Jurassic Park: Dinosaurs 2: Electronic Velociraptor with Micro Velociraptor

Year of release: 2004

Description: this Raptor figure stands in a dramatic pose when boxed, showing all its primal predator prowess, its body straight upwards, its legs wide apart and its vicious claws ready for battle, while its head faces upwards and is turned to the right, jaws wide open (incapable of being closed). The tail is bent in a sort of 'S' shaped fashion. This sculpt has proto-feathers on the back of its head, following the design change of the Jurassic Park III Velociraptors as compared to the Raptors seen in the first two Jurassic Park movies. Accordingly, it has one nasal ridge on each side of its head. A dino damage wound is located on the upper base of the tail, revealing some of its tail bones and red muscle tissue. Inside the wound a button is found: when pressed this produces a snarling sound. On its back this creature has a small brown lever, activating the slashing claw action feature. This also produces an eerie shrieking noise.

Blue is the colour of choice on this Velociraptor. A light blue colouring covers most of the head, neck, flanks, arms, legs and side of the tail. Its underside (throat, belly and front half of the tail) is painted greyish beige, while hints of this colour are located on the fingers, palms of its hands and around its eyes. A reddish brown stripe runs from the snout over the head, neck and back all the way to the end of the tail, while the same colour is also found around the nostrils, on the upper legs and on the feet. The proto-feathers are painted red, while a pair of red stripes runs over the brown colour on the back, and a third red stripe runs from the dino damage wound to about half way of the tail. Red is also found on the brown spots on the upper legs just above the knees. The inside of the mouth is dark brown and/or pink (it's hard to discern), while the creature has a pink tongue and white teeth with black specks on it as if it has dirty, rotten teeth. Additionally, the Raptor sports red eyes with black pupils and black eye liner, and black claws on both hands and feet. It also carries a big black JP logo on its right upper leg.

The Micro Velociraptor stands in a stalking pose, its right arm and leg stretched outward and its head raised upwards with its mouth open, as if it means to jump on something. The tail is raised upwards and bent leftwards at the tip. Most of this figure is coloured black, except for its throat and belly, which are painted reddish brown, and the very top part of the neck, back and base of the tail which is bright red and ends in a fork motif right above the cat like yellow eyes (with black pupils). The Raptor is equipped with a series of grey stripes, spots and dots of various sizes all over the black parts of its body. Both the claws and inside of the mouth are unpainted. The creature has white teeth and a white JP III logo on its left upper leg.

Analysis: another Electronic Hasbro Raptor with an original paint job sees the light of day. Its colour scheme is rather inventive, since blue isn't used that much on JP dinosaur figures, and certainly not on Raptors. It looks pretty decent on him, though blue and brown don't mix as well as blue and red, or red and brown. The detailing on the figure is okay, especially the dirty teeth are a nice touch, though in all fairness they can also be attributed to poor paint quality. The same can be said for the vague greyish beige colouring around the eyes and hands, which are either suggestive details or the result of sloppy repaint work. You better decide for ourself what Hasbro designers were doing here. The beige on the throat is rather poorly done because of the way the head is attached to the neck, creating a rather artificial looking triangular blue shape appearing in the neck. The figure's slashing jaws and sounds work as well as they did before, but unfortunately this Raptor still carries a big nasty wound you can't cover up and simply remains a huge nuisance. And of course it's still poorly balanced and tips over easily when not posed upright enough.

The Micro Raptor looks quite familiar, doesn't it? It's the Lava Raptor from Camo-Xtreme being paired with a bigger sculpt instead of with a JP III miniature figure for a change. It's almost identical to its predecessor, though it seems the teeth are a little more detailed. It's a lazy addition to the electronic Raptor, and despite these figures both being Raptors there's little coherence or consistency between the two figures considering the hugely different paint jobs. The little Raptor might as well be prey for its larger counterpart.

Repaint: yes. Both figures are repaints of JP III dinosaur sculpts. The Electronic Raptor was originally the Alpha Velociraptor of the JP III line: it has been repainted before for Camo-Xtreme, and would be repainted again for JPD3 and JP 2009. The Micro Raptor is not a repaint but a reuse of the Camo-Xtreme Lava Velociraptor from the Lava two-pack. Its first incarnation came with the JP III Alan Grant figure, while other repaints of it are scattered all over the Camo-Xtreme, JPD2, JPD3 and JP 2009 toy lines, making it one of the most often repainted (and least popular) JP figures around.

Overall rating: 5/10. The Raptor looks okay, sports an interesting (though not necessarily appealing) colour scheme and is fairly detailed, but otherwise hardly different than before and still far from the best Raptor sculpt around. The Micro Raptor unfortunately offers nothing new at all, being a simple reuse. Its paint job still isn't very good. Like the other JPD2/3 electronic dinosaur figures, this two-pack was very common a few years ago, but has since become increasingly hard to find, despite not being a very popular set. If you really need one, patience is most likely required.