Something I’ll always be grateful for is having a partner who shares interests and hobbies with me, or is at least interested in the ones that aren’t her wheelhouse. So, my lovely partner Jess has a few Transformers, with some of her favorite characters being Rattrap and Grimlock. But it’s not a huge interest to her, and among her fandoms, she’s big into the Jurassic Park franchise, as well as dinosaurs in general (which is why she likes Grimlock so much). When it comes to dinos, her favorite is the Parasaurolophus, a herbivore, with a big crest extending out of the back of its head.
A fossil, according to Wikipedia.
As to why Jess likes it so much, it’s nothing more than the fact that it’s cute, and wasn’t a meat-eater, so it was probably nice. Sometimes, that’s all you need.
This other Wikipedia photo really captures The Vibe.
In terms of Jurassic Park, the Parasaurolophus is actually one of the few dinos to show up in every single movie, but mostly just as background cameos, its biggest role thusfar being in The Lost World, when one was captured (and then freed) by a group of hunters. That being said, it looks to have at least one big scene in the upcoming Dominion.
He’s living Jess’s dream.
As for this figure, one day, Jess and I wandered into a Gamestop, only to see this, an extremely detailed, collector-focused version of her favorite dino, so naturally, she had to snap it up, and as someone that doesn’t really pay much attention to the Jurassic Park line, it interested me, too. In terms of dino-merch, I was only really familiar with the range of jumbo dinosaurs the modern Jurassic World tie-in lines have slowly released, because my little nephew (who’s also nuts for dinosaurs, like a lot of kids), has slowly been gifted them as he came out, and I’ll admit, they’re pretty cool things, gigantic, and surprisingly well-sculpted and painted for big, knockaround kid’s toys.
A quick phone pic from last Christmas, when my nephew brought them out to show us.
This figure, though, this is from something called the Hammond Collection, which is a new line of collector-focused dinos (as compared to the mainline), seemingly Mattel’s answer to Hasbro’s various 6-inch collector’s lines (and Transformers: Studio Series), though, unlike their previous Amber Collection, these scale with mainline three-and-three-quarters stuff instead (I googled all of this, I really don’t go here). The prices are all over the place, but the Parasaurolophus is a little bit cheaper than a Deluxe Transformer. Jess gets her favorite dinosaur, and I get a look at what exactly a collector-focused Jurassic Park dino looks like, so let’s see what this friendly fellow can do.
You can immediately see the appeal, I hope
The Parasaurolophus is a large figure. Compared to Transformers: Kingdom dinosaurs, she’s (I’ve decided it’s a she) bigger than Voyager Dinobot, and only a hair smaller than Leader Megatron.
Raptors don’t bug her.
“Look, it’s okay that you’re not much bigger than me. your outsized personality makes up for it.”
Supposedly, she’s scaled to standard G.I. Joe figures, or Star Wars figures, if you got them.
Ian Noble also gets to live Jess’s dream.
“Look, if you had one shot…”
Leia goes for the belly rubs.
In terms of her construction, her torso feels hollow, the same way those giant Jurassic Park dinosaur figures hollow themselves out to be so large. But there’s enough plastic in the less-hollow-feeling limbs to feel meaty, and the price is right for the amount of material here.
A substantial ‘saur.
The sculpt’s a nice, realistic design (well, “realistic,” I’m not a Dinosaur person, but I know the Jurassic films take liberties). So I guess I could say, it looks like it could be a real animal, like how the films portray their dinos, whether or not they really look like that. Getting closer, she’s really intricately sculpted, with scaled skin all the way down that feels coarse in your hands, and includes details like sculpted claws on her hands and feet.
Real Dinosaur Texture!
They seem to have spent the lion’s share of the effort, though, getting her face just right, and the result looks, well, happy and cheery! The eyes, the mouth, the duck-bill-like thing out back, it’s all here, and it’s all very detailed.
Blow them a kiss!
The only real drawback is the necessary compromises made for the joint cuts across her body, and a seam on her belly. Something I appreciate, though, is that the Jurassic Park logo is molded onto the bottom of her right foot, rather than painted on to a more obvious patch of skin, like how the old 90’s toys did it.
These days, you have to go out of your way to Look for the Mark of Jurassic Park.
Top to bottom, she just looks like a really pleasant, happy animal.
“Hello!”
The deco is another category that they went ham on, here. She’s mostly a light yellow brown, but there’s a lot going on besides that. She’s got orangey-brown, dark brown, and yellow-white stripes all down her back and neck, brown freckles along her sides, brown stripes on her thighs and shoulders, and black painted toes. A detail I appreciate is the subtle shift to a lighter yellow on her belly and the backs of her thighs.
Showing off her stripes.
Just like the sculpt, the paintwork seems to have mostly focused her head. Outside of the brown crest, and the bit of rust-orange on the back of her head, she’s got extremely delicately painted amber eyes with black pupils, with tiny, microscopic freckles around them, far smaller than the ones on her body. Not only that, but there’s a sheen to the paint on her eyes, making them look “moist,” almost.
Check out those baby…ambers?
Oh, and she’s got a proper painted tongue in her mouth. The only bit of deco that’s obviously absent is her fingernails, which are totally unpainted.
“Aaa! Skeletons!”
This dino’s a bit challenging to balance on two legs if you’re doing a dynamic pose, due to her tilted-forwards posture, and you might need to take some time adjusting the alignment of the bottoms of her feet.
It’s a little known fact that all herbivore dinosaurs knew martial arts, as a defense mechanism.
But this dino was sometimes a quadruped, and it’s a lot more stable if you drop her down onto her arms, too, which the poseability more than allows.
Going into foraging mode.
Speaking of poseability, she’s got a lot of it! While she doesn’t have ball joints, she has combined joints that add a ball-joint-like universal range of motion to most of her joints (this is where me not being a technical guy comes back to me, I’m sure there’s a name for these kinds of pseudo-ball-joints, I just don’t know it.) Whatever they’re called, she’s got them on her (extremely high up) ankles and knees, while thighs are swivels with a little bit of outward motion.
Oh, she smells something!
Nom!
Meanwhile, her shoulders and elbows are those same universal joints.
“There, there, fellow duck-billed creature. Your headache will end eventually.”
She’s also got these universal joints at the bottom and top of her long neck, and while they mess a bit with the striped deco on her back when posed, the tradeoff is an impressive range of motion in her head. Also, her mouth opens, and it gives her an adorable, happy expression.
“Can…can I help you? Ma’am? MA’AM?”
The closest thing to a gimmick is her tail, which came detached out of the box, and had to be plugged in. It’s got another universal joint at its base, but the rest of the tail is made of a rubbery, flexible material that actually holds its shape, meaning you can twist it around into whatever position you want. It’s a nice little extra, and it works very well.
What a scamp!
Overall, there’s something charmingly, primally simple about this. For all that it’s dressed up as a “collector’s item,” it’s really just a big dinosaur figure, and not a terribly expensive one either. Some things just never change, and they don’t really need to.
Real recognizes real.
Cool creatures.
She’s very well-painted, well-sculpted, and well-articulated, costing less than a Deluxe Transformer. But most importantly, she’s just got really good vibes to her, and looks and feels like a friend. If that appeals to you, you’ll love this creature.
A part of this Parasaurolophus collection!
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