Proceratosaurus (Jurassic World Attack Pack, by Mattel)

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Edited by Dinotoyblog.

With an awful lot of Jurassic World toys being released from Mattel for 2019, I thought it would be wise to cover one of the 2018 toys that have been neglected from review so far. The subject of today’s review is this cartoonish little theropod that Mattel has dubbed a Proceratosaurus. Proceratosaurus was a coelurosaurian dinosaur from the middle Jurassic Period in England, and it was named after a small protrusion on its nose that made paleontologists think it was related to Ceratosaurus. Nowadays, it is widely accepted that this dinosaur was not related to Ceratosaurus, and is instead a basal tyrannosauroid, suggesting that this protrusion may be part of a crest that more similar to the one found on Guanlong. When it comes to toys of the species, there are only two other examples that come to mind, The 2011 CollectA model, and The PNSO model released back in 2016. Being a coelurosaurian theropod, it is almost required that this animal be feathered in all serious interpretations of the animal. However, the Jurassic World Attack Pack figure is NOT a serious interpretation, and thus lacks feathers entirely. That’s all fine and dandy, given that the Jurassic World movies never cared about feathers, but the toy they made is also rather ugly for many reasons.

I can see that the frog DNA in the Jurassic Park universe is present in this model. One look at its warty skin is enough to make me think that, but honestly, the texture could have been a poor attempt at creating scales for the model. Moving onto other issues, we can see that the tail is way too short, and lacking in muscle, and the signature crest is inaccurately depicted as being similar to that of a Ceratosaurus. The head is shrink- wrapped, revealing the fenestrae in the skull, and the feet have this ‘W’ shape to them that is not like any real theropod I can think of. Finally, to top off all the problems this figure has, one of the arms is obviously pronated. Really, about the only thing that this model gets right is that the hands have three fingers. Moving onto sculptural details, there is not much to talk about. In addition to the warty amphibian-like skin and the lack musculature, the dorsal vertabrae are clearly visible, which enhances the emaciated look of this figure. As far as other details are concerned the mouth has blunt little teeth (which may disappoint some of us), and the tongue is clearly sculpted inside the mouth. In terms of playability, the model has six points of articulation. It has arms and legs that can swivel, an articulated jaw, and a tail that can rotate a full 360 degree, whereas some of the earlier Attack Pack models (For example, the Gallimimus) have tails that are fixed.

The figure is molded in a chocolate black plastic, with the bottom parts of the model painted in a darkish tan color along with some regular black highlights on other parts of the body. The colors on the head are not that much different from the rest of the sculpt. The only other colors present, are yellow for the eyes, and red for the crest. Interestingly, the teeth on the upper jaw are painted in a dark grey, while the teeth on the bottom jaw are painted in your usual white. Inside the jaws is a pink tongue and pink fleshy bits between the jaws. The claws on this model are not painted at all.

Overall, this is not going to win any accuracy awards, and it’s not hard to see why (this is a toy made to tie into Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom after all). It is an ugly-looking figure, but to me it still has its charms. It is one of the more unusual species to be made for the toy line, and I’m sure some kids will get a kick out of it. For those who are concerned with such things, the model measures close to six inches long, however, I’m not going to bother with estimating the scale, since the Jurassic Park animals, have never been scaled to be consistent with their real-life sizes. If you wish to buy one of these, you could probably still find one at a retailer that sells Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Toys. However, as of the time of this writing, the new 2019 products have been popping up into stores across the world, and I do not know if this means this product is officially retired.