Jurassic Park 2009: Dino Trackers: Dino Diver VS Spinosaurus

Year of release: 2009

Accessories:

-Hydraulic Impulse Dino-“Tranquilizer” Speargun

Description: the Diver wears an all black suit (including black flippers), covered in light blue stripes and (mostly triangular) shapes, with an orange vest over it, as well as several black belts and orange highlights. On his right leg he has a knife holder with a knife in it (non removable), not coloured differently so a bit hard to notice. His face is partially covered with breathing equipment (with orange filters), though he’s got nothing covering his eyes (brown eyes and eye brows). He’s got a black air tank on his back. He shows signs of a dinosaur attack on his left leg and right arm, revealing bare skin. His weapon appears to be some sort of missile launcher (though its title, as stated above based on the information on the figure's packaging, is a bit longer than that). It’s coloured in a slightly metallic dark blue paint job, with a dark pink missile sticking out of it on both ends. Pushing the end of the missile sort of launches it, though it doesn’t work very well.

The Spinosaurus is positioned in a crouching move, its right arm resting on the ground, possibly stalking potential prey. Its left arm is raised upwards and its mouth is opened wide. Except for its top body parts (top of the head, neck, uppermost part of the back, sail and top of the tail), which are coloured purple, the figure's body is all pink. However, a lighter shade of purple is mixed in with the pink on the side of the neck and tail, the flanks and the arms, making those body parts look darker then they are. A row of small dark purple spots runs on either side of the creature's body from the neck over the flanks to about half way the tail. The Spinosaurus has white teeth and a red tongue and inside of the mouth, small yellow eyes with black pupils and a black JP logo on both upper legs. Its claws are not painted.

Analysis: JP 2009, like the JP III and JPD2 lines, features some aquatic action with this Diver figure and its buddy of old, the not-so-often-used-as-some-other-sculpts crouching Spinosaurus. The Diver himself differs little from its last incarnation, except for the blue stripes and less detailed paint job. Also, the American flag which graced his left arm the previous times is now absent, leaving his affiliations unknown: maybe he's gone AWOL, or he's turned mercenary. His trusty weapon, a sort of missile launcher, unfortunately is still by his side and continues to leave much to be desired, being neither very effective nor good looking or easy for this figure to handle. The rocket this time is purple, which also makes it look a bit goofy.

His Spinosaurus companion got it worse though, and features a completely wacky pink paint job, like some sort of bizarre prehistoric variation on the 'My Little Pony' theme. Whatever the designer who painted this fellow was smoking, stay away from it for your own good. Pink and purple just aren't good choices for big carnivore figures, or even their miniature counterparts, as this figure proves by looking just totally stupid. Also, the lack of detailing, particularly the unpainted claws, is a bit of a bummer. It would come as no surprise if it turned out this Spinosaurus is crouching down because it offers itself up for a mercy shot from the Diver's gun to put it out of its overly festive misery. If only Hasbro had done the same beforehand to the toy designer who came up with these idiotically brightly coloured dinosaur paint jobs for the JP 2009 toy line...

Repaint: yes. This set is identical to the Military Diver set of the JP III line (Wave 2). The Diver has been repainted once for JPD2 (along with his missile launcher), while the Spinosaurus has already been repainted several times for Camo-Xtreme, and JPD2 and would be used twice for this toy line. The missile launcher was also used for the Deluxe Electronic T-Rex set of this toy line.

Overall rating: 4/10. The Diver is okay, but not very different from its predecessors and sadly less detailed. His weapon is still lame. The Spinosaurus is a fairly decent sculpt but features an absolutely awful silly paint job. This set is not rare and can still be found with little effort. Since this set was a Toys'R'Us exclusive that could change over time, but probably not for the next decade or so.

Jurassic Park: Dinosaurs 2: Dimetrodon with Military Diver

Year of release: 2004

Accessories:

-Rocket Launcher with rocket

Description: this four legged creature doesn’t look much unlike modern day monitor lizards or iguanas, except for the large “sail” on its back. Dimetrodon also features two pairs of tiny legs (almost dragging its belly over the ground), a “segmented” tail and a big boxy head. It comes with a biting action feature: pushing its left hind leg back makes the jaws open wide, while releasing them makes them close with a powerful snap. The figure measures some 15 centimetres in length and 8 centimetres in height. It stands in a walking posture, with its left hind leg and right front leg posed backward and the other legs posed in a forward move.

The prehistoric critter has a mostly light blue paint job. Aside from its underside (throat, belly, lower part of the tail and inward parts of the legs), which is painted beige, blue can be found all over its body, most noticeably on the sail, legs and flanks. The neck, back and upper part of the tail are darker in tone, and appear more greenish than the rest of the body. A thin green stripe runs from the eye socket to half way the flanks on either side of the body, while similar red stripes run from the neck to the base of the hind legs. On its back, on either side of the sail, a thin black line is found. The sail itself is all blue, with vague green and red stripes mixed in. The figure has very small red eyes, white teeth, a pink tongue and a black JP logo on its right hind leg.

The Diver wears an all black suit, including black flippers, with an orange vest over it, as well as several green belts and silver highlights. On his right leg he wears an orange knife holder with a knife in it (non removable). On his left upper arm an American flag (no stars, just stripes) is found, so this guy is undoubtedly part of the US military. His face is partially covered with breathing equipment (silver with orange filters), though he’s got nothing covering his eyes (brown eyes with brown eye brows). He’s got a black air tank with more silver detailing on his back. He shows signs of a dinosaur attack on his left leg and right arm, revealing skin. His weapon appears to be some sort of missile launcher. It’s coloured in a slightly metallic light brown paint job, with a yellow missile sticking out of it on both sides. Pushing the end of the missile sort of launches it, though it doesn’t work very well.

Analysis: Of all the old JPS1 figures, who would have thought it would be the non canonical (as in, not in the films or novels) Dimetrodon figure that would make it all the way to JP: Dinosaurs 2? And it's not even a dinosaur! This classic Synapsid sculpt remains unchanged and still has a rather nasty bite in its jaws. It's gotten yet another fairly appealing paint job, this time using mostly blue instead of green. It suits him well and gives him a sort of tropical, jungle look. The various differently coloured small lines give him a distinct look, but the sail could have been used more imaginatively, maybe coloured in another style and colour to set it apart from its body more. Also, details have been omitted: the claws have not been painted, and neither has the inside of the mouth. The eyes appear almost totally non existent, they're so small. Overall, it's a unique colour scheme all its own though, which can't be said for the Diver.

The Diver was probably paired with this creature because it had a sail and Hasbro designers therefore thought it to be aquatic. At least human/beast size relations are more or less accurate in this set, which is not the case for the other dino/human two-packs of this line. The diver features the same paint scheme as before, though some of the colours have been replaced with other, but similar, colouration. The figure is still fairly detailed for human figure standards, but not surprisingly so. Unfortunately the Diver carries the same weapon as before, a rather ugly and bulky rocket launcher with a rocket that is launched by pushing it out of the weapon instead of pressing a button. It was a lame system then and is still lame now, while it retains zero impact. If it even hits the target at all, it has no effect: the Dimetrodon is much too steady on its feet and too heavy to be knocked over by the projectile. However, the Diver's limbs look rather tasty for the creature's big mouth to chomp on... Clearly, the Dimetrodon wins the day in a fight in any way, as it is also the best part of this set.

Repaint: yes. This is a repaint of the JPS1 Dimetrodon, a figure which had been repainted before for JPD1. The Military Diver is a repaint of the JP III figure of the same name, with repainted accessories. The Diver and his gun would be repainted again for JP 2009, but this would be the last time the Dimetrodon figure (or any JPS1 repaint for that matter) got a release.

Overall rating: 6/10. This is an okay set of repaints. The Dimetrodon has a vastly different paint job than before and still looks good and bites hard; the Diver is less interesting and his paint job is not all that different from before, while his rocket launcher still sucks. Like all four dino/human two-packs, this is one of the more common JPD2 releases, and it can still be found without too much effort.

Jurassic Park III: Military Diver & Spinosaurus

Year of release: 2002

Accessories:

-Spinosaurus figure

-Missile launcher (with missile)

Description: this figure wears an all black suit, including black flippers, with a yellow vest over it, as well as several blue belts and dark grey highlights. On his right leg he wears a yellow knife holder with a knife in it (non removable). On his left upper arm an American flag (or something like it) is found, so this guy is part of the US military alright. His face is partially covered with breathing equipment, though he’s got nothing covering his eyes. He’s got a black air tank with more dark grey detailing on his back. He shows signs of a dinosaur attack on his left leg and right arm, showing skin. His weapon appears to be some sort of missile launcher. It’s coloured in a slightly metallic dark grey paint job, with a yellow missile sticking out of it on both sides. Pushing the end of the missile sort of launches it, though it doesn’t work very well.

The Spinosaurus is positioned in a crouching move, possibly stalking potential prey. Its left arm is raised upwards and its mouth is opened wide. The figure sports a grey paint job, with some shiny blue stripes on every part of its body, including the sail. A large red stripe, also in a shiny paint job, runs from its snout all the way to the end of its tail, including all over the sail. Its claws are painted black, its eyes are yellow and a black JP III logo is located on its left leg.

Analysis: this is a fairly decent figure. The diver sure looks like a diver, though not necessarily military, were it not for the flag on his arm. The figure stands in a rather neutral pose, except for his left leg, which is positioned in a forward move. The paint job is pretty good, with a fair amount of details. I’m not an expert on diving equipment, so I don’t know whether his gear is realistic, but it looks good enough to me.

The same can’t be said for the weapon. Once again Hasbro uses its own launching mechanism, with the push-the-end-of-the-missile system. It’s a rather lousy system anyway, but in this case it just doesn’t work right. The missile hardly flies in a straight line to its target but gets off course easily. It also does little damage if it hits anything at all, it just lacks the necessary impact force. That, and the fact it has a lame paint job, makes it a very disappointing gun.

The Spinosaurus is better by comparison, but nothing great in itself. It sits in a bit of an odd position and tends to fall over because it’s slightly out of balance with its left arm raised like that. The paint job is quite original, but doesn’t remind us of the colours the Spino in JP III had (though it is similar to the paint job of the Aqua Attack Spinosaurus of this toy line). It’s not the best JP III Spino figure by far, but decently enough.

Playability: not great. The diver’s limbs are all poseable, and the more or less neutral pose also helps. The weapon however is a lost cause, and one of the lamest weapons of all the Hasbro JP figures. The Spino is not poseable in any way and also doesn’t take on a neutral pose, so it doesn’t help the playability much.

Realism: there was no Military Diver in JP III. There were marines and military craft, but no divers. Hasbro just made the figure up. I think it would have been better if they had made soldiers like seen in the movie: instead they just made something up, but the result in this case is adequate enough. The weapon also wasn’t featured in the movie, and thank heaven for that!

The Spino certainly is recognizable as such, with its crocodilian jaws, sail and long arms, but other than that it doesn’t resemble the Spino from JP III much: the most noticeable difference is the odd paint job this figure sports which is in no way reminiscent of the colours Spino sported in the movie.

Repaint: no. However, the Diver and his weapon would be repainted for JP Dinosaurs 2 (Dimetrodon & Military Diver) and JP 2009 (while the repainted weapon was also found on the big Deluxe Electronic T-Rex set, paired with a repaint of the Military General instead).The Spinosaurus would be repainted four times, once for JP Camo-Xtreme, once more for JP Dinosaurs 2, and twice for JP 2009.

Overall rating: 6/10. The figure is okay, though the weapon sucks. The dinosaur is decent enough, but nothing too special. This set is not very hard to find in the USA, so if you want one you could probably get it relatively cheap and not have much trouble finding it. It’s a bit harder to get your hands on in some other territories, but still far from impossible to find.