Hasbro Jurassic World Spinosaurus Action Figure Hasbro, 2015
Day #1,202: June 12, 2015
Spinosaurus Chomping Attack!
Jurassic World Bashers and Biters
Item No.: Asst. B1271 No. B1274 Manufacturer:Hasbro Includes:n/a Action Feature:Tail acts as joystick for neck Retail:$10.99 Availability:April 2015 (May 11, 2015 street date) Other: Not bad, not big either
On a lark I snagged a box of the "Bashers & Biters" toys, including this Spinosaurus toy. I had to have a Stegoceratops and rarely do dinosaur toys disappoint me, so getting a new stash of Hasbro dinosaurs seemed like a good idea.
As the big bad of the third movie, the Spinosaurus is a good choice for the toy line - not having him seems short-sighted. The design is similar to the flick, but he's a little more svelte and the coloring is totally different. Sculpted with screws on the non-visible side of the packaged toy, there are also intentional design blemishes. A visible wound brings the return of the "Dino Damage" that has been a part of this line since day one, and there's a little sculpted scar in the other side of the fin. You also get the "JW" symbol, which I'm finding a lot less likable than the JP logo we were told to look for back in 1993.
The detail and generally reptiley feel of the creature is kept intact, basically giving you an (I assume, I haven't been to the theater yet) cool "what if?" design for the new film. The orange head and fin look really cool, but the unpainted areas around the lips and gums look like a mistake more than a design choice. Similarly, the tail is completely unpainted - at first I assumed I got one where they forgot to paint it, and then I found out that this was not the case. They did put a lot of pennies into a really ornate face paint mask, plus we got painted claws and stripes on the body. Given how limited the T-Rex looks in terms of deco, the Spinosaurs turned out great. Other than the tail.
What makes these figures particularly interesting is how they integrated mechanisms into the tails (or legs) to control other.shtmlects of the toy. The Spinosaurus has jointed arms and legs, but the tail is really what's neat. Once freed from the packaging, it serves as a sort of a joystick. If you move it left and right, the dinosaur's head moves and the jaw opens. If you move the tail up and down, the head also moves up and down. It's a lot of fun to torment any toy army men you may have, as this dinosaur is roughly in scale with the 60mm unpainted figures.
If you're in the Papo or Schleich camps, this is not the toy for you. But if you want something goofy to futz with on your desk, it's pretty good. Ten years ago we were saying so long to the Jurassic Park III dinosaurs with electronic roars and a few moving pieces, so inflation and such didn't hurt the overall toy line too much. Sure, there's a little less paint and yes, there are no electronics - but it's still pretty decent for the asking price. If you go for the Chap Mei/Animal Planet stuff you might do better, but I prefer the look of these guys. I'd suggest snagging one or two, because if you don't you will probably be sitting there going "man, I wish I bought a dinosaur last year" at some point down the road. I figure these guys will go to live on a shelf soon, but we'll see how that plays out.
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