First Impressions
This set at full retail of $29.99 seems a little spendy considering the part count but Target had a deal on it for $23.99 and I had a gift card to use. I figured it would be good to pick up for the T. Rex Fossil for maybe a natural history display or something and it seemed to have a high percentage of good colors for an AFOL who does nature and buildings, lots of shades of browns from the box.
Parts
There are a lot of parts in good colors in this set for an AFOL. Sandscapes! Nature! Wood! Ok... I'm not exclamation point excited but still, lots of good Lego bricks.
Build
The set was easy. No missteps and if I wasn't taking way too many pictures it would have been done in almost no time. Only mod I made from the instructions was that if Owen Grady was feeding the baby he wouldn't mess up Darius' display cart like on the box but I suppose that is less fun for the target age group. The box shows Darius feeding her so it was Owen's turn, and well, Darius looks like an accountant on casual Friday not an out of dinosaur park getting into situations but perhaps I'm wrong. Either way, as Lord Business says "Stop touching my stuff!"so baby gets fed by hand.
Random Rant
I have not seen Jurassic World at this point but after building this set I probably will. I found Jurassic Park amazing, the Lost World was forgettable, and Jurassic Park 3 was just frustrating to watch so I avoided the series after that. One thing that annoys me to no end in films is plot points in movies that make no sense and lack of any real development characters in a logical way. As the writers/directors, you MAKE the world you put the characters in so it makes no sense to me why one wouldn't, say, have the kid lock himself in a cafeteria kitchen for the 8 weeks he was stuck there, find him sweating in his own filth, shaking from the metal breakdown of seeing his stepdad dying in front of him and being chased by monsters when he tried to do anything outside the immediate area. He didn't need to run amok in dinosaur land and somehow live against all odds to be found alive, and it cheapens the threat from the dinosaurs. Besides, it ain't just dinosaurs that will kill you. Get cut in the tropics and your foot falls off from infection. Get bitten by a bug and get so sick you can't retain fluids. Eat the wrong thing and you're worm food.
I think JP3 would have made a great horror movie where Sam Neill makes it out alive perhaps without an arm or leg or something. Either way I'm not sure if this is a key moment in the film or not, but the obvious smart way to run a dinosaur island amusement park and petting zoo would be to make a bunch of herbivores, run that for like 20 years so that was if baby or mama triceratops runs around causing problems they are not like, eating you. Mama triceratops was likely raised by hand and somewhat tame, then you can at least have some kind of idea how to handle the next generation of giant dinosaurs. But anyway...
Minifigures
Neither minifigs is branded specifically to Jurassic Park which is great for MOCs; however the torso detail doesn't lead to changing their heads and hands out with the classic yellow minifigs so keep that in mind. I love the yellow hoodie on Darius and the utility vest on Owen's torsos. Baby triceratops is cute and she will make an appearance in a MOC as an Easter egg.
Set Elements
The T-Rex fossil is impressive. The cart is neat with the egg as an additional display in a gallery setting but the leaf doesn't make a lot of sense to me on there. Possible movie reference?
Frustrations
The T-Rex doesn't have enough ribs and I'm not sure where exactly I would get more other than happen across some on BrickLink if I remember and a seller I am buying something else from happens to have them. The fossil display has a bunch of colors in it. As the whole thing is a fossil it should be similar or the same shade but to be fair it came together a lot better that I thought is was going during the build with the 'aged' look vs the bright white parts. I am a little miffed about the very obvious printing of the part number on the skull of the T-Rex when the mouth is open. For a set of this cost/parts ratio I would have liked to see some printing on Darius' pants, pockets or something. I was frustrated that Lego included a white hinged plate on an earth tone display, this becomes obvious when the display is looked at in many directions and a black hinged tile would have been much better, same with the white and black elements on the hips. Perhaps this was to make the instructions more clear for the intended age group.
Final Thoughts & Recommendations
My wife and I love the Lego animals and baby triceratops makes us smile. I give it a Mild Buy from an AFOL perspective at the sale price, but this is a must if you are picking up a present for someone who loves Lego and dinosaurs or Jurassic World, they will love this one for sure.
Fantastic review & I appreciate all of the pictures!