This weekend, I visited San Diego Comic in order to gather information for Jurassic-Pedia! If you don’t know who I am, I am one of the top contributors on here and my name is Sickle_Claw. I live in California so it isn’t that hard for me to take a trip to the Comic-Con once a year when it rolls into town. During this trip, it was a massive priority to visit many of the main attractions within the convention as possible – it is a special year for us and the fandom after all. This year, SDCC had many things to draw in even the most casual of Jurassic Park fans in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise. One such thing, included an off-site (outside the halls of Comic-Con) Jurassic Park event, the Jurassic Park toy Mattel panel, and several displays of the upcoming various releases of high-end Jurassic Park collectibles!
The first item on our list was the Jurassic Park section of the Mattel booth. Mattel spared no expense with its booth. Walking through the Jurassic Park Gates, guests were treated to a wide display of many of their Jurassic Park collections. Upon entering, guests could also see the now infamous ‘crowdfunded’ Jurassic Park Gates.
On Friday at 11:00 am, I visited the Mattel booth for the panel. During this panel, many reveal from the upcoming toy line were made. The Mattel staff announced that the ’93 legacy line would be continued, and announced that the next wave of ‘mainline’ dinosaurs would be called ‘Epic Evolution’. They also announced the next Hammond Collection creature, a Dimetrodon. From there followed a question and answer session with the Mattel design team. However, despite all these questions, none were really asked about the status of the crowdfunding itself. Luckily, our writer managed to preserve documentation of the panel itself on video.
Among the questions asked during the panel were if the Mattel team ever worked with paleontologists for the toy line, to which they responded in the affirmative. Other questions were trivial such as what the Team’s favorite dinosaur was, or if the team had a chance to work with the actors for their toy portrayal (the answer was not directly, but that the likenesses are signed off on). There was a question regarding quality control in the toys such as unpainted nails in toys, to which Mattel answered sometimes they had to make ‘concessions’, although they promised to try to be as accurate as possible in the future. Another question was why Mattel discontinued snap squad, to which their response was they were debuting a similar line. Other questions asked were either trivial or redundant, although Mattel did answer vaguely in terms of continuing ‘Real Feel’ type Jurassic figures.
The second item on the list was the Jurassic Park Off-site exhibit. This exhibit was situated quite a ways from the convention center itself but was well worth the trek. The exterior of the exhibit was furnished with a façade of the Jurassic Park gates. Once inside, guests were met by park rangers who led them on a journey through Isla Nublar. These exhibits consisted of a mix of animatronics and displays.
Guests were led first onto a display of dinosaur egg incubators, before being greeted with a Dilophosaurus east dock display. Guests could pose here for photo ops, before being greeted with a velociraptor enclosure and the mangled remains of the raptors meal. From there, Guests were taken to a photo op of the T.rex, where guests would be prompted to sit on the toilet and pretend they were being eaten. Then guests were taken to a photo op of the Raptors In the kitchen, with a velociraptor overlocking the kitchen area. The last display was of the Breaker Control Panel for turning the power back on in the park. At this juncture, guests were deposited outside, where they were welcome to eat dinosaur chicken nuggets and look around the Amazon displays of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World products available on the website. A highlight of this area was a painting of the T.rex roaring in triumph, painted by Ariana Richards.
As for the rest of the convention, I managed to see several high-end Jurassic Park collectibles on display. Notably, I managed to obtain the SDCC exclusive Hammond Collection playset featuring Steven Spielberg! At the Jada display, I witnessed the high-end Jada 1/18th scale Jurassic Park Explorer that is coming later this year, and at Elite Creature Collectibles’ booth, I saw high-quality replicas of the Jurassic Park Velociraptor. Funko was also offering several SDCC exclusives including a Hatchling Raptor, several loungefly bags, and a figure of Ian Malcolm within a replica VHS of Jurassic Park.
Overall I saw a lot of interesting things, including Topps Jurassic Park artist Michael Golden who had a booth at the convention, and got an autograph from him after complimenting his work on the Topps Comics series! In the end, I returned to the Mattel booth to wave goodbye to the Jurassic Park gates – as it was cathartic seeing them for both the first and last time due to the lackluster performance of the fandom and their incompetence at rallying for the Jurassic World Gates crowd funder that ends on July 27trh.
