toy! The hands are also inaccurate, with two weight-bearing digits and a smaller digit on each side instead of having the weight-bearing digits fused within a flesh mitten and supported by a single hoof. The hindlimbs have four forward-facing digits when there should be three.
The face is covered in fine, pebbly scales, while the rest of the body is mostly covered with large polygonal scales. A row of raised scales runs down the mid-line of the back and deep grooves run over the shoulders in between them. Saggy skin folds run down the neck and wrinkled skin is sculpted around the knees and there’s decent muscle definition in the legs.
One of the figure’s best attributes is its attractive paintjob. The body is teal and much of the muzzle, lower jaw, and throat are white. A mosaic of white patches is also painted along the flanks. The top of the muzzle and horn are vibrant orange and thin orange racing stripes run down both sides of the neck and torso. Orange splotches are painted over the orbits as well. It’s a lovely and eye-catching color combination. The teal color combined with the somewhat shrink-wrapped body give the toy a 90’s flare that I enjoy.
Past the torso the paint apps stop, in typical Mattel fashion. So, you get a fantastic looking front half and unfinished looking back half. The claws and inside of the mouth are not painted. Only the top half of the beak is painted (gray), and the eyes are yellow with orange pupils. The lack of paint on the lower portion of the beak makes it look like a giant tooth but that can be easily fixed.
The Mattel Maiasaura is one of their best offerings in their latest wave and certainly one of their better ornithopods. In pose, form, and coloration, it is an attractive toy with a somewhat retro flavor and a calm demeanor befitting a Maiasaura. For me it was one of the must haves from the Rebirth wave and collectors of taxa mentioned in the books should be particularly pleased. The Mattel Maiasaura is currently available and retails for about $15.
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Keen observation on the scale. I always do total body length but that can be problematic with Mattel toys which always have short tails. Completely agree about the feet. In many cases, making them accurate would probably be easier. Since they frequently add too many digits and/or claws.
yah, the problem is the people doing the sculpting don’t know all that much about dinosaurs, so they do what looks cool or realistic to them, rather than what’s correct. With the wealth of info ONLINE it would take just a few minutes to find out what’s correct.
Mattel figures are hard to scale because they tend to be a mish-mash of scales (big heads, small torsos, short tails, huge feet etc). I usually go by head length if i can find reliable info on that and assume the tail is about 2/3 or so the length it should be.
To be honest, i wouldn’t even bother listing the scales of Mattel figures when doing reviews, since they don’t really have just one scale.
Adam wants us to include scale and it is his blog so I’m gonna do it. I think an included scale is useful for Mattel products since the humans and vehicles are 1/18, as well as many of the canon dinosaurs, so it’s good to know how far from that some of the toys deviate. And because different body parts might scale differently from each other I think a total length is the most reasonable compromise. It’s just a ballpark estimate for unserious toys and I don’t think their scale needs to be taken too seriously. If other collectors what to use different methods to scale the toy then that’s fine too.
Love this figure Small inaccuracies, like a lot of dino toys have, aside, it’s one of Mattel’s most realistic dino offerings. It’s actually more in scale with 4 inch figures than one might think. The head and torso are very close to 1/18, at least in side view. The tail is about 3 1/2 inches too short. Lengthen it and the figure would be over 16 inches long, representing a 24-25 foot animal. 30 feet is the upper range estimate for Maiasaura’s size and plenty of quality illustrations show it being closer to 25 feet long. This figure can easily represent a sexually mature animal that hasn’t quite finished growing yet.
I hope Mattel keeps making decent figures like this. Just wish they’d put 15 minutes of research into the feet on their figures. It’s just as easy to make them correct as to not make them correct,