Female Velociraptor (Jurassic Park III Candy Container by Topps)

There are still odd tie-in lines released with the original Jurassic Park trilogy that are left unexplored on the blog, so here is our first look at the figures that came with the Topps Candy Container eggs alongside Jurassic Park III back in 2001. By this time I had stopped buying toys myself, so this is actually my younger brother’s, which is why I couldn’t find the egg container itself, and why I never tasted the candy, and can’t show them off here… But we’re of course mainly concerned with the figures anyway.

At least the 1993 film was also accompanied with similar eggs with candy and figures, as well as dinosaur heads containing candy, which will perhaps be reviewed here one day too. The 2001 Candy Container series included 12 dinosaurs, most of which were featured in Jurassic Park III. This film is of course notable in its Velociraptor design having very clear sexual dimorphism (both in shape and colouration), which is reflected in the figures, as there was both a female and male among them.

The subject of this review is the female Velociraptor of the line, and while I remember their colouration in the films being much more subdued, sandy or almost grey, here it is pretty bright yellow with some duller yellow/cream parts, and with very dark black stripes and spots (their paint is a bit roughly applied in places, with some running splotches). Even at its small size, about 6 cm long and 5 cm tall, it actually has black painted claws, pupils, white teeth, and pinkish insides of the mouth, luxuries much larger figures often don’t have (I’m looking at you, Jurassic World toy claws), so that’s pretty neat.

While the males famously had the first representation of plumage in a Jurassic film, a crest of quill-like feathers along the head and upper neck, the female was more similar to the raptors of the earlier films in just being scaly (which makes one wonder how Alan Grant could dream about a feathered male he had never seen by the third film, but I digress). The sculpt itself is quite good, and recognisable as a JP Velociraptor. This is also because it lacks the weird lacrimal crests the males sported in the third film (the small bumps in front of the eye sockets known from the fossils were just the bony bases of the brows), that made them needlessly Dilophosaurus-like.

The pose is very dynamic, looking like the dinosaur is vocalising and ready to attack or run, with the head turned to the left, an open mouth, legs far apart, and the tail curved forwards to the left. Even the tongue is lifted a little bit. The dinosaur stands on a bluish grey rocky platform, which helps it balance its unusual pose (preventing the need for oversized feet), where the hindmost foot is placed higher than the frontmost one. The plastic is pretty hard and durable, though the tail is so thin that it can be bent, but doesn’t feel like it’s about to snap. Even musculature and skin-creases are sculpted despite the small scale.

An interesting aspect of the pose also shared with the male figure is that the hands are very tightly folded along the lower arm, almost like the way birds folds their wings, which I don’t recall happening in at least the earlier films, and which is quite scientifically “progressive” in lack of a better word. Or was it just to make the hands less frail so they wouldn’t snap off? Either way, the hands themselves are pronated, rotated with their palms facing hindwards, which would not have been possible in the actual animal, so accuracy-points off for that (not that it really matters in a JP toy, but had to be said in relation to the folding).

To sum up, despite its small size, I think this is quite an impressive figure, both in regard to its posture and paint-job, and represents the striking Jurassic Park III female Velociraptor design well. Most other JP toys of this size I remember, especially those throwaway ones coming with candy, were much less movie-accurate or detailed, and many even lacked paint. Placed alongside the male (and the other figures of the line, if one might be so lucky to have them), they could be a cool, tiny exhibit.