Reviews Coming in for the Jurassic Park Transformers Crossover Set and They are Not Good

We’ll ain’t this just pleasant news when my set just shipped from Amazon lol. $105 taken from the bank for a set with poor QC. I might just leave it in the package since it at least looks good there lol.

Looks like another X over that I can skip with not a single one being worth it so far. I like Rex and its colorings but still think I prefer the original BW mold over kingdoms.

JP93 looks a mess so it's nice that skids wasnt a reuse of it even if the Skids figure looks a bit sub par too. JP93 seems like it needs some pull out feet or something to give the legs more definition (Even G2 megatrons breeaze block legs had little footsies).

Dammit...I had buyer's remorse a couple of weeks ago and tried to cancel my order. Through an Amazon glitch, I was unable to, and came to terms with owning this over-priced set.

But now seeing this (JP93 was the figure I was looking to more out of the two) I'm gonna try and cancel again I think...

Glad to see "early reviews" are all of 2 reviews. Great article title to earn you a burn.

Anyways, I got my set, and I could not disagree more with the "early reviews" outside of Emerje saying Tyrannocon is a nice figure.

Let's start with her. first ever leader class female, and she is a good big gal. I have very much enjoyed this leader T-Rex mold, and All 3 have been pleasantly different enough to warrant. I love the movie accurate heavy paintwork they did to mimic the JP Rex. She is very well done in terms of paint. Robot mode is also fantastic, the red really helps her shine, very bright and nice. Robot mode head is really sharp and a nice new addition to the mold. She is overall a very nice experience.

JP93 is also quite interesting. For one thing, that alt mode is clearly the star of the show. The amount of paint work and sculpting to make it accurate to the JP movies is great. This thing looks better than the actual JP Explorer toy that is out right now too. Transformation is pretty straightforward, but it has some nice touches, like the center of the hood piece. In a way, the transformation reminds me of a cross between PotP Jazz and SS86 Jazz. Robot mode is also pretty neat. He suffers from lack of any real prominent toes, but he really is not that bad. Love the door wings, one of my favorite things to have on a TF, and again the paint work shines. Lack of a waist and wrist swivel isn't that big a deal, TF fans have been overly spoiled lately with those from WFC honestly.

Overall, it is a very nice set. I can feel that part of the major expense was the amount of paint work and detailing to these 2 figures, I definitely see that. I still think it is too expensive for what it is, but I can see where the costs were going and I enjoy the set as a whole. It is a good set, and it will look great on my Jurassic Park shelf with Blue, the JPIII raptor, my other dinos, and my 4 human figures.

I am really happy with mine. Opened it up, transformed them totally happy. I have no interest in the Jurassic Park aspect. I was going to pass when I heard about it, then I saw Tyrannocon. Amazing figure! Looks just as good in person! Feels totally different from the previous two molds.

Remember it is all about supply and demand. Remember all of the Botcon figures, those prices were always, what... like, twice, or 5x as much as retail, right? But they were simply a smaller supply.

The plastic is great on Tyrannocon. It does feel weak on JP, but just don't transform him much.

More expensive than a retail... yes.
Worth it for an exclusive... if you like the figures, then yes.

I feel I should add that my JP93 has gotten looser with a few more transformations. I seriously doubt over time it'll be able to stand on its own. Vehicle mode is nice and D-Max was right on when they said it looks better than the larger Explorers out there from Mattel.

Some pics to support my complaints about JP93.

First the arms. That ball joint is super loose and barely supports poses. It's 2021, it should be a proper double elbow joint. The ratchet in the shoulders is completely fake. Why sculpt a ratchet and not use it, it's just an extra little tab in the arm to make it work!


Then the backpack. There's no good reason for it sticking so far off the back as far as it does. The clear plastic tab is fine (not ideal though) since it's also used to tab in alt mode. But the green beam sticking out his back is excessive, it's only used for for this and nothing else, it should be shorter to bring in the car roof more and straighten it up (it's at an angle, again for no reason).


Next the torso gap. Not much to say, at eye level you can see clear through him. The lack of waist pivot is just them being cheap and inexcusable.


Now the foot issues. Issue one, small clear plastic ankle tilt, very easy to break.


Then you have to take a portion of the top of the alt mode and fold it underneath his foot, again it's clear plastic on clear plastic and ridiculously stiff. It's very scary to transform.


Finally to get that part to stay under his foot you have literally pry it sideways unnaturally to get it underneath a tiny clear plastic tab.


For what I can best estimate as a $40 figure I don't feel it even lives up to WFC or SS Deluxes in any way. I could be more forgiving if it came with more accessories other than a lame shotgun, maybe some restraints for Rex, but it doesn't.

Emerje

So what I'm gathering from the two reviews in the article and the comments is that these are probably just unfortunate individual issues, but still understandable given JP93's construction.
Sounds like the usual affair of Transformers reviews making it seem like every copy is doomed - but, let's hope it REALLY is just an unfortunate happenstance.

Glad to hear the issues are only with JP93 (still think that name is stupid). I may never remove him from the package, and just stick with Tyrannocon Rex. I was mostly getting the set for her anyway.

Just opened mine and I don't see much point in transforming his feet at all. Aside from the ankle tilt, it kind of seems like extra steps thrown in to make him seem more advanced than he is.

Otherwise he reminds me of that old Classics Galvatron figure. It feels like he was supposed to be Voyager scale and got down-sized. Also, if he'd been voyager he would have scaled better with Regina and that price tag would have made a lot more sense.

Edit: Should also add that mine lacks the extreme Torso gap pictured above. Viewed straight on there's little to no gap.

I don't have mine yet, but I was suspecting that maybe the torso gap was a mistransformation. There is no way a glaring design flaw like that should have made it through QC inspection, or even before the design was implemented. At the very least the prototype should have given it away.

The other issues seem to be more annoying than an actual problem, even though I'm not a fan of big backpacks.

In case any of this helps...

Here's some more standardized pics. One is taken with my phone vertical and the other horizontal, but both are taken with the phone resting on the shelf, so maybe that gives a better notion of the angles involved.

Phone vertical:



Phone horizontal:

I'm not mistransforming him. Your pictures aren't straight on, if they were you wouldn't be able to see the top of the hood. You're basically saying the gap doesn't exist if you look down at it.

Emerje

The set is worth it for the T-Rex alone. A leader cost 70/72$can. X-Panse, a leader X-over cost 90/94$can. That's ludicrous but understandable. So that mean JP-93 cost a whopping 60$can like Gigawatt, based on the 155$can price of the set. If I had paid this for JP-93, I'd be more pissed than I was with Gigawatt.

Emerje wrote:I'm not mistransforming him. Your pictures aren't straight on, if they were you wouldn't be able to see the top of the hood. You're basically saying the gap doesn't exist if you look down at it.

Emerje

I can guarantee you the pictures are straight on. The hood slants forward when the bot is properly transformed.

Edit: The shelf is 11.25" deep, and I took this picture with a Samsung smart phone resting on the shelf in front of the figure.



This places the camera lens at 5.5 inches, which is roughly eye level with JP93.

I haven't retrieved a level from the basement yet, but in order to get the sort of gap visible in your pictures, I literally have to bend my knees so that I can look up from the edge of the shelf.

I just realized the relative center of the photo matters, so here's an uncropped picture. Same conditions. (Edit: Though I cannot guarantee the camera is level, so this pic isn't super helpful.)



Next I'll try getting a pic that shows the gap while keeping the phone on the shelf.

Edit: I physically cannot angle the phone back far enough without putting the phone below the level of the shelf.

-Kanrabat- wrote:The set is worth it for the T-Rex alone. A leader cost 70/72$can. X-Panse, a leader X-over cost 90/94$can. That's ludicrous but understandable. So that mean JP-93 cost a whopping 60$can like Gigawatt, based on the 155$can price of the set. If I had paid this for JP-93, I'd be more pissed than I was with Gigawatt.

Going by US dollars, a Leader (at the time of this release) as still 49.99 so that's 50 for the T-Rex and 65 for the deluxe. Evenn if I'm wrong about the upcharge timing, it's 55 US. The set was 115. The only way to explain the upcharged price is the licensing fees that come with doing these crossovers.

Gigawatt is great - I don't have any of the other ones, but this one has photographic evidence of it's poor construction. I'm not upset I returned mine, as I was more or less banking on the cross licensing upcharge selling an extra could do for my future purchases. I generally think ALL these crossovers are grossly overpriced, but I paid for Gigawatt because I legit liked the figure. So far, I can't say that about any of the other ones. Maybe the dinosaur, but that's just a Megatron with a different head. Same with Draculon - which I would have bought if it wasn't the price that it is. Outrageous.

For the heck of it, here's a pic with the phone resting on the shelf upside down.

The only way I can see that the gap is really visible "at eye level" is if you define "eye-level" as getting down so that you can stare directly at someone's chest, and not their face.

Edit: Close up pic in profile. The chest slants forward, so you have to look up at the figure to not see the hood.

Neat idea to make an Autobot version of Muldoon. The robotic 'hat' was an interesting touch. But I'm passing on this one, just because I was never a fan of the tyrannosaur figure. Whether it's Megatron, T-Wrecks, or this one, the engineering just doesn't set right with me.

I think it's all the seams and panels all over the place. To my mind, a dinosaur should have a smooth, seamless skin. It helps to convey smoothness and elegance, grace of form. The BW dinos lack that. They're covered with panels which, while necessary for transformation engineering, just interrupt the flow and surface of the beast. Plus some of the panels are jutting out like dinner plates that were strapped onto the figure afterwards. It just doesn't look good to my eye.

With cars, planes, spaceships and other vehicles I can suspend my disbelief, because they're machines. And with the Dinobots, it's forgiveable because they're cybertron versions OF dinosaurs, not actual dinosaurs. You can expect to see some gaps and seams on a machine or vehicle. The only beast exceptions are the insect beasts like Waspinator or Scorponok. They have segmented bodies and chitinous exoskeletons, which make the transformation seams a little easier to swallow. But not with what are supposed to be real beasts like tigers, gorillas - or dinosaurs. The seams stand out on those like an unfinished Rubik's Cube and I just can't ignore that. My loss, probably. They did their best, but even current toy design technology can't make a seamless beast mode.

JP93 is by all means a great, fun figure. People are being over critical about him lacking a waist swivel and having ball jointed elbows. It really, really feels like WFC spoiled everyone's expectations of how a figure should FEEL in order to be good. In my books what makes a figure good is feel and playability. JP93 checks both of those boxes for me. He's plenty fun to mess with, transform, and ultimately play with as he's a toy. Toys are meant to be fun.

Two reviews saying he's terrible is pitiful, do better.

I don't know, there's also two customer ratings for the set on Amazon and they're both 5 stars. I look at the pics and I don't mind what I see - I think it's a neat-looking set! If I could afford it I'd add it to my collection.

And loose joints shouldn't be a stranger to any of us if we like posing our figures. Just put some floor polish on the joints to tighten them up! Not hard or expensive to do, and it's improved tons of official figures for me.

I really feel like this news item was kinda click-baity. I was really hoping to see more disappointment than what was presented. That said, that's my feeling for only maybe one in two hundred articles on this site.

But if we're going to talk about how disappointing this set is, I'll throw in my 2¢: The T-Rex isn't a living miniature animal and I can't drive a cool JP-decorated Ford Explorer that transforms into a giant humanoid alien friend

BATTLEMASTER IIC wrote:I don't know, there's also two customer ratings for the set on Amazon and they're both 5 stars.

I wouldn't trust the 5-star ratings as they're given out WAY too easily by satisfied customers (as well as 1-star for disappointed for whatever reason). Plus, the proof of the actual quality is in the longer, less-than-5-star reviews.

And loose joints shouldn't be a stranger to any of us if we like posing our figures. Just put some floor polish on the joints to tighten them up! Not hard or expensive to do, and it's improved tons of official figures for me.

Does it also work on pinned joints, and do you have to knock the pins out?

I really feel like this news item was kinda click-baity. I was really hoping to see more disappointment than what was presented. That said, that's my feeling for only maybe one in two hundred articles on this site.

Still, it showed what to possibly expect in terms of the low bar of quality. If another copy turned out better than the first few reviewed, great!

After getting it in hand the set is undeniably overpriced as all get out given the size of JP93, but my complaints stop there. Solid recolor of Beast Megatron with a really cool new headsculpt and a fun new tooling with a lot of charm. JP93's head even feels a little Corhada-like, but that's probably just the cowboy hat's fault.

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:

BATTLEMASTER IIC wrote:Does it also work on pinned joints, and do you have to knock the pins out?

It's worked for me, though said pinned joints were always rubbing against another static surface on the figure. If it's a swinging joint on a metal pin that's spaced out from other plastic, floor polish probably isn't going to work well.

BATTLEMASTER IIC wrote:I really feel like this news item was kinda click-baity. I was really hoping to see more disappointment than what was presented. That said, that's my feeling for only maybe one in two hundred articles on this site.

It wasn't my intent to make it clickbaity (at least not moreso than other articles). I do strive for the article and titles I write to not be completely dry, so I do tend to write a bit more sometimes when I can to distinguish content. And in this case, I was given 2 reviews (I didn't cherry pick) and both said similar points. So I wanted to let the community know that all I was given were reviews stating these toys were disappointing. It was the reality of my situation and I was sharing that, which is what news is all about. Once everyone has it in hand and has their own opinions, it could be that the consensus that can be entirely different from the early reviews and that consensus will be reflected in later articles, like end of year best of lists or a top 5 best crossover list.

Although from reading elsewhere, the two reviews are not isolated instances. This article sparked discussions on Facebook and many people have concurred with the thoughts. Over at TFW there are pages filled with people complaining on the eyes painted wrong on the T-Rex, among other issues. And since I felt similarly disappointed by many of the previous crossover figures, this felt in line.

And no one is saying this set is worth it for the price, regardless of quality.

None of this should rain on anyone's parade though. If you like the set then awesome, I'd much rather someone is happy with this set than disappointed.

This person here is having fun with it:

Thank you for that perspective. I especially like that picture of the leader class T-Rex figures having a great time These crossover sets are pretty neat, but I agree that from what I've read about the releases so far that they aren't worth the asking price for the most part - at least to me.

I guess over the past year or two my desire to collect Transformers has soured between availability of the different figures and characters and the price increases. I'll be happy now if I can get the year's Titan-class figure or the latest combiner set, but unfortunately that leaves out most of the awesome-looking Beast Wars figures - the kind of engineering I wish I grew up with

Just opened my set and yeah... JP93 is a floppy mess. He really does feel like a knockoff. As mentioned above, he has no waste articulation. Normally, that's due to a toy's transformation, but there's no reason for it here (other than saving HasTak money). All of the crossover figures have been great so far, so this guy is very disappointing. If he's just supposed to be a cheap add-on, that's fine, but then the set should not cost $100. There's just no justifying that price to me.

I wonder how much people will sell their JP93 for? It'd be kind of cool to build a Ranger team.

Dr. Caelus wrote:I wonder how much people will sell their JP93 for? It'd be kind of cool to build a Ranger team.

Jurassic Sentai Parkranger?

Just got mine in today and I'll be adding to the conversation.

As far as the chest goes, just push it down onto the strut thing more. But not too much otherwise you'll be transforming it wrong again. You'll know when you go too far because the flap in front of the head will begin to rise up. In order for me to get the torso on mine to look as gappy as that picture then I have to not tab the chest together at all and keep the back kibble untabbed. The hood chest should angle downward similar to T30 Trailbreaker/Hoist/Lift Ticket. I have to tilt my figure like 9 degrees backwards to begin to see up and into his chest once it's clicked into place properly. This reminds me of T30 Skids and RiD Steeljaw's legs. Everyone mistransformed them and then blamed the figures instead of learning how to transform the legs properly.

The inside of the slot for the back kibble tab is bloated. I noticed it as soon as I looked inside of it. I just stuck a file inside to file down the bloated plastic. Now the back kibble slots all of the way in closing that gap. I went and filed down more as it's still a tab made of translucent plastic being pushed into that slot and I don't want it to break. Bloated plastic is nothing new for Transformers fans even if it doesn't happen often. It's not an excuse as it should've been picked up on earlier in the design and prototype process as people have already said. It's just my take on what happened to that particular tab and slot.

As far as the loose joints go, Thrilling 30 Rhinox's joints were FAR worse. At least Autobot JP-93 can stand and even hold poses without tightening up the joints unlike Rhinox. Several Prime Wars Trilogy figures are worse too. This is FAR from the worst offender of loose joints. WFCT Ultra Magnus (all versions) and GUOP have far worse hip joints and those are ratcheted. Yeah he's looser than I'd like and I used Kiki on his hip and elbow ball joints but I didn't really need to. I didn't put any on his shoulder joints though. Again, they're loose but not too loose.

As far as how he feels, it's not that bad...or good for that matter. Nowhere near knockoff quality as people are making it out to be though. Apeface and Maverick both feel worse. So does Prime Megatron, Air Vehicon and Breakdown (speaking of loose joints on all of them). Yeah they're older figures but their anniversary figures are still available. I think the problem is that he's made more from translucent and unpaintable plastic than standard plastic. Or rather, the parts that are made of standard plastic aren't the parts that you're really coming into direct contact with when you hold and pose it. So that can be offputting to some as it is indeed offputting. Just not to the knockoff territory.

There really should've been a waist joint. Even if it was something like several of the Combiner Wars era deluxe figures. It already went back to using mostly ball and socket joints anyway so why not use that design for a waist joint as well. This was definitely a letdown as there's no real structural reason why it's not there.

There's also way too much translucent plastic. I rounded over the hinges on the feet so that when you swing them down and around to lock them in, they're not being forced at the hinge to put them under to lock them in. If that makes any sense. The little tabs holding the feet flaps in place are indeed worrisome. I'm not too worried about the ankle pivots though. Sure the translucent plastic looks good and all but I'd rather not have it if it could lead to breakage.

If you want to talk about real QC problems though, mine has two left hip sockets. It was noticeable right out of the box but took me a while to figure out what it was. The passenger side bumper doesn't line up properly. When I transformed him into robot mode and was checking for looseness in the joints, I noticed that when I brought the legs forward and backward they were acting differently. It took a while to notice actually as it was only after I was messing with the figure for a while that I really noticed what was going on. Due to the hips being ever so slightly out of alignment in robot mode, one leg sits out a little more forward than the other. Most importantly though, it causes the tabs in the legs to not line up properly in vehicle mode. This causes the hip to skew slightly and since there's no waist swivel, the knee shifts out of place to compensate instead. That's why the bumper isn't aligned properly. However since most of the leg is made of translucent plastic, I'm worried that the extra pressure might cause something to break at some point.

SpaceEagle wrote:So what I'm gathering from the two reviews in the article and the comments is that these are probably just unfortunate individual issues, but still understandable given JP93's construction.
Sounds like the usual affair of Transformers reviews making it seem like every copy is doomed - but, let's hope it REALLY is just an unfortunate happenstance.

I follow an Amazon thread on TFW and most if not all of the people who have gotten their sets have had issues with JP93.

Some more images

Did no one know this was available at Target for half the price and even cheaper with coupons/discounts?

https://goto.target.com/c/1137247/81938/2092?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com%2Fp%2Fjurassic-world%20...%20exclusive%2F%3C%2Fa%3E

...and mine is delayed until December 7th.

@DMax; Awesome flicks

Mine has been pushed back to the end of the week. I'm still 50/50 on whether to just cancel it or get it in and then flip it for some amount of profit.

King Kuuga wrote:Mine has been pushed back to the end of the week. I'm still 50/50 on whether to just cancel it or get it in and then flip it for some amount of profit.

You think that's still possible to do?

william-james88 wrote:

King Kuuga wrote:Mine has been pushed back to the end of the week. I'm still 50/50 on whether to just cancel it or get it in and then flip it for some amount of profit.

You think that's still possible to do?

Maybe in 10 years if the thing doesn't pop up all over like the other X-Over Transformers.

william-james88 wrote:

King Kuuga wrote:Mine has been pushed back to the end of the week. I'm still 50/50 on whether to just cancel it or get it in and then flip it for some amount of profit.

You think that's still possible to do?

Looking at recently sold listings on ebay it's going for about $160, so that's a $50 markup. But most of those have free shipping, so that's like $20 down the drain.

Cancel it is!

King Kuuga wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

King Kuuga wrote:Mine has been pushed back to the end of the week. I'm still 50/50 on whether to just cancel it or get it in and then flip it for some amount of profit.

You think that's still possible to do?

Looking at recently sold listings on ebay it's going for about $160, so that's a $50 markup. But most of those have free shipping, so that's like $20 down the drain.

Cancel it is!

Don't forget that eBay take a MASSIVE cut from sales. This cut is calculated on the combined price of BOTH the item AND the shipping because too many smart-asses overcharged shipping in hope to avoid the eBay fees.

So, even with that "markup", you would LOSE money because you also paid taxes when buying the set. So that mean base cost + taxes + shipping + eBay and Paypal fees. To make any profits, you'd have to sell the thing at almost double the price. A viable option only if the thing get truly sold out AND get rare.

That's too high a gamble. By cancelling the order, you are actually making money and save yourself a lot of trouble.

Yeah, I'm a little disappointed with the set.

I have the two other versions of the mold so I knew what I was getting into with Tyrannocon Rex. JP93 isn't Tracks bad but there are cost cutting measures that I just don't understand. Like people said, the arms, the waist, the lack of accessories. Given the cool stuff the other crossovers had, I don't know why they didn't toss more stuff in the box.

And, yeah I don't like those feet. I'm just leaving the panels attached to the front of the boot. He stands fine that way. You just lose the ankle tilts.

My main problem isn't that the set is horrible, just so much overpriced for what you get. If it was the proper cost of a leader and deluxe, I'd be more forgiving, but I do think I should've skipped this one.

A thought, could the extra cost be something to do with the extra paint apps and the double whammy of licencing?

ZeroWolf wrote:A thought, could the extra cost be something to do with the extra paint apps and the double whammy of licencing?

i'm sure that's what it is. But that doesn't make it a great price for what you get.

sol magnus wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:A thought, could the extra cost be something to do with the extra paint apps and the double whammy of licencing?

i'm sure that's what it is. But that doesn't make it a great price for what you get.

Oh definitely, I mean you don't have to like it, just trying to understand why they did it.

I got mine the other day and honestly I'm just displaying it in the box. I wasn't really impressed with the robot mode of the jeep anyway and the lack on the paint apps on the robot mode of the trex. However in their alt modes, both look great. I'll just leave them in the box in the nice display that it makes.

Since the Explorer is apparently supposed to be Muldoon and his shotgun, has anyone tried to replicate the "Clever Girl" scene with a few Kingdom Dinobots?

Overcracker wrote:Since the Explorer is apparently supposed to be Muldoon and his shotgun, has anyone tried to replicate the "Clever Girl" scene with a few Kingdom Dinobots?

They did it with T-Rexes. LOL

sol magnus wrote:

Overcracker wrote:Since the Explorer is apparently supposed to be Muldoon and his shotgun, has anyone tried to replicate the "Clever Girl" scene with a few Kingdom Dinobots?

They did it with T-Rexes. LOL

That was more than aftermath. Just the raptor head poking out of the leaves is more what I was thinking.