Dave's DinoZaurs Rant: Dino T-Rex (well, T.rex is the correct way, but hey) This past weekend, after determining I wouldn't be finding Blackarachnia, I decided to splurge and grabbed Dino T-Rex at Family Toy Warehouse (I also got a pack of female GIJoe-ish figures made by Lanart, the same guys who do the CORPS figures...but they're vastly inferior to CORPS figures, sadly). CAPSULE: Simplistic transformation, but leaving a decent robot mode. Okay poseability, good looks, okay gimmick. Worth the $11.99 Family Toy Warehouse is charging. RANT: This looks like a classic case of the designers of the toy and the designers of the package not being on the same page. The toy is packaged (with a couple twist-ties) in the "classic" T.rex pose, with the tail used as a third leg. However, the way the neck vertebrae section is hinged, it's obvious the toy is not meant to look down as in the "classic" pose. Rather, it's supposed to stand in the "modern" pose, with spine horizontal and tail used for balance. Beast Mode: 11" (28cm) long from snout to tail tip, with the spine itself 5" (13cm) off the ground. Speaking of the spine, the chrome middle section is removable, but like the other toys, this appears to be accidental, not intentional. Too cheap to use a squirt of glue, I guess. The bones vary from vacuum-metalized chrome (head, central spine, upper tail, legs) to metallic plastic (duller than chrome, on lower tail) to grey plastic (ribs, neck, arms). The rest is a rather nice looking clear red plastic. This is a very fat T.rex. The belly is lower and wider than it should be (especially wider) to accomodate the robot mode arms. The head is somewhat poseable, although some positions will leave the neck bones behind. The tail has multiple joined discs that let is thrash back and forth, plus some little grips at the base that let you make it thrash. The stiff tail tip pops open for sword storage, although the sword sticks out the end in beast mode and looks a little doofy. The hind legs are reasonably poseable, if a bit widely separated. One nice touch is that the heels are only clear plastic, so the bone part is walking on its toes, as a T.rex should. The only really disappointing part of the beast mode is the puny forearms. Oh, they should be puny, this is a T.rex after all. But they're only pegged on, and fall off easily. Transformation: Very simple, the "hot dog in a bun" style. Fold out the torso halves, move the arms and legs into position, flip down the beast head and pop out the robot head, and that's about it. There's a few of the touches typical of the line, like the hips coming closer together in robot mod, and the tail just hinging back out of the way. The chest actually is split apart, and the lower jaw of the beast head fills in the gap. This results in a chest that's not QUITE so obviously a rack for the beast head. As usual, the instructions are great. Clear drawings of each step, and separate inset boxes warning of things you need to be sure to do when transforming back to beast mode. One small sheet conveys more information than the average big fold-out Ultra Beast instructions do. About all it doesn't say is that excessive force may be required to unseat his hips when going back to beast mode. Robot Mode: 6.5" (17cm) tall. Yeesh, we finally get an actual 6.5" figure, and it's one of the so-called 8" figures. Anyway, VERY nice looking in this mode, his "wings" are more dynamic than those of the other Dinos, and combined with the tail it looks kinda like he's standing in front of a huge upside-down Canadian flag. His joints, including the tail, are stiff, and he can stand with good stability with his tail not touching the ground, which is fairly impressive. Thanks to the way his chest works, the dino head doesn't stick out too much (like, say, Dino-Mammoth or Dino-Tricera). His shoulders contain three joints each, one of them a swivel to compensate for his elbow just being a hinge. It's a little blocked by his shoulderpads, however, as the bone details on his upper arms get caught up. His fists rotate at the wrists. His hips are ball joints, his knees are somewhat limited hinges, and his ankles are very limited ball joints. His head turns a little to either side, and his tail still thrashes. His sword is a flimsy little grey thing that folds in half to store in his tail. His fists accept a 1/8" peg or slightly larger, which means that the hopefully-upcoming weaponsaurs (Swordsaurus, Shieldsaurus and Drillsaurus in Japan) will have 1/8" pegs. So start checking your BW figures for peg holes of that size. }-> Funky Mode: Okay, this one's just for fun. It's possible to transform him so that his robot arms stick out of his belly in beast mode, so he can hold his sword. You can also pop out his robot head her so he looks like some kind of weird half-transformed dinobot. Another undocumented feature involves leaving his tail popped open while thrashing it. The bone piece sticking out the end makes a nice thresher. Especially if you attach the sword to it and have that add another few inches. Overall: Well, it's a bit simplistic, and it could use more color. But that's true of the whole line (almost everything is two-colors-plus-eyes). It's pretty sturdy, looks good, and is worth the price. Dave Van Domelen, now to find a place to put it...that tail sticking out the back makes it hard to make room for....