Jurassic Park: Claire & Some Dinosaur.

 

On a lark I picked up this at the local Walmart.  I haven't bought any figures in quite awhile and it was a few dollars off on clearance.  I can't say that the Jurassic Park world is something that I'm all that interested in.  I liked the first movie, barely remember anything from any of the sequel films and I haven't really given a toss about dinosaurs since the third grade. 

After waffling in the isles over my purchase, I bought this set because of this figure:

Its good to have a few civilians in your GI Joe collection, and this one looks like a good generic, ginger female.  This figure, Claire, is played by Bryce Dallas Howard.  I'm not sure if the outfit is film accurate, but it really doesn't need to be for my purposes. I don't collect Jurassic with the intent to collect Jurassic.  I suppose she can be anything from a plain-clothes operative to a stay-at-home mom. 

Overall I think the figure is decent, with articulation in the knees, elbows, shoulder, head, waist, and thigh.  It does not have articulation in the wrists or ankles.  To me not every figure of every character has to be as limber as a ninja, and a gal who ran from dinosaurs in high heels probably doesn't need them anyway.  I think it was a good choice not to break her arm line with wrist articulation, though while I don't think giving her a complete rocker would have been necessary, a simple hinge for the foot angle to be adjusted would have been welcome. 

 

 

Sorry for the blurred image, my current camera doesn't do close up photos that well! 

 

Over all, its a good sculpt that even comes with a few useful accessories.  There has in the past been some difficulty with female faces not looking quite feminine, but this figure escapes that difficulty.  It comes with a very GI Joe-like rifle complete with grenade launcher.  There is also a smartphone.  She can hold both accessories with some doing.  Claire also has foot pegs in her heels that are a little tight for modern Joe standards, but can be made to fit with some force.  The feet are rubbery so stretching over a modern joe-peg shouldn't be a problem  

Onto the Lizard.

This, the packaging tells me is a dilophosaurus, a genus of theropod dinosaurs that lived in what is now North America during the Early Jurassic, about 193 million years ago - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilophosaurus.  That's okay with me because it turns out, I don't know squat about dinosaurs.

Okay, with the dilophosaurus, its accessory is a wad of acidic spit.  I don't recall if this was used at all in the sequel films, but here it is!  Keep in mind, there is no spring loaded mechanism behind it as it only sort of squeezes into the throat peg.  The dino has articulation in the hips, the shoulders and the colorful neck frills (which like the acidic spit are fictional embellishment, not real biological traits of the dilo)

Its mold is such that it appears you should be able to rotate the tail, but it doesn't really rotate, which would maybe have been useful because despite its leg articulation, there's pretty much only one way it can stand.  The left foot must be flat and forward with the right leg back and balanced on the toes.  This is the only way it can stand on a flat surface, and it doesn't stand easily.

Rats! It fell over again!

This thing is simply cheap.  If you are a Jurassic collector, I'm not sure why you could be that enthused about things like this when they are executed so poorly.  If you are going to make it able to stand in only one position, why give it hip articulation?  And if you want something that can stand in one position, why not design the back foot with a better surface for standing?  This thing is not very well thought out.


Oh wait, what I thought was a plastic moulding plug on its back actually pulls out.  It has a Jurassic Park logo on one side and an electronic terminal on the other.  I haven't seen Jurassic World, so I can only guess this was about trying to make modern-era dinosaurs even more menacing by making them even more ridiculously implausible.  I'm certain the next thing up is a Dino zombie apocalypse right around the corner.     

At least you can say this makes the dilophosaurus something right up Cobra's alley if you go for the classic Sunbow depiction...

This set is currently listing for about $15, but I got it for ten.  Still for me, it was a marginal purchase.