Only two years after it showed up in Jurassic World Dominion, the fan favorite Therizinosaurus finally joined Mattel’s Hammond Collection line of highly articulated action figures last year. I’ll be straight to the point in saying that this is easily one of my top favorites in the line, and I think one of the best in terms of articulation, and screen likeness. Therizinosaurus is an iconic theropod as well, due to its giant claws, and has been around in various paleo media long before Jurassic World Dominion released, such as in the Walking with Dinosaurs special episode The Giant Claw, Speckles the Tarbosaurus/Dino King, and Ark: Survival Evolved, if not more. It was no surprise to see this strange giant herbivorous theropod finally got its due in the Jurassic franchise as well, if in part from its popularity among dinosaur fans. With 18 reviews on the blog prior for Therizinosaurus, it probably needs no further introduction in its anatomy, history, or paleoenvironment here, but just in case, I’ll keep it brief.
Therizinosaurus hails from the Nemegt Formation in what is now present day Mongolia, and lived during the final stage of the Late Cretaceous period, the Maastrichtian, 70 million years ago. It was a temperate river delta with monsoons, and cooler dry, and hot and wet seasons. It lived alongside the large tyrannosaurid Tarbosaurus, the strange ornithomimosaur Deinocheirus, the ornithomimid Gallimimus, the hadrosaurid Saurolophus, the tiny single digit alvarezsaurid Mononykus, ankylosaurids Saichania and Tarchia, pachycephalosaurs Homalocephale and Prenocephale, and many others. Therizinosaurus is mostly known from its arms, hands, fingers, and claws, but also feet, and toes. The skull, and much of the rest of the skeleton is missing. Most reconstructions of the head are therefore based on its relative Erlikosaurus, which did preserve with a skull. It’s worth noting that as far as the anatomy goes on the Jurassic World Dominion design, and therefore this figure, the skull shape is fully speculative, and deviates slightly from Erlikosaurus, being much deeper. One notable aspect that is incorrect is the placement of the first digits on the feet. They should be weight bearing, and not like the traditional theropod placement. The coat of feathers, and partial scaly body integument is purely speculative, though the therizinosaur Beipiaosaurus was found with a full coat of simple feathers (with numerous specimens preserving varying amounts of plumage), so it is possible Therizinosaurus may have had feathers as well, and many paleo art reconstructions do feature it with them.
Onto the figure itself, it’s one of the tallest ones in the line, about 10 inches/25.4 cm tall, in a neutral position, and about 19 inches/48.26 cm long when the neck is posed all the way down, and the tail is posed straight out. It is only dwarfed by the Giganotosaurus, Spinosaurus, and Tyrannosaurus. Fine feathers have been sculpted from the back of the head, down the back of the neck, back, arms, thighs, and tail. Wrinkly skin covers the underside of the neck, belly, tail, while fine pebbly scaly skin is on the arms and legs, with larger bird like scales on the digits. The coloration is simple but appealing. It’s primarily a dark blue, and grey, with a red wash covering the feathers on the back. The mouth and beak is painted in a bright yellow color, and there’s also a teal color on the crests of the skull. The fine teeth inside the mouth are molded separately, leaving the gums white. The tongue and roof of the mouth are pink. Once again the glass eyes have returned, but are possibly the best they’ve done them yet (although still leave some room for improvement). The pupils are easily seen, and do seem to “watch” as the figure is moved around. I do think maybe the lower jaw color could have been blended better into the neck color, but it’s such a minor thing. The rest of the figure otherwise looks great, and is incredibly faithful to the film design.
As far as the articulation goes, it has plenty. The jaw can open or close, and the head is on a ball joint and can be moved all around. The neck can twist around, and while it can be pulled up or back pretty far, can only go down a little bit in comparison. The arms are articulated at the shoulders, elbows, and wrists like most of Mattel’s larger theropods, but unlike anything else in the line so far, it has articulated claws. While it might have made more sense for the digits themselves to be articulated, it might have been easier to do it this way, or was more feasible. In any case they can be posed up and down quite a bit, and they can even rotate a full 360 degrees around. There’s quite a bit it can do with them as a result. The legs have articulation at the hips, knees, ankles, and the bottom half of the feet, and have quite a bit of bending and rotation among all the joints. As far as the tail goes, I haven’t been able to get it to rotate, and I’m not sure if it does. That said it’s kind of a weird mix of a hollow rubber skin, with an internal jointed skeleton of sorts. Some of their recent large figures have been using this form of articulation lately, and I know the Brachiosaurus did in the neck as well from what I recall. It allows it to get a pretty good bend on it, but I probably wouldn’t advise leaving it like that long term, as it does seem to cause a kink in the skin (think the old Kenner T. rex figures).
This Therizinosaurus is a must have for any fans of the Hammond Collection, Mattel’s mainline, or articulated dinosaurs in general (I mean it probably scales decently with the BotM Tarbosaurus for example). I’d even recommend picking it up, even if you have the previous Dominion toy of it. It’s a massive step up from the previous Dominion toy in the proportions, colors, and the articulation (although the original toy did have quite a bit in the limbs). If you are super behind on it (like I was), don’t sit too much longer on it. It’s still available on Amazon (for MSRP at this time), and Big Bad Toy Store, perhaps other retailers if you are lucky. I managed to get mine like a month ago or so on sale on Amazon for a good bit off, but it appears it is back up to full MSRP at this time. Alternatively you could try ebay or the like. It’s surprisingly going for rather reasonable prices there right now. Lastly I apologize for the quality (messy background) of some of the images. The lighting setup in my current living arrangement isn’t the most ideal at times (nor is the limited space to work with).
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i gave this one some serious contemplation to get and modify into a more ‘accurate’ Therizinosaurus. In the end i decided not to because at a minimum i had to greatly shorten the tail, add to the abdomen area to make it fuller and rounder and completely redo the feet, making them smaller with 4 weight bearing toes.
Seemed too much work. But i am still collating… 🙂
It’s a pretty cool Jurassic World figure though.