POP! Movies: Tyrannosaurus Rex (Jurassic Park)

Well, articles and reviews haven’t been coming nearly as fast as I might have liked this month. There’s a few reasons for that. One is Lost Tunnels, which is in the process of being edited. Another is that I’ve picked up some freelance work (if you would ALSO like to hire me, flick me a message at lupinebookclub@gmail.com).

But the main reason is that I was actually overseas for a couple of weeks. My wife, myself and some other family members headed to New Zealand on a cruise, to celebrate my mother’s birthday. It was great fun, but it did mean that I ran a bit behind on my usual stream of articles. My apologies, dear readers. 

Nonetheless, things are settling back into a more normal routine now. So on to today’s review!

Tyrannosaurus Rex is my favourite dinosaur, hands down. Sure, I love plenty of other dinosaurs too, but gun to my head, T-Rex will always trump all other contenders. So I was pretty excited when I discovered that there would be a T-Rex as part of Funko’s Jurassic Park line. Awesome! It inspired some amazing toys back when the original movie was released – there’s no way it could be anything but awesome. And surely it would be a 6” POP, right?

Sadly, the final product is not quite what it could be.

The first issue is the size of this guy. He’s much too small! Funko seems to have slowed right down on the 6” POPs in general, and I suspect this guy is just a victim of circumstance. I can understand that, given that they seem to shelfwarm a lot harder than most other figures, but it’s still disappointing. How many other T-Rexes are we likely to get in this format? Surely this was a shoe-in for success.

Second is the fact that he can’t stand on his own – his gigantic head is solid, which makes the whole thing far too bulky. A stand is provided but it only plugs into one foot...the softer plastic of the leg has already warped and caused him to fall over once on a hot day, so I am not super-optimistic about long-term display prospects.

The pricing bugs me too. It’s the same price as regular POPs – $19AUD – but it feels like more of a rip-off. Now I didn’t mention this in my Dilophosaurus review; I’m prepared to pay a premium for a Dilophosaurus because there aren’t a lot of Dilophosaurus toys around, and you need to take what you can get. But for a T-Rex…if you’re going to charge $19AUD, it had better be something pretty amazing. Your average dollar store will offer a far better T-Rex toy, at a mere fraction of the cost. This really lacks the necessary x-factor and feels like it’s coasting on the back of the license.   

Finally, a word about the paint. The teeth are incredibly sloppy, and there’s a big mark across the tongue – neither of which was visible while in the box. This time it’s annoyed me enough that I am actually going to take steps to fix it. I know I say this a lot in my POP reviews, but I think this one is bad enough that it’s actually warranted.

While this POP isn’t a total write-off, I don’t think I would have bought Rexy here if I had my time again. But in the absence of a time machine, I’ll have to live with my decision; hopefully he eventually grows on me. Or at least stays standing up. 

Transformers: Titans Return -- Crashbash

In the 4.5 billionish years this planet has existed, dinosaurs have been pretty much the coolest creatures to ever walk God's green earth. Sure, humans weren't around for their heyday -- but ever since that first Megalosaurus bones were discovered back in 1824, they've had a stranglehold on popular culture, showing up in all sorts of bizarro places -- not least of which was Transformers.

Titans Return is pretty much the reintroduction of the Headmasters concept to the Transformers franchise, last seen in the late 1980s. Basically, the theme introduces the concept of Titan Masters – small Transformers who can combine with larger ones to supplement their power by replacing their heads. While it’s an excellent idea for establishing a play pattern, it’s slightly disturbing in storyline terms – two robots bonded together for the indefinite future, the larger stuck in a useless state when the head decides to pop off and move around on its own. I’m sure that’s not quite how it works, but it’s the version of events that sticks in my mind.    

However, as these transforming heads are intentionally designed to be interchangeable with one another, Hasbro has taken the novel step of selling some heads separately, using it to reintroduce some characters who presumably might not have gotten a release in another form. But though a head that transforms into a teensy robot is pretty cool, it's a little thin for a regular release...so each of these figures also comes packed with some kind of vehicle that can also be transformed into a weapon -- which can then be used either by the miniature pilot or by a larger figure. Pretty cool, huh? 

Considering that Hasbro tends to overprice TFs a little, I expected these heads to sell for $15-20 each, but I found this one at Hobbyco for a much more reasonably priced $11.95. This means they'll probably be $9-10 at Big W/Target/Kmart. The first wave offers some good options, but I was naturally enough drawn to Crashbash -- a purple Decepticon t-rex? Had I died and gone to heaven??? After recovering from this  near-death experience, I seized it tightly and knew that I had to buy it. It would go with my bizarro collection of other Decepticons, which currently numbers at somewhere between "waaaaaay more Transformers than I had as a kid" and "why didn't I buy a Thundercracker when I had the chance, aftermarket prices are redonk now".

Now, Crashbash is a character that was released back in the 1980s, though he was then known as "Squeezeplay" and was a kind of crab-person thing. Pretty cool, but the only real resemblance this modern version has to his 1980s incarnation is in the head mode. The T-rex look is a new one. 

And it's awesome!!! Crab people are cool and all, as South Park taught us years ago -- but T-Rex alt mode conquers virtually all other contenders. It's made by combining the Titan Master and the weapon mode together, Ingeniously, the legs become the lower half of the jaw, while the Titan Master's arms become the T-Rex's arms. You can also cheat a gun mode for bigger figures by fiddling with the legs and tail while using the "cannon" as a gun handle, but I haven't included a pic here.  

The Dragon (weapon) mode, by contrast, is neither here nor there -- it looks kind of like some kind of dino-chicken hybrid, and I don't really plan to make much use of it. It's nice to give the Titan Master something to stand on to. 

And head mode? Well, with the purple colour he might look nice on Galvatron. But I think he's going to stay in T-Rex or Titan Master mode most of the time. Though it is cool that the Titan Master's own head is a miniature facsimile of the larger head.

Now, I do have some minor criticisms. First, the promotional render makes this toy look as though it's kind of lavender in colour, but the real toy is much darker, more of a magenta colour. This isn't a problem -- I prefer magenta -- but the increasing reliance on renders in Hasbro's promotional material is giving a less and less accurate impression of what the final toy is actually going to look like. Going back to hardcopies really would be a better option, even if their paint jobs tended to be a little... questionable.  

Secondly, be warned -- the Titan Masters are a bit fragile, so have a spare or two handy if your kid plays rough. I'm quite gentle, and I've already had a couple of white pressure marks appear on him. 

Overall? If this toy had existed when I was a little kid, I have little doubt that it would have been one of my favourites. There's something indisputably awesome about a gigantic chunky figure like Devastator, but I have a lot of love for figures that are near capsule-toy size too. Ideally, I'd build an army of these guys...but I'll probably limit myself to just to or three. I vote that these separately-sold Titan Masters are a big success!  

I bought some Matchbox cars!

I wouldn’t describe myself as a spoiled kid, but I did have a lot of toys as a child. It spanned a wide spectrum of action figures, plush toys, Lego and various other novelty items. But some of my earliest toy memories are connected to cars. In a way, cars are the ideal toy for little kids. They’re small, so you can carry quite a few around. They’re very cheap, generally around $2 or $3, so they’re easy to get on your average trip to the supermarket. They’re readily available and there’s almost infinite variation, so kids need never get bored. And pretty much any surface is good terrain for a toy car to drive on. Reality need not apply. 

I had a fairly large assortment of them as a child, as well as a parking garage. I remember a friend of mine owning a large-scale one that – if memory does not betray me – featured a working elevator for cars, hand powered a pulley and crank system of some kind. It was awesome. If you’re reading this now Paul, thank you for the hours of fun we had with cars, in between playing rugby league and Police Rescue in your backyard. (Balmain Tigers and Brian forever!)

Rivalry!

It’s difficult to discuss toy cars without highlighting the two major brands that dominated the toy car market during my childhood – Matchbox and Hot Wheels. These two brands still own the market, with any other brands looking pretty average by comparison.

Of the two brands, Matchbox was the more realistic. By and large, they produced toys based on real vehicles, or at least similar enough that they didn’t stretch your five-year old credibility too far. There was something British and dignified about them. In fact, I’m fairly certain I used to own what I still think of as the ultimate Matchbox car – a black British taxi.*

To contrast – and though I dislike using this expression – Hot Wheels was a lot more American: cooler and edgier, with over-the-top adverts. Their toys tended to be highly outlandish, often bearing little resemblance to real-life cars, or at least real-world paint schemes. Of course, I wouldn’t want anyone thinking that Hot Wheels produced bad cars. Certainly some were ridiculous and unacceptable to look at, but their durability as playthings was never in question.

This trend continues today, and I think it’s actually become even more pronounced as the years have gone on. One of the last Hot Wheels cars I bought as a child (probably around age 12) was some kind of green and purple plane/tank hybrid. Pretty awesome to look at, bright 90s colour scheme and all, but stretching the boundaries of what constitutes a toy car, I tend to think. Their associated playsets followed a similar pattern. Cool as it was to be able to race your cars around a track featuring a T-Rex…well, I think that says it all, really.  

Yet despite Hot Wheels having the edge in marketing, a quick survey of a handful of friends reveals an overwhelming consensus that Matchbox was the better of the two brands**, though most (myself included) owned their fair share of both. The argument has become redundant now, too – Matchbox is now owned by Mattel, the creators of Hot Wheels.  

The Ugly Truth

Full disclosure: in spite of this great enjoyment of toy cars, I have never acquired a great love of real cars. As a teen, I found car chases in movies unbearably tedious. I only acquired my learner’s license at age 23, and didn’t get my P-plates until I was 27. So if you asked me what my ideal car was now, I would say it was the 1989 Batmobile, without any trace of silliness. 

The Vaguely Relevant Finale

I keep an eye on the toy cars in the stores when I’m scoping out Lego and TMNT, but it’s very rare I buy any,

unless it’s for a gift. These days I can take or leave toy cars, due to my lack of interest in the real thing.

But the other night I was in Woolworths and I came across these two beauties pictured above – the Matchbox Desert Thunder V16 and the MBX Two-Story Bus. The photos do most of the talking, of course – everyone loves a double-decker bus, whether real or toy – and it does tie into the essential Britishness of Matchbox.

The Desert Thunder V16 is a little more outlandish, given its paint scheme. The words “T-Rex 

Transporter” dot the side, as does a silhouette of a roaring T-Rex. Ordinarily, we’d already be well into Hot Wheels territory with something like this, but look at it more closely. Aside from the out-of-scale accessories sculpted onto the roof, this is kind of convincing as a dinosaur transporter. Well, maybe for baby or juvenile dinosaurs, but dinosaurs nonetheless. That’s good enough for me.     

I am a die-hard opener when it comes to toys – but these two beauties are staying sealed for display. Guests to the house will admire their majesty, just as I do.      

*Recent toy archaeology at my parent's place indicates that I did! But it doesn’t seem to actually be a Matchbox car – rather, some no-name brand.

**Number of people surveyed: 2 or 3, including myself.