Way, way, way back I wrote about a special release Kaiyodo dinosaur model–a Spinosaurus skull from their Jurassic Park III + Coca Cola promotion (almost exactly 100 posts ago!). Now, the Random Number Generator has selected other figures from the series, so why not look at them all together? It’s another Run the Set!
The full set of dinosaurs was 12 plus the aforementioned Spinosaurus skull, which was the special chase figure (which probably thrilled kids when they got it…who doesn’t want a static skull on a stand instead of a dino you could play with?). The set creates models of most of the dinosaurs that featured in the movie. And then a few of the dinosaurs that showed up more as background moments…no matter how fleeting. Except, they skipped a few (the notable exception being Ceratosaurus which would have been a better chase figure, but they didn’t ask me!). And then actually added one that had nothing to do with the movie at all!
I did say there are 12 dinosaurs, but with only 12 species in the movie they they still missed three that make even brief appearances. One was Corythosaurus, which was so brief that it probably didn’t matter, and the other was…Ankylosaurus? Seems weird that they’d skip it–but looking over my collection, it appears that Kaiyodo has never made Ankylosaurus in the various capsule series, except for their Retro series! Lots of other ankylosaurs/nodosaurs, but not that one. And then…they added Pachycephalosaurus. Which is odd; it had a moment in Jurassic Park 2: Lost World, but not JPIII. Maybe the set was originally started for JP2? Or the designers didn’t notice or care that they’d mixed up the movies? Guess we’ll never know–I didn’t even realize until a few minutes ago!
So if they skipped 3 species and added one, how did they get 12? By doubling down on Velociraptor and Pteranodon of course. Which makes some sense–there were different ‘raptors in the movie, males and females, with a slight hint of feathering on at least the female one (Jurassic Park movies have been slow to keep up with the science…this was their compromise I guess?) And of course, with the introduction of an active role for Pteranodon in the movie, with multiple versions, they had to include a couple. Despite the description as one of them as ‘giant’, the figures are the same size, but the giant stands out for its orange wings. Sadly, my ‘regular’ Pteranodon figure is broken at its base and held in place by sticky tac; even though the figures are a softer PVC, that particular joint was weak enough that it broke in storage, and I haven’t epoxied it back together yet.
Overall the dinosaurs in the set are pretty close approximations of the models in the movies, even if their appearance in a JPIII set is loose at best (or non-existent…). All of the figures are roughly the same size, about 6-9 cm long, so they are very much not to scale (despite the photos using the same human for all but a few, it’s only because he’s my smallest person available, at 1:100). The Compsognathus is about 1:10, the Velociraptor are about 1:26 (based on real ‘raptor dimensions, not oversized JP dimensions), the Pteranodon are about 1:70, the Pachycephalosaurus is about 1:85, Parasaurolophus and Triceratops average about 1:115; Stegosaurus is roughly 1:120, Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus are about 1:155 (depending on the length you use for the latter), and Brachiosaurus comes in at around 1:315. A bit of a range.
The figures themselves are pretty high quality–lots of little details, good sculpts. They come attached to small translucent green or brown bases, which allows for some pretty active single-foot running poses and postures that wouldn’t necessarily work otherwise. The material is a softer PVC type, but as mentioned, it can be brittle in thin parts; I’d imagine that the feet on the bases would be other weak points. In general, they are a very nice set I guess, in particular for fans of Jurassic Park (we certainly never got any figures this nice for JP3 from other makers outside of Japan…). If that is your thing, it might be worth tracking them down. I personally don’t have them on display, and to be honest I would probably find them a new home at some point.
