When Dinosaurs Ruled The Mind #62: Jurassic Park Toys (The Lost World)

(This blog is not for profit. All copyrighted images belong to their respective owners and are used for review. New to the blog? Start on the introduction.)

https://whendinosaursruledthemind.wordpress.com/2014/08/18/introduction-remember-dinosaurs-theyre-different-now/

….

….

….

Well, this is long overdue.

Anyway, let’s talk about The Lost World!

If you thought the first Jurassic Park film was a cash cow franchise, wait till you see The Lost World. When this movie came out it was absolutely everywhere! If you can think of a potential merchandise tie in, you bet your Jurassic some marketing executive slapped a raptor on it. Despite all the hype, however, most people remember The Lost World being quite the disappointment. Despite that, many of the tie ins for this movie are fondly remembered. The film did spawn several successful video games, including the classic light gun arcade game that can still be played at several locations today.

Everybody loves this thing.

But we’re not here to talk about video games. How well do the toys hold up? Let’s find out.

First, some rules.

I’m going to skip over toys that are just repaints of the figures from the first line as well as toys that look very similar to older models. I don’t want to constantly repeat myself and struggle to find new things to say.

Like last time, I’ll be going down the list in order of production codes.

Philosoraptor, do you feel like joining me today?

Sure. why not. Don’t have anything else going on.

Glad to hear it.

 

BTW, whatever happened to that story-line you were building up to? The one with Mr. Conductor and Time Traveling Cynodont keeping his mother captive. Do you even remember that?

It’s still coming, just be patient.

Do you even need us anymore?

Anyway…..

The first couple of toys in this wave are just repaints of the Velociraptor and Pachycephalosaurus figures from the first line. Nothing really notable there. We do get a couple of distinct raptor figures afterwards though. The first one is given the nickname Cyclops, a name some people may find ableist.

The missing eye is on the other side apparently.

 So, Philosoraptor, what do you think?

I’m not sure, really.

Yeah, neither am I.

I mean, it looks cool, but it I’m not sure what I can really say about it. It’s just a generic Jurassic Park raptor toy.

Hey, wait a minute. I kind of look like one of the Jurassic World raptors!

Wait, really?

Hmm, I guess you kind of do. It looks a heck lot more like these raptors than the ones that actually appear in The Lost World.

What happened to the tiger stripes?

Oh, there we go.

Yep, it looks like the only raptor toy that actually carries on the look of the raptors of the film (albeit barely) is this electronic Velociraptor figure. And I must admit, out of all the raptor toys, this one is probably my favorite. It looks the best sculpted, the paint job is nice, and it doesn’t have that kind of wonky look some of the other raptor toys had. That being said, it still has all the problems you would expect a JP raptor would have, and there’s nothing really more to say about it. Next!

The next figure in the toy line is actually a very surprising one. Despite the genus appearing in every Jurassic Park film to date (with the probable exception of Jurassic World), this guy is kind of underrepresented in the tie in products. Thankfully, he gets a toy here. Meet Parasaurolophus!

Because of the pretty major appearances this particular dinosaur makes in The Lost World, there was actually a surprising amount of Parasaurolophus merchandise when this movie came out. It’s not every day Jurassic Park makes a toy that doesn’t have sharp teeth, killer claws or stabby horns to entice the violence fueled youth of America. And I’ve gotta say, this is a great looking sculpt. It’s very film accurate in coloration and overall design, and it is actually pretty accurate to the real creature itself. There’s still something a bit off about the forelimbs and the hand, but other than that this toy is pretty spot on. It may actually be the most accurate figure in the Jurassic Park toy line (I guess it helps if the movie itself also featured the most accurate hadrosaur depiction on film in it’s time).

The toy line took another surprising turn when they released a Chasmosaurus figure. Now, Chasmosaurus isn’t exactly the kind of dinosaur that you would associate with Jurassic Park. It hasn’t appeared in any of the films nor in the books, and to the mainstream audience this dinosaur is interchangeable with Triceratops. Yet they decided to make it anyway. You know what, kudos to them. This is one of my favorite toys from the line. It’s visually interesting and surprisingly accurate (there are some exaggerated features here and there and the skeletal structure may not line up exactly as it does in the real animal, but that is to be expected from something meant for kids to bash around with), as well as distinct from the Triceratops figures. I certainly approve.

One the more expected side of things, we have our obligatory Pteranodon figure. Similar to the Quetzalcoatlus toy from the first line, this toy has a feature that allows it’s wings to fold together when not outstretched. Unfortunately, this does give the appearance of bat-like wings, which is certainly frowned upon in in pterosaur depictions. Still, I don’t expect much from toy pterosaurs to be honest. Nearly all of them fail anatomically, with features like bat wings, eagle talons. misplaced teeth and scaly skin seemingly mandatory. Still, these toys are meant to be played with, not to be scientific pieces. And all pterodactyl toys have one thing in common, they’re almost universally fun to play with. And this guy seems like no exception. On the bright side, he does look better than the Pteranodon toy from the first film.

Here we have a much larger and more movie accurate version of the Pachycephalosaurus. This toy line already had a representative of this genus, which was just a repaint of the older Pachyvephalosaurus mold.

Just by looking at them you can tell which one is more play-friendly.

The big Pachy, although technically more accurate, does have a glaring issue. The toy is supposed to have a ‘head butting’ action (par for the course for all Pachycephalosaurus toys) but the way the toy is constructed leaves something to be desired.

Because the skull isn’t fixed into the neck, overuse can loosen the head to the point that piece just juggles around in it’s slot, making it nearly unplayable. I much prefer the head butting feature in the smaller figurine.

Since the creature has a fairly prominent role in the film, it is refreshing to see that this Stegosaurus figure is a lot less derpy looking than the last one.

I just don’t know what went wrong.

While the first stegosaur seemed to remind us that this dinosaur had a brain the size of a peanut, the newer one has the look that despite that it can still kick us in the Jurassic. The sculpt is much sturdier looking and better proportioned, and the spikes and plates no longer appear to be put on haphazardly. Overall, well done.

Carnotaurus once again makes an appearance, and although this time around it doesn’t look quite as ‘rubber Godzilla suit’-esque as the last one, there’s no denying it still has a kaiju feel to it. Once again, those arms are the biggest problem. And I think this time around they’re even longer!

Guys, come on! Get it together! Carnotaurus literally had tiny stubs for arms. This guy is famous for them, even more so than T. rex. At least Tyrannosaurus could flex and had some dexterity, this poor guy’s forelimbs were glorified wrists!

I mean, that’s just sad.

As to be expected, this toy line does feature T. rex (a couple of them actually). There’s not much to really say about them, since once you’ve seen one JP Rex you’ve basically seen them all, but I will say they are impressive looking toys. I will say that the ‘Thrasher” T. rex (the green and black striped one) is the best looking of the two, as it is much better proportioned. The other one just looks at tad bit googly eyed to me (not surprisingly, the Thrasher Rex  is the more sought after of the two to collectors).

 

I finally get my chance to talk about Ornithosuchus on this post. I was going to talk about this guy on the first Jurassic Park toy review, as an Ornithosuchus figure was made for the first film, but that toy was ultimately unreleased; which is a shame as I felt this was a legitimately cool looking design, as well as an out of the box species choice. They did finally get to release this guy officially in The Lost World toy line, albeit with a new paint job (I personally prefer the old coloration better).

 

As far as accuracy is concerned, this guy is a mixed bag. I’ve certainly seen worse, but the limb proportions and the exaggerated teeth aren’t to be ignored. But I still think this is an amazing looking toy, and I’m glad to see more pseudosuchians (I just love that name) represented in popular media.

Baryonyx appears once again, this time with a completely new sculpt. How does it fair compared to the old one?

Ughh, don’t even remind me!

While this guy is certainly better looking than the old one, it’s still and overall ugly design. The skull shape is still wrong, the body proportions are completely off, and there’s something about that flexible tail that just makes me cringe a little. The only consolation is that at least this time they remembered to add the hand claw; you know, the feature this dinosaur is most famous for yet for some reason they decided not to add it on last time!!!!

Of course, compared to poor old Spinosaurus, Baryonyx got off pretty easy.

Yes folks, that is a Spinosaurus. This was back in the days when Spino was simply a generic carnosaur skull with a random fin on it’s back.

You see kids, this is what happens when your only known remains are destroyed in WWII.

I mean, what can I really say? It’s just hilarious to look at! Everything about it based on what we know to day is just wrong. And it wouldn’t be nearly as bad if the next JP film didn’t star this genus as the main villain in a role that would popularize the image of how the public sees Spinosaurus today.

I’ll get to you later.

But as we know, the look of Spinosaurus has been constantly changing in light of new discoveries, and the creature has once again gone through a metamorphosis…

 

Don’t make fun of me.

Well, this is a first.

Because of the prominent appearance of the baby T. rex in the film, I guess it was only natural they would make a toy out of it. As far as I know, it is currently unknown what an infant tyrannosaur actually looked like, but I do believe it is thought the younger tyrannosaurs had more elongated snouts based on slightly older specimens. Then again, baby animals often go through dramatic changes as they grow up, so a baby rex with a puppy dog face turning into a teenager with a more elongated skull then turning into an adult with a big boxy skull isn’t completely out of the question. Still, this figure is pretty accurate to the film version, which did a fair job at depicting what a baby T. rex may have looked like. Today, of course, this guy would be feathered. But what else is new, this is Jurassic Park.

Triceratops finally gets an appearance here, although I feel the results are somewhat mixed. I personally think this figure is better sculpted than the original one…

Despite being a heck of a lot smaller…

…I’ve still seen much better Triceratops toys than this. Nothing about it screams I want to play with it, which is a shame since Triceratops toys are normally incredibly playable.

The final dinosaur in this particular wave of toys was simply a repainted Dilophosaurus from the original film, so I won’t go into it here. However, some dinosaurs were released as accessories to a larger playset. This included an Allosaurus that had removable parts that simulated battle damage, and the goal was to put him back together in a sort of surgery role play.

Oohh, that’s nasty.

The Allosaurus toy itself, however, is certainly not bad (I’m sure many a kid lost several of those removable parts though). I like that the skull isn’t just some generic carnosaur head, which tells me they actually did some research on what this dinosaur actually looked like. I also really like the coloration, which reminds me of something….

Hey, I see what you did there JP:OG.

The final two creatures came together in a playset called ‘Dino Tracker Adventure Set’. I find the name a tad bit misleading, as the set doesn’t actually have any dinosaurs in it. We do, however, have two Permian creatures: Scutosaurus and Estemmenosuchus. Much like Ornithosuchus, these guys were supposed to be released for the first film, but they never were. And also like the Ornithosuchus, I prefer their old color palates more.

 

I’m not sure what possessed the toy manufacturers to make figures of two very obscure creatures, but whatever light bulb went off in their head is certainly appreciated. Yes, their features may be a bit exaggerated, but that’s to be expected in pretty much any dinosaur toys. I think these guys look pretty awesome, and i’m really glad Kenner decided to make these guys.

That’s it for now, but keep a look out for my next Jurassic Park toys post. Next time I will talk about the toys of Jurassic Park 3.

Prepare for the Spinosaurus invasion.