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The LEGO Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus Rex set, available exclusively at the LEGO Store, is a visually stunning, ambitious build. You’re first taken aback by its size; this is a 1:12 scale model of a real T-Rex.
LEGO Jurassic World Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus rex
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Then you look closer and notice the detail: how the ribs are built at different lengths to create a rib “cage,” how the dark-colored bricks create the illusion of shadow and throw the light-colored “bone” bricks into sharp relief. It’s easier to put together than it looks, which makes its apparent intricacy that much more impressive.
I loved dinosaurs as a child, and whenever I visited the American Museum of Natural History, the T-Rex’s skeleton stood out for how tall it was. Years later, I read Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder,” a sci-fi short story about time travel. It included the following passage, which captured the thrill and awe of seeing something so unnaturally large:
“It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker’s claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior.”
Like many people my age or older, I was led to believe that the T-Rex stood like this:
Years later, however, the scientific community concluded that the T-Rex, contrary to popular imagination and depiction, did not walk upright with its tail dragging on the ground. The T-Rex actually stood more like this, with its spine parallel to the ground and its tail serving as a counterbalance to its head:
The above photo is of “Sue,” the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton ever found (90%). When paleontologist Sue Hendrickson discovered it, it revolutionized what we know about the T-Rex’s life and visual appearance. See those tiny bones where the T-Rex’s belly would have been? Those are called gastralia. When scientists first discovered Sue in 1990, they didn’t know where those bones went, and so they left them out of the initial public display. Today, we know that they lined the T-Rex’s belly and supported its breathing.
Scientists rethought several other physical traits as well. The T-Rex above is from the 1993 film Jurassic Park, and it captures the outdated popular perception of dinosaurs from 30 years ago. This T-Rex’s body’s positioning is more horizontal and correct than its earlier, upright depiction. But notice how the body is very lean. Now thanks to the gastralia, we know that the T-Rex was much heavier than previously thought – nine to ten tons, rather than five to seven tons – with a big belly that hung close to the ground.
This life-sized model, based on Sue’s bones, is our most updated, accurate depiction of a T-Rex:
It’s chubbier and cuter than we once thought, isn’t it?
Accordingly, the LEGO Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus Rex set is more accurate than fanciful. It retains the T-Rex’s horizontal positioning, based on the most recent scientific conclusions. Unfortunately, it does not depict the T-Rex’s gastralia. But its ribs are positioned in such a manner that suggests a “barrel-chested” creature, rather than the lean, efficient killing machine in popular fiction. Its arms are forward, in keeping with the newly-mounted Sue display at the Field Museum in Chicago.
The set comes in 25 sealed plastic bags. First, you build the black stand upon which the model sits. Then, you build the T-Rex’s backbone and attach it to the vertical supports; the rest of the model hangs onto it. Then the neck. Then the legs and hips, which attach to the spine and anchor to the stand’s base. Then the ribs and the arms. Then the tail. And then finally, the head. The legs and torso are locked in place, but the arms, head, and tail are all adjustable and posable.
Tip to tail, the model is nearly three-and-a-half feet long, which might cause some space concerns if you’re wondering where you’re going to put it once it’s done. Wherever it goes, it’s going to dominate the space it occupies. A wide, flat surface like a dresser or coffee table would work well. A shelf between other shelves would not. Find a location that befits this thing’s magnificence.
This set is technically a part of LEGO’s Jurassic Park franchise. That’s why the final bag has two minifigures of fictional characters – one of Alan Grant and one of Ellie Sattler – and poses them in front of the fossil on a stand attachment. The placard that accompanies the T-Rex is branded with the trademark Jurassic Park logo.
The odd thing about this franchise tie-in, however, is that it feels shoehorned in. For example, LEGO branded this set as a tie-in to Jurassic World, even though the two minifigures represent characters from the first Jurassic Park film.
But the disconnect runs even deeper. Even the name of the set, ‘Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus Rex,’ contains no movie tie-in. And the instruction booklet even has an option for disconnecting the minifigure and placard display entirely, allowing the massive skeleton to stand on its own. Of course, anyone could have accomplished this – no instructions unnecessary – with a little bit of ingenuity. But it’s odd that LEGO is offering an official option to do it, as it makes the Jurassic Park (World?) connection even more awkward and superfluous.
And to be real, that’s because it is superfluous. A massive T-Rex of this size, scope, and price is not going to sell additional copies on account of its brand synergy; a massive T-Rex of this size, scope, and price is going to sell itself. It is, by itself, classy in the same way that the LEGO Titanic build is classy. It needed no minifigure tie-ins for the same reason that the LEGO Titanic did not need minifigure tie-ins of Jack and Rose. Don’t think of this as a piece of movie memorabilia. It’s so much better and more significant than that.
More Sets From LEGO Jurassic Park Collection:
Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO. He’s also been published in Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.
