Set Review ➟ LEGO® 76948 T. Rex and Atrociraptor Dinosaur Breakout
First things first. This set is titled T. Rex and Atrociraptor Dinosaur Breakout. It is duly noted that this is the dinosaur breakout and not the T. Rex and Atrociraptor Fluffy Kitten Breakout. LEGO® marketing works really super long long hours to avoid the confusion which could result in customers getting the wrong T. Rex and Atrociraptor Breakout.
This set of either 461 or 466 pieces, depending on which paragraph you read on the web site, is rated for ages 8+ ($80US / 90€ / $150AU) and consists of a truck, a trailer, four minifigures, a big tyrannosaurus rex, a small atrociraptor, and a building that LEGO calls the “marketplace”.
Dinosaurs
As with 76950 Triceratops, the T. Rex parts in this set are polybagged. Unlike set 76951 which had small dinosaurs polybagged with their jaws, the atrociraptor is loose in the box. I found two lower jaw parts for Atrociraptor in one of the little bags of parts.
Atrociraptor in this set is similar to Dilophosaurus in the 76951 set. The dinosaur is a molded of two separate color pieces assembled into a single unit with the top half being a softer flexible plastic and the bottom being the usual hard ABS (pyroraptor in the 76951 set is also dual-molded, but both pieces are the hard ABS). The jaw piece has some nubs that fit into holes in the dinosaur head, limiting the mouth position to either wide open or shut. I am delighted to report that atrociraptor does have greater stability standing than either pyroraptor or dilophosaurus from the 76951 set.
T. Rex is handsomely decorated with torso and head being molded of two separate color pieces assembled into single units. The tail is similar, but triple-molded with the tip being a softer flexible plastic piece.
T. Rex tail section with rubbery tip.
The front arms on the assembly are pin-attached and provide about 100 degrees of unrestricted movement at the shoulder. Legs, head, and tail are technics ratchet jointed. Legs are limited to about 90 degrees of movement while the head and tail can swivel a full 360 degrees against the torso. The head moves an additional 90 degrees or so up and down at the neck. As with atrociraptor, T. Rex’s jaw snaps into position either fully open or closed. While the legs offer seven “clicks” of movement, LEGO’s marketing materials are taking a bit of artistic license. I spent several minutes attempting to pose T. Rex as shown on the box and web site. I could find no position where the dinosaur could stand where the legs were any more than one click different in position.
Yeah, this pose ain’t gonna happen.
This is accurate.
Even with only one click difference in leg position, the dinosaur became unbalanced. T. Rex will “stand” with legs at a greater than one click difference provided his head is used as the second point of balance. But for most practical purposes, both legs need to be in the same click position for the dino to stand. The model is top-heavy at the head and the tail does not provide sufficient counter-weight to balance the upper half.
Legs at same click point.
Legs at same click point.
Legs at next-to-farthest click point. Here the dinosaur is balancing on the tail and one foot is slightly lifted.
One click point difference in leg position, dinosaur balances on the full left foot and right toe; right heel raised.
Rexy’s feet do have stud holes, and you can get the dinosaur to stand on one leg provided you have a sufficiently large baseplate to attach to a foot.
With a large enough baseplate attached to the foot, you can get T. Rex into dynamic positions.
Without a baseplate, you will get this.
Truck
The truck itself is eight studs wide, ten wide with the cargo box attached, and about 30 studs long. It is about nine bricks high by itself and about eleven bricks high with the cargo box attached.
Truck without cargo box.
Truck with cargo box.
The cab is six bricks wide on the exterior, four wide on the interior, and the driver position is centered in the cab. The driver will have to be bent forward because the brick back wall of the cab bumps into the minifig wig.
Truck driver sits centered…
…and leaning forward.
The cargo box has an door that hinges at the top to open and holds atrociraptor on a sliding bed. While this sliding consideration is given to the contents of the container, the same consideration is not given to the cargo box being loaded onto the truck. The cargo box just gets placed on four studs, presumably for easy removal.
It would be nice to see the cargo box be able to get loaded onto the truck with a winch and then lock into position with a bar-and-clip, sliding bar, flip-up flag, or some other mechanism. We used to get these kinds of considerations on older sets where a cargo box or similar would get secured in place with a hinge or something. But we haven’t seen a winch from LEGO in about 20 years, so I guess I shouldn’t hold my breath.
Also note that the comment here is due to my perception that the cargo box is conceived as a separate build and not intended as a permanent attachment to the truck because the instructions build the cargo box first and the truck, separately, later. This makes me wonder how you get the cargo box on the truck. There isn’t a forklift or a crane or anything.
I know. It’s a toy for eight-year-olds. Practicality is not required.
Minifigures
The set has four minifigures representing characters Owen Grady, Claire Dearing, Rainn Delacourt, and Soyona Santos. All figures have dual-side head and torso printing, and all but Claire have front-side leg and hips printing.
The Marketplace
The web page describes this structure as “the marketplace” and “the market”. Okay. The box and instruction art show it to be within some kind of presumably larger building with vaulted ceilings, so paint me confused. One might think that if indeed this was a marketplace it would be outdoors. There is a red flag flying from a pole on the top of the market, and it appears to be in a stiff wind. If this market is indeed inside a building of some sort, then there must be a very powerful ventilation system in the gothic castle or whatever that place is.
Where exactly is this market located? The catacombs?
The…let’s just call it a structure, okay?…is essentially three bays. Bay one is a “pen” that is supposed to contain the T. Rex. It is small for this purpose, and Rexy barey fits side-to-side and definitely not front-to-back. The three side walls and two outside pillars are all attached by two studs and are clearly intended as fallaway parts to, um, fall away when T. Rex breaks out and commences his rampage.
Bay two is an open archway. If the truck driver is exceptionally skilled the driver will be able to drive the truck through the archway. There is a spider sort of hidden on the roof of bay two, reasons unknown. Let us all assume there is some major movie plot point involving a giant spider.
A supremely skilled driver will make it through the archway.
There is a big spider hiding on the roof.
Bay three looks like some sort of display with a half-skeleton critter, a crate of eggs, and some transparent orange doodads. All in all, the structure is fairly minimal.
Note the light gray brick in the lower right corner. This is where the sister market assembly from set 76495 joins this model.
This set can be combined with 76945, Atrociraptor Dinosaur: Bike Chase. Putting the two sets together allows for connection of the two structures into one. The cargo box in this set will accommodate the atrociraptor from the smaller 76945 set.
The Randolph T. Fielding Absolutely Administrivia Section
There is blessed little to report on the administrivia front for this set. Pretty much all the parts are what the instructions purport them to be. I will note that as with my copy of 76950 Triceratops, this set had a mixed set of wheels. For those keeping score, the flag is the pole-side-left, first-full-bump-down version.
Summary
T. Rex is a little disappointing in the pose department. The truck with the cargo box is the high point for me. The fall-apart walls of the structure fall apart a little too easily; I constantly had to replace those if I moved the model. The building isn’t anything any self-respecting AFOL couldn’t fairly well replicate out of parts in their stash. Overall rating somewhere above tepid, possibly lukewarm.
Disclaimer
My thanks to LEGO for providing the review set. I volunteered to write this stuff if you can believe it.
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