Set Review ➟ LEGO® 76950 Jurassic World Triceratops Pickup Truck Ambush
This set of 210 pieces, rated for ages 7+ ($40US / 45€ / $80AU) consists of a pickup truck, a quad bike, four minifigures, and, of course, a triceratops.
Triceratops
It is hard to miss the star of the show when you open the box. Triceratops pieces are machine-efficiently and material-wastefully bagged. No knolling required for this assembly. Less striking, but only marginally so, is the discrepancy in the red color of the dino. The box shows triceratops with a very red red, while the actual model is using what appears to be dark red atop a dark stone gray figure. The result is a sort of dark purple-brown. Overall the color of triceratops is far more muted in reality than it is in any of the promotional material.
It is possible there is more plastic in the bag than in the parts.
Strikingly different coloration on the model compared to the packaging.
Not sure why the usually placid plant eater is sporting such a fierce look, but it could be the apparent scars are itchy, or triceratops is angry that Ron Howard’s daughter has stolen its carrot, or it is dissatisfied with the dark red ink. Perhaps the movie will explain this.
Triceratops assembly is simple with the usual ratchet attachments for the legs and the ratchet-ball attachment for the head. For all the articulation of parts, there is little that can be done in the way of posing triceratops, though. You can get triceratops to sort of sit by rotating all the limbs as far forward as possible while rotating the head back. If you rotate the front legs back triceratops can face plant. Other than that, though, pretty much triceratops is on all fours and you can rotate the head.
Prepare for the triceratops pose rundown.
Triceratops sitting.
Triceratops face planting.
Triceratops tranquilized.
Quad bike
Let not your expectations for a quad bike to show up in a dinosaur set be quashed, because here it is for this year’s releases. It is a simple fun vehicle with a bit of a futuristic design. Change the colors on this and it would not look out of place in a space themed set. Our bike team is comprised of Michael Strahan and Scarlett Johansson, the Black Widow. Sorry. I mean Claire Dearing and Franklin Webb. Be careful when assembling the figures. The torsos are really similar and you don’t want Scarlett’s torso with Michael’s head because that would be just wrong in so many ways.
Pickup Truck
The truck is an 8-stud-wide build, but the cab is only six studs wide on the exterior and four studs wide in the interior, with the driver placed in the center of the cab. The roof comes off easily to accommodate placement of a driver.
The pickup is a relatively nicely detailed short bed with no tailgate, but one must question the positioning of the honkin’ big-ass spotlight directly beside the driver’s head. Yeah. That’s not going to impede vision in any way when chasing or being chased by dinosaurs. On the other hand it falls off without too much effort, so it won’t be a problem for long. The truck lacks side view mirrors, which is probably a good thing on the driver side, otherwise the big-ass outside light would shine in the mirror and blind the driver.
While the pickup truck is mostly a nothing-unusual build, it does have a gimmick that will pop the bonnet. I am informed by my son that the Jurassic Park line loves to have bonnet-popping vehicles. The instructions warn of not shooting your eye out with the flying bonnet, but I was unable to get the bonnet to fly with anywhere near enough speed or distance to poke anybody’s eye out. In my estimation you are far more likely to poke an eye out on the triceratops horns, but those don’t come with any warning.
Minifigures
Besides the aforementioned Claire and Franklin, we have Guard and Guard. Claire and Franklin are two-faced while Guard and Guard are not. All torsos are two-side printed. All legs assemblies are plain and monochromatic.
The Randolph T. Fielding Absolutely Administrivia Section
No unique pieces in this kit unless maybe you want to count prints on figure parts. Pieces of administrival note are as follows:
The jumper is the pentagonal-barb version.
The quad bike’s wheel hubs are the slotted version.
In the curiosity department, this particular set was blessed with 92402 tires from two different molds.
Note the 30.4 on the two tires. Left tire has a dot between 0 and 4; right tire has a small circle.
The syringes are the newer 53020 mold with holes on the side.
Left two syringes 87989 with hemispherical tip, solid barrel, one flat side on the finger flange, and no bump on the plunger flange. Right two syringes 53020 with spherical tip, barrel with two holes, circular finger flange, and bump on plunger flange.
Summary
If you really want an angry, battle-scarred triceratops, then look no further. The set seems a bit pricey for 210 pieces, but you are probably paying 1/4 the price for a triceratops and 1/4 for licensing fees. I made those numbers up, but you smell what I’m stepping in. That triceratops head is quite an elaborate assembly in itself, and that reasonably is a piece that is more expensive to produce than just simple bricks popped out of a mold. And! And if you think this set is too pricey to acquire a triceratops, you can click on over to BrickOwl or BrickLink and get only a triceratops, a different somewhat less angry one with a different paint job, new or used, priced anywhere from what this whole set costs to more than twice as much.
On the other hand, if you aren’t really hankering for a triceratops, then there is better value to be found for trucks in the City line, and better Jurassic value in the 76946 Blue and Beta Velociraptor Capture set with 181 pieces at 75% the price of this set.
Disclaimer
My thanks to LEGO for providing the review set. I further stipulate I was not ambushed or otherwise threatened by any triceratopses which may have influenced any opinions set forth herein.
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