I’m a sucker for all things Jurassic World at the moment. So when given the chance to check out one of the associated Lego kits, well, I was on that kit like a Raptor on an Indominus Rex. Ahem.
My five-year-old’s Lego obsession has been well documented, but I have mostly stayed on the peripheries of the actual construction, since my husband shares our son’s enthusiasm and I apparently do it wrong. This time, however, nothing was keeping me from the construction site.
We checked out the T. rex Tracker kit. It has 520 pieces and is rated for 7-12 year olds. My five-year-old has great success with the kits that are rated for six and up, and we have had moderate success with the seven and up kits, so we figured this one was appropriate for his level. The kit comes with two instruction booklets and several different components.
We put the T. rex himself together first; a handful of pieces and you’re done. In the time it took us to make the rest of the kit, my three-year-old played happily with the fully constructed dinosaur. The T. rex is quite poseable and has snapping jaws, which have become the source of endless merriment in our house. The T. rex Tracker itself is a vehicle featuring an opening cockpit, dinosaur containment cage, and a harpoon-style trap shooter. There is also a motorbike, three minifigures, and accessories such as a torch with flame, briefcase, and tranquilizer gun. For only 520 pieces, the fully constructed models are a decent size. The T. rex stands over five inches tall, the Tracker itself is 6 inches high, 8 inches long, and 3 inches wide, while the motorbike is understandably of minifigure proportions.
Right off the bat, it is obvious that this vehicle is not featured in the movie. In fact, much of the Lego line available in association with Jurassic World does not appear in the movie. Some of the dinosaurs don’t even appear in the movie. Yet, that does not diminish my, I mean, my son’s enjoyment of the kit. He is too young for the movie, so he simply enjoys that it is Lego and it is dinosaurs. I am somewhat obsessed with the movie, and the vehicle’s absence from the story itself just makes me wonder what kind of deleted scenes I’m going to see on my already-ordered DVD.
The Dilophosaurus that incapacitated Dennis Nedry in the first movie is featured in a kit, though not in this movie. The Dilophosaurus kit does contain a Gyro-sphere, heavily featured in this movie. The Indominus Rex Breakout Kit and Raptor Rampage are taken directly from prominent scenes in the movie, and contain some of the better minifigures. Then, the Pteranodon Capture Kit contains elements from the movie, but there is no Pteranodon capture scene that we know of. After talking to a fellow GeekMom who purchased kits for her family, we agreed that the T. rex and Raptor kits were the cream of the crop, for size and relevance of the kits, but also for the coolness of the dinosaurs.
This is the first Lego kit that I have sat down with from start to finish in well over a decade. As I said before, I usually observe from the sidelines. I found it be utterly addicting. The size of the instruction booklets, though daunting at first, were so well done that it was a snap (and a click) to put together. However, it is definitely not one I could have let my five-year-old free on all by himself. The volume of small pieces and peculiar arrangements would have disgruntled him very quickly without the assistance of a steadier hand, but it is definitely one you could do along with a child under seven.
The T. rex Tracker assembled logically and with great rhythm and symmetry. I have a bit of an obsession with symmetry in life, in everything really, and so watching this piece come together was remarkably soothing. Pieces were color-coded in such a way as to make them easily identifiable, and the process was laid out in an easy-to-understand way. Really, I expect no less from a brand like Lego, but it was nice to have all my assumptions from the past few years of Lego building observations confirmed.
Once fully assembled, it holds together for some quite rough play. There are one or two decorative pieces that do keep coming off, but the main body of the Tracker lends itself to being manhandled at kindergartner-miles-per-hour while chasing a toddler holding a T. rex. After a few weeks of play, we have determined that removing the cage makes it an even more malleable piece in the Lego universe. The cage remains easily attachable for dino-chasing days.
All in all, I am thoroughly impressed with this line. Now I just need to acquire a second set of dinosaurs for myself, I mean, for the younger sibling!
GeekMom received this item for review purposes.
