Following up on my Hammond Collection Allosaurus review, is with yet another beloved animal from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation, the Stegosaurus. More specifically the Hammond Collection juvenile Stegosaurus based on the one from The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Strangely this is my first time reviewing a figure of this animal, despite it being one of my favorite dinosaurs, and with a number of figures in my collection of it. Anyways this released back in the summer of 2023, and is the second time Mattel has made a figure of the juvenile Stegosaurus, the first being from the 2022 Legacy Collection Dr. Sarah Harding & Stegosaurus Pack just shortly prior. Unfortunately I don’t have that one on hand at the moment, so no direct comparisons between the two here.
As far as the Jurassic Park film franchise goes, Stegosaurus got its debut in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, released in 1997. Ever since then it has been a staple dinosaur of the franchise, featuring in nearly every film since, along with the likes of the animated series Camp Cretaceous and Chaos Theory. The Lost World still remains the only time a juvenile Stegosaurus has appeared in the films though (unless counting the scaled down adult shown briefly in Jurassic World), and although it did not get as much screen-time and focus as the juvenile T. rex, it still captured my heart. Its main scene of focus was where Dr. Sarah Harding (played by Julianne Moore), was interacting with it, before scaring it with her camera, leading the much larger adults to come in for the defense. It was depicted in film with an animatronic, dubbed Claire, built up by Stan Winston Studios, as well as a CGI model by ILM for the ending scene of the film (where there were not one, but two youngsters).
As far as the sculpt goes, it does a pretty decent job of matching up with the animatronic used for the film, though I think the head sculpt of the Legacy one was a tad bit closer in its likeness, though this one does correctly feature the ear holes that were absent on that figure. Granted the implementation of the jaw articulation could be what is throwing off the rest of the head sculpt for me. That said the Hammond Collection figure does a better job of matching up with the body proportions, and the plate shape of the animatronic and maquette. Most of the body is covered in wrinkles, like on the source material. The plates are made of a slightly softer material, plugged into the backside. The colors are also a better match compared to the Legacy Collection figure, with the exception of the too bright yellow belly color, which should be more of a cream or tan color. Most of the figure is of a duller green color, with a bit of salmon pink around the eyes (which has been crudely printed on), brown and dark brown, for the plates, grey for the beak, claws, and tail spikes. One aspect that is incorrect is the digits on the forelimbs is to few, there should be five, instead of four. The number of digits on the hind limbs appears to be correct, but the first digit should probably be smaller, and further back.
As far as the articulation goes, this is one of the better ones among the small sized ones. Starting with the head there is of course jaw articulation as mentioned earlier, but the head also has a joint at the base of the head that allows it to rotate all the way around. Worth noting that the jaw articulation sort of deviates from the source material, with the inclusion of the theropod-like pink jaw tissue, which should probably be green to emulate the cheeks the film design had. However unlike most of the ornithischians in the Hammond Collection with jaw articulation, which typically do so at the beak only, this mostly follows ornithischian anatomy by positioning it near the base of the jaw, whereas to have it at the beak would require breaking the jaw. There is also a joint at the base of the neck allowing for a decent range of up and down motion, which can also be fully rotated around.
Moving on to the rest of the body’s joints, and to avoid repetition, each of the following joints can all be rotated a full 360 degrees. The shoulder joints have a surprising decent upwards range, allowing for a “T-pose” of sorts. The elbows have a bit of forward movement, but not much backwards. There is unfortunately no wrist articulation. The hip joints have very little inwards and outwards movement. The knee joints have about 90 degree bends, much like the elbow joints. The ankle joints have a surprising amount of forwards movement, but not much backwards. The first of the two tail joints appears to be on a ball joint, though will be limited depending on the pose due to the plates. The last joint is the tip of the tail before the thagomizer, and it has a little bit of up and down movement.
Unfortunately this one is long out of production, and on top of that it had relatively poor distribution combined with a short shelf life (like the Pyroraptor I reviewed last year). I managed to get mine through a pre-order on BBTS back in the day. I was actually doing a bit of back and forth on it, because the poor blending of the yellow belly paint on the promo images nearly turned me off on it, but I’m very glad to have it now. It’s much better in hand, and of course the articulation is quite fun to toy around with. It also of course pairs well with the adult Stegosaurus released last year, and the other Hammond Collection figures based on those in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, in addition to those from the Morrison Formation (as I showcased in my prior Allosaurus review). It’s also one of several juvenile dinosaurs Mattel has made over the years (Ankylosaurus, Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Nasutoceratops, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, and Velociraptor), so it will fit right in alongside those as well. It’s wave mate was the juvenile T. rex from same film, and like it, tends to fetch for far more than the original msrp of $15.
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