The Legion of Silly Dinosaurs! Generic dino unbagging

 

As I write this, it's the start of the first week of a new month, even though I already posted a review that was going to round out last month. The last post went badly enough that I very seriously debated taking the whole week off. What talked me into going through with an off-week lineup was a new acquisition from a store that previously figured in this feature as a source of my worst dinobot and a lot of the pics from my "in the wild" post. I just made another trip over the weekend, and found something halfway decent that was cheaper than a lot of other stuff. To get things rolling, here's a few pics in the bag.

If there's one thing I hate more than hearing my own voice, it's seeing my own hand in semi-closeup.

At first glance, this is a pretty routine, vaguely modern dino set. As seen here, it's named "Dino Outbreak", with some decent art that's definitely above the quality of the actual set. My favorite part, which might not be wholly visible, is a notice that reads, "Tested according to international standards." Of course, there are no such laws or regulations nor any body to enforce them, for generic dinos or anything else. What this is presumably meant to imply is that the toys were confirmed to meet the laws and regulations of the US and most other industrialized countries. The part that amuses me is, what would they be testing for? Lead paint? Narcotics? Velociraptor DNA?

Meanwhile, something I went back to cover is the size of the things. They're definitely bigger than average, a bit more so than they might look. Here's a group with Sidekick Carl for scale. As you can see, the tallest ones are almost exactly his height, which I previously confirmed to be 3.75 inches, where more typical examples top out at 3.

Now for the lineup of the individual dinos, I covered most of them two at a time. The best in the set is the pachycephalosaur, a little old-fashioned but with good detail and no obvious improbabilities. The next in line is the triceratops, a little wonky with a sort of senior-citizen vibe. As a plus, they actually lived in about the same time and place.

"What do you want to do tonight?"

"The same thing we do every night, try to take over the North American seaway!"

Next up are the stego and a spinosaur. The stego is nothing special, still somewhat interesting, if only for that decidedly indifferent expression. The spinosaur is similarly inoffensive, at least when compared to many of the ones I covered  in my dedicated post on the subject. It's at least clear that the people who did the sculpt were trying to match what we know about the dinosaur; consider for further comparison the Invicta Baryonyx, the first representation based on a decent specimen, which still had plenty of great and small flaws.

"I'll say this one last time, you are not affiliated with me."

Then there's the raptor. I guess they kind of got the head right, and the toe claw's pretty good, on the foot that has one. However, the spinosaur actually comes closer to the "right" shape. And I can handle no feathers (see the retro raptors post), but this looks like it was actually plucked. 

And that brings us to the T. rex. It's a beauty, the way an exploding grain elevator is beautiful. This is what happens when you start with a sound reconstruction and still do everything wrong.

"Keep your hands off my Social Security! I have enough trouble with my own..."

And a closeup; took three shots to get this. Tip, a dinosaur does not need to look like it's actually 65 million years old.

And to wind down, here's a few more pics from that store. I swear, this place is all patchisaur...

You don't see many generic therizinosaurs. This is why.

With that, I'm calling it quits. I will probably be back with another before the month is up, with material I had obtained and planned for a little before this. It's truly the surprises that make this feature worthwhile. That's all for now, more to come!