Jurassic Park III: Tyrannosaurus Rex (T-Rex)

Year of release: 2001

Description: like many of Hasbro’s bigger dinosaur models, this figure doesn’t stand in a neutral pose. It stands in a bent position, as if circling potential prey. Its predominant colour is green. It has a greenish white belly and a very dark green stripe running from it’s snout over his back to the end of the tail: smaller stripes in the same colour protrude from this large stripe. Other than that it’s mostly dark green in a lighter tone. It’s adorned with reddish brown stripes. Black claws stick out of his toes and fingers. A black JP III logo is found on the right leg. It has a large dino damage wound on his right flank, showing bones and muscles. Inside this wound a button is located: when pushed it activates a rather high pitched roar. A second button is placed on its throat. Pressing this button produces a fierce attack roar, and makes the jaws open.

Analysis: this figure looks fairly decent, but is plagued by the same design flaws we encounter with the Spino, Alpha Raptor and Dilophosaurus from this toy line. Its position is annoying, severely hindering playability, making it mostly fit for dioramas. Again, the wound cannot be covered up, so the creature has no option but having its inside exposed for all the world to behold. The button to activate the attack action is poorly located, and the action isn’t very menacing or impressive. The head sculpt is quite ugly: this dinosaur looks a bit like a mongoloid Rex.

Though a lot can be said against this sculpt, it has some redeeming qualities. The paint job is pretty good: not great or anything, but better than most of Hasbro’s toys. It also is almost identical to the colouring of the Ultra T-Rex made for this toy line, adding some consistency in Hasbro’s work. The sounds are fine, and certainly reminiscent of the sounds Rex made in the JP movies. The sound quality unfortunately isn’t very high, but good enough.

Playability: not great. Like mentioned above, this figure stands in an awkward position, limiting playability options. A neutral position (like most of Kenner’s toys had) would have been preferable. Fortunately its limbs are poseable. The dino strike action is both predictable and unoriginal, and doesn’t work all that well. It can’t really grab dinosaurs its own size or bigger with this rather small mouth, but only human figures and smaller dinosaur models fit.

Realism: this figure is recognizable as a T-Rex, but doesn’t resemble the Rex featured in JP III all that much. The paint job differs, even though that Rex was greener than any of the Rexes in the earlier movies: it wasn’t this extreme though. The arms are slightly too long. It’s also out of scale with the human figures, but if we pretend it’s only a juvenile that’s not a real problem. A bigger Rex was made for this toy line after all. The sounds certainly remind us of the great roars the Rexes in the movie produced, so it’s good they kept them for this toy.

Repaint: no. This figure would be repainted several times though: once for the JP III Camo-Xtreme line, twice for the JP Dinosaurs 2 and 3 toy lines and once more for JP 2009.

Overall rating: 5/10. It’s not very good, but has some positive features. So it’s not recommended but you might find it worth your while. It’s not rare, so if you need one you can probably acquire it without much difficulty, for a decent enough price.