Hasbro Jurassic World Hybrid Dilophosaurus Rex Action Figure Hasbro, 2016
Day #1,540: September 28, 2016
Hybrid Dilophosaurus Rex Chomping Jaws!
Jurassic World Bashers and Biters
Item No.: Asst. B1271 No. B8630 Manufacturer:Hasbro Includes:n/a Action Feature:Move tail, head moves and jaw opens Retail:$10.99 Availability:September 2016 Other: Merriam-Webster's new illustration for "Garish"
Look, I'm not going to go with a cheap joke here. I don't need to make a crack about how the deco for the Dilophosaurus Rex may have been done by someone who enjoys the recreational sniffing of paint. But I will say if they are, I support this. The original prototype was an orangeish brown, but the final toy in my hands as I write this - next to my hands, I couldn't type - is bright orange. Like, real bright orange. I've got some bright orange toys, this is largely brighter.
The classic spitter dinosaur may not have actually had a frill, or spit, but it's a good image. Adding this flourish to the T-Rex works nicely, as the head is very similar to the regular Bashers & Biters Tyrannosaurus Rex [FOTD #1,228] with a few changes. Actually, it seems to be entirely new - the neck piece has the added frill, the jaw is completely new, and the main head piece has the added enhanced brow on it. The construction of the head is quite different, so it's nice to see they made those changes - it might not be necessary, but it's better than just slapping a removable collar on the existing toy.
The JW tramp stamp is black, rather than gold like on the original prototype. She has a lot of paint including massive amounts of gold on the back, belly, brow, jaw, and frill. Black tiger stripes run down the body, plus you've got more detailing on the head and frill - plus teeth, the mouth, the eyes, and even the toe claws. They didn't skimp on this one. It pops at retail, especially after so many muted and drab colors from the movie year. Realism, shmealism - gimme the gold and orange one. It's 9-inches long from nose to tail, with the frill giving it a more interesting profile that looks less like a fried chicken drumstick with feet. My sample has no problems standing - heck, the original T-Rex didn't either - but I will say the tiny arms are rendered almost invisible by being hidden behind the frill. I could say it's ridiculous to not have the visible arms, but really, is that where I need to pick apart the day-glo orange dinosaur with metallic gold on its neck? No.
The figure stands well, but as it's packaged in an open-box tray you've no doubt figured out this is a toy for kids. As such, it has an action feature - the tail serves as a sort of a joystick. If you move it up and down, the neck will move accordingly. Swing it a tiny bit to the side, and the head turns and eventually the jaw opens. It's sort of like a tiny dinosaur puppet, and while the motion isn't bad at this scale it's a little rough thanks to the fact that it's a very light toy. The jaw opens more than the mechanism allows, so if you stick your finger in there you can get a better look insideher newly-sculpted jaws. The overbite changesher personality up a bit, but it doesn't change the functionality of the mechanism in its head. The sculpt is very similar to the original, with some cracked bits, folds, and the whole lizard bit you've come to expect from the ancestors of birds.
If you see the Dilophosaurus Rex, it's probably worth getting for whatever retail (or closeout) price at which you see it. Ten bucks or less, it's a weird little toy that I assume you won't see again. The last big push for bizarre mutant dinosaurs was in the late 1990s, so next time most of us will be dead. Well, maybe not, but it'll certainly be a while before this kind of weirdness shows up again - especially since this might be one of the last waves, if not the last wave, of this size class to come out of Hasbro. Because it looks like a weird designer toy shoved through the lens of a kid's toy, I have to love it - there's not much else like it, so I got my money's worth. If nothing else, the paint job is above and beyond what the normal toy had, given its unpainted back and lack of metallic bits. The new one even still has the wound!
I'm guessing these will come and go, collectors will skip them, and then you'll be sorry later. I could be wrong - but last waves and utter weirdness tend to be the things that wind up on closeout shelves, chewed up and spit out by kids whose parents just buy whatever's cheap at the store that day. As such, get these before the kids do - I can't imagine the metallic paint will hold up to a lot of wear and tear in the sandbox. I expect there will be many roughed up samples at the Goodwill over the coming decade.
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