The Energon Pub

So I got mine today. Rex is nice, I like her colors and the new head is good. Sadly she's the highlight of the set.

JP93 is bad, really bad. Everything about it feels like a Transformers knockoff sold at Big Lots or Walgreens. Transformation is very simple, arms have floppy ball jointed elbows ala Combiner Wars with shoulder ratchets that don't ratchet, there's a gap in his torso you can easily see through, he has no waist pivot, his backpack sits too far from his back for no obvious reason, he does have ankle tilts but they're on clear plastic hinges, and his "feet" are exposed by taking an unnecessarily clear plastic panel from the roof, folding it under his foot on a clear plastic hinge (very weak and stiff feeling) and locking it in place with a tiny clear plastic tab that's likely to wear out after a few changes. Thanks to his absurd price he's now usurped Kingdom Tracks as worst TF this year for me.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:So I got mine today. Rex is nice, I like her colors and the new head is good. Sadly she's the highlight of the set.

JP93 is bad, really bad. Everything about it feels like a Transformers knockoff sold at Big Lots or Walgreens.

Reminds me of Ectotron, also felt overly simple for what was being sold as a premium figure.

People have been receiving their Jurassic Park Transformers Crossover set from Amazon and there seems to be some universal disappointment. We have two reviews below for you, a video review from Chuckdawg1999 and a short written review from Emerje. Let us know what you think of this set.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:At first, I was really excited for this set, having it in hand though has tempered my enthusiasm. Tyrannocon Rex is a straight repaint of BW Megatron with a new head, if you like that figure you'll have no problem with this version. JP93 is where most of my issues lie. As of right now, this is an entirely new figure. As such, I think the QC could've been handled a lot better. Straight out of the box JP93 is just this shy of being a floppy mess and it's only to get worse over time. Transformation is smooth and intuitive which leads me to believe we'll see this mold somewhere down the line. I really can only recommend this set for the die-hard Jurassic Park fans.

Emerje wrote:So I got mine today. Rex is nice, I like her colors and the new head is good. Sadly she's the highlight of the set.

JP93 is bad, really bad. Everything about it feels like a Transformers knockoff sold at Big Lots or Walgreens. Transformation is very simple, arms have floppy ball jointed elbows ala Combiner Wars with shoulder ratchets that don't ratchet, there's a gap in his torso you can easily see through, he has no waist pivot, his backpack sits too far from his back for no obvious reason, he does have ankle tilts but they're on clear plastic hinges, and his "feet" are exposed by taking an unnecessarily clear plastic panel from the roof, folding it under his foot on a clear plastic hinge (very weak and stiff feeling) and locking it in place with a tiny clear plastic tab that's likely to wear out after a few changes. Thanks to his absurd price he's now usurped Kingdom Tracks as worst TF this year for me.

Emerje

We’ll ain’t this just pleasant news when my set just shipped from Amazon lol. $105 taken from the bank for a set with poor QC. I might just leave it in the package since it at least looks good there lol.

Looks like another X over that I can skip with not a single one being worth it so far. I like Rex and its colorings but still think I prefer the original BW mold over kingdoms.

JP93 looks a mess so it's nice that skids wasnt a reuse of it even if the Skids figure looks a bit sub par too. JP93 seems like it needs some pull out feet or something to give the legs more definition (Even G2 megatrons breeaze block legs had little footsies).

Dammit...I had buyer's remorse a couple of weeks ago and tried to cancel my order. Through an Amazon glitch, I was unable to, and came to terms with owning this over-priced set.

But now seeing this (JP93 was the figure I was looking to more out of the two) I'm gonna try and cancel again I think...

Glad to see "early reviews" are all of 2 reviews. Great article title to earn you a burn.

Anyways, I got my set, and I could not disagree more with the "early reviews" outside of Emerje saying Tyrannocon is a nice figure.

Let's start with her. first ever leader class female, and she is a good big gal. I have very much enjoyed this leader T-Rex mold, and All 3 have been pleasantly different enough to warrant. I love the movie accurate heavy paintwork they did to mimic the JP Rex. She is very well done in terms of paint. Robot mode is also fantastic, the red really helps her shine, very bright and nice. Robot mode head is really sharp and a nice new addition to the mold. She is overall a very nice experience.

JP93 is also quite interesting. For one thing, that alt mode is clearly the star of the show. The amount of paint work and sculpting to make it accurate to the JP movies is great. This thing looks better than the actual JP Explorer toy that is out right now too. Transformation is pretty straightforward, but it has some nice touches, like the center of the hood piece. In a way, the transformation reminds me of a cross between PotP Jazz and SS86 Jazz. Robot mode is also pretty neat. He suffers from lack of any real prominent toes, but he really is not that bad. Love the door wings, one of my favorite things to have on a TF, and again the paint work shines. Lack of a waist and wrist swivel isn't that big a deal, TF fans have been overly spoiled lately with those from WFC honestly.

Overall, it is a very nice set. I can feel that part of the major expense was the amount of paint work and detailing to these 2 figures, I definitely see that. I still think it is too expensive for what it is, but I can see where the costs were going and I enjoy the set as a whole. It is a good set, and it will look great on my Jurassic Park shelf with Blue, the JPIII raptor, my other dinos, and my 4 human figures.

I am really happy with mine. Opened it up, transformed them totally happy. I have no interest in the Jurassic Park aspect. I was going to pass when I heard about it, then I saw Tyrannocon. Amazing figure! Looks just as good in person! Feels totally different from the previous two molds.

Remember it is all about supply and demand. Remember all of the Botcon figures, those prices were always, what... like, twice, or 5x as much as retail, right? But they were simply a smaller supply.

The plastic is great on Tyrannocon. It does feel weak on JP, but just don't transform him much.

More expensive than a retail... yes.
Worth it for an exclusive... if you like the figures, then yes.

I feel I should add that my JP93 has gotten looser with a few more transformations. I seriously doubt over time it'll be able to stand on its own. Vehicle mode is nice and D-Max was right on when they said it looks better than the larger Explorers out there from Mattel.

Some pics to support my complaints about JP93.

First the arms. That ball joint is super loose and barely supports poses. It's 2021, it should be a proper double elbow joint. The ratchet in the shoulders is completely fake. Why sculpt a ratchet and not use it, it's just an extra little tab in the arm to make it work!


Then the backpack. There's no good reason for it sticking so far off the back as far as it does. The clear plastic tab is fine (not ideal though) since it's also used to tab in alt mode. But the green beam sticking out his back is excessive, it's only used for for this and nothing else, it should be shorter to bring in the car roof more and straighten it up (it's at an angle, again for no reason).


Next the torso gap. Not much to say, at eye level you can see clear through him. The lack of waist pivot is just them being cheap and inexcusable.


Now the foot issues. Issue one, small clear plastic ankle tilt, very easy to break.


Then you have to take a portion of the top of the alt mode and fold it underneath his foot, again it's clear plastic on clear plastic and ridiculously stiff. It's very scary to transform.


Finally to get that part to stay under his foot you have literally pry it sideways unnaturally to get it underneath a tiny clear plastic tab.


For what I can best estimate as a $40 figure I don't feel it even lives up to WFC or SS Deluxes in any way. I could be more forgiving if it came with more accessories other than a lame shotgun, maybe some restraints for Rex, but it doesn't.

Emerje

So what I'm gathering from the two reviews in the article and the comments is that these are probably just unfortunate individual issues, but still understandable given JP93's construction.
Sounds like the usual affair of Transformers reviews making it seem like every copy is doomed - but, let's hope it REALLY is just an unfortunate happenstance.

Glad to hear the issues are only with JP93 (still think that name is stupid). I may never remove him from the package, and just stick with Tyrannocon Rex. I was mostly getting the set for her anyway.

Just opened mine and I don't see much point in transforming his feet at all. Aside from the ankle tilt, it kind of seems like extra steps thrown in to make him seem more advanced than he is.

Otherwise he reminds me of that old Classics Galvatron figure. It feels like he was supposed to be Voyager scale and got down-sized. Also, if he'd been voyager he would have scaled better with Regina and that price tag would have made a lot more sense.

Edit: Should also add that mine lacks the extreme Torso gap pictured above. Viewed straight on there's little to no gap.

I don't have mine yet, but I was suspecting that maybe the torso gap was a mistransformation. There is no way a glaring design flaw like that should have made it through QC inspection, or even before the design was implemented. At the very least the prototype should have given it away.

The other issues seem to be more annoying than an actual problem, even though I'm not a fan of big backpacks.

In case any of this helps...

Here's some more standardized pics. One is taken with my phone vertical and the other horizontal, but both are taken with the phone resting on the shelf, so maybe that gives a better notion of the angles involved.

Phone vertical:



Phone horizontal:

I'm not mistransforming him. Your pictures aren't straight on, if they were you wouldn't be able to see the top of the hood. You're basically saying the gap doesn't exist if you look down at it.

Emerje

The set is worth it for the T-Rex alone. A leader cost 70/72$can. X-Panse, a leader X-over cost 90/94$can. That's ludicrous but understandable. So that mean JP-93 cost a whopping 60$can like Gigawatt, based on the 155$can price of the set. If I had paid this for JP-93, I'd be more pissed than I was with Gigawatt.

Emerje wrote:I'm not mistransforming him. Your pictures aren't straight on, if they were you wouldn't be able to see the top of the hood. You're basically saying the gap doesn't exist if you look down at it.

Emerje

I can guarantee you the pictures are straight on. The hood slants forward when the bot is properly transformed.

Edit: The shelf is 11.25" deep, and I took this picture with a Samsung smart phone resting on the shelf in front of the figure.



This places the camera lens at 5.5 inches, which is roughly eye level with JP93.

I haven't retrieved a level from the basement yet, but in order to get the sort of gap visible in your pictures, I literally have to bend my knees so that I can look up from the edge of the shelf.

I just realized the relative center of the photo matters, so here's an uncropped picture. Same conditions. (Edit: Though I cannot guarantee the camera is level, so this pic isn't super helpful.)



Next I'll try getting a pic that shows the gap while keeping the phone on the shelf.

Edit: I physically cannot angle the phone back far enough without putting the phone below the level of the shelf.

-Kanrabat- wrote:The set is worth it for the T-Rex alone. A leader cost 70/72$can. X-Panse, a leader X-over cost 90/94$can. That's ludicrous but understandable. So that mean JP-93 cost a whopping 60$can like Gigawatt, based on the 155$can price of the set. If I had paid this for JP-93, I'd be more pissed than I was with Gigawatt.

Going by US dollars, a Leader (at the time of this release) as still 49.99 so that's 50 for the T-Rex and 65 for the deluxe. Evenn if I'm wrong about the upcharge timing, it's 55 US. The set was 115. The only way to explain the upcharged price is the licensing fees that come with doing these crossovers.

Gigawatt is great - I don't have any of the other ones, but this one has photographic evidence of it's poor construction. I'm not upset I returned mine, as I was more or less banking on the cross licensing upcharge selling an extra could do for my future purchases. I generally think ALL these crossovers are grossly overpriced, but I paid for Gigawatt because I legit liked the figure. So far, I can't say that about any of the other ones. Maybe the dinosaur, but that's just a Megatron with a different head. Same with Draculon - which I would have bought if it wasn't the price that it is. Outrageous.

For the heck of it, here's a pic with the phone resting on the shelf upside down.

The only way I can see that the gap is really visible "at eye level" is if you define "eye-level" as getting down so that you can stare directly at someone's chest, and not their face.

Edit: Close up pic in profile. The chest slants forward, so you have to look up at the figure to not see the hood.

Neat idea to make an Autobot version of Muldoon. The robotic 'hat' was an interesting touch. But I'm passing on this one, just because I was never a fan of the tyrannosaur figure. Whether it's Megatron, T-Wrecks, or this one, the engineering just doesn't set right with me.

I think it's all the seams and panels all over the place. To my mind, a dinosaur should have a smooth, seamless skin. It helps to convey smoothness and elegance, grace of form. The BW dinos lack that. They're covered with panels which, while necessary for transformation engineering, just interrupt the flow and surface of the beast. Plus some of the panels are jutting out like dinner plates that were strapped onto the figure afterwards. It just doesn't look good to my eye.

With cars, planes, spaceships and other vehicles I can suspend my disbelief, because they're machines. And with the Dinobots, it's forgiveable because they're cybertron versions OF dinosaurs, not actual dinosaurs. You can expect to see some gaps and seams on a machine or vehicle. The only beast exceptions are the insect beasts like Waspinator or Scorponok. They have segmented bodies and chitinous exoskeletons, which make the transformation seams a little easier to swallow. But not with what are supposed to be real beasts like tigers, gorillas - or dinosaurs. The seams stand out on those like an unfinished Rubik's Cube and I just can't ignore that. My loss, probably. They did their best, but even current toy design technology can't make a seamless beast mode.

JP93 is by all means a great, fun figure. People are being over critical about him lacking a waist swivel and having ball jointed elbows. It really, really feels like WFC spoiled everyone's expectations of how a figure should FEEL in order to be good. In my books what makes a figure good is feel and playability. JP93 checks both of those boxes for me. He's plenty fun to mess with, transform, and ultimately play with as he's a toy. Toys are meant to be fun.

Two reviews saying he's terrible is pitiful, do better.