Jurassic Park 25th Anniversary Funko Reviews: Grant, Hammond, Raptor

     Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another entry of Coffee With The Cynic's blog and yes, I finally got my hands on some of the Jurassic Park 25th Anniversary Funko POPs.  I was able to get these through EB Games.ca, which was surprising since I was not able to pre-order them through their site or store (long story short, it sounds like scalpers were involved).  However, these three appeared in stock online so I grabbed them up as quickly as I could.  I do have a couple of Dilophosaurus coming from a third party retailer on Amazon and I pre-ordered the sexy Malcolm through EB Games and he'll be shipping sometime in May.  Originally I had filmed this bit as an Unboxing video that I was going to put on the YouTube channel but then Scholar noticed things on the figures I didn't after I had filmed so I went to film again but at that point, it was really late and I couldn't stop yawning (long week).  So instead I've decided to do this as a Blog post for you to read at your own leisure and speed.  Let's take a look at these things!

      Let's start with Dr. Alan Grant.  Here's a quick shot of him in the box, pretty standard fare from the Funko Pop packaging, really.  Only this time it's Jurassic Park!  I do like how they have Grant holding the Velociraptor claw for a distinguishing pose.

      I absolutely love the look of the hat, here.  It really does look like it is made of suede and not the hard plastic its actually made out of.

     I also really like the level of detail put into the rest of Grant's attire.  The metallic sheen on the watch, the folds and creases in his shirt where its been tucked in behind his belt.  I keep taking for granted the level of detail that goes into these things for when you see them on the shelf, it may not look like much but holding them in hand is an entirely different story.

     As for any sort of flubs or errors on this figure, the only ones I could really find were the flesh tone of his hand bleeds onto the Raptor claw a bit and some of the blue from his shirt dabbed onto the red bandana around his neck.  There's also a couple of spots where the hair color doesn't come straight down to the scalp but I'm not too upset though because they aren't really noticeable unless you look closely and as someone who has painted small areas like that before, it gets a little tricky.  I totally get it.

     Up next is John Hammond!  Look at how cute he is!

      Again: wow.  Check out that texture in his hat, it looks just like a real straw hat.

     This was one of the things that I didn't notice in my initial unboxing filming and I'm disappointed to see this snarl in the mold of Mr. Hammond.  For the sake of everyone collecting these figures, I hope that this is just an anomaly in the figure I happened to get and not something in every Hammond figure.

     You know how I said there's some parts where Grant's hair color didn't go all the way to the skin?  Well, Mr. Hammond appears to have the opposite problem where his hair color bleeds onto the skin.  Its most noticeable in this profile shot but there's more of the same on his beard.  You probably wouldn't even notice it there unless you really looked.

     Riddle me this: if the bottoms of his shoes are supposed to be black, why do they look like they were painted by a spray can that didn't entirely hit its target?  I mean, its not hard to get solid black on a figure, right?  I'm not trying to sound like I'm demanding to speak to Funko's manager or anything like that, I'm just saying that I'm a little let down at this.  I get that these are made and sold for cheap but this just screams "lazy."

     While upon closer inspection, Hammond doesn't fare as well in quality as Grant did, I want to try and close out our look at InGen's CEO on positives.  The glasses, watch and rings all have a nice metallic sheen to them for extra detail and the amber at the top of the cane does have a bit of a gleam to it as well.  This was the best shot I could get of it but it is there.

     Last but certainly not least, we have the Velociraptor!  I was really excited about opening this one but I ran into some issues upon initially opening it.

     As you can see, they're a little top heavy.  I'm not surprised since the heads are far weightier than the human Funkos.  Scholar said that these stand better on their heads than the Hasbro figures did on their feet.  Fortunately, the Velociraptor (and from what I've heard, the other dinosaurs as well) come with a stand to display them on.

     However, the display base's peg didn't really fit.  I looked at the bottom of the Raptor's foot and found that the peg hole was still mostly filled in with plastic.  I wound up having to take a drill to the hole just to get the peg to fit, so much so that there's a pale spot on top of the foot where the drill almost went through.  And even then...

     ...it's not completely flat.  I found this rather frustrating because the only other Funkos I have are the 2016 Ghostbusters set (I had fun with that movie, don't @ me) came with display bases but they were much smaller and I'm pretty sure the pegs were smaller as well.  Why not just use those for these?  I'm sorry but if I have to take a drill to a $12 figurine just to get it to stand properly, someone in quality control goofed.  I've talked with other people in JP groups on Facebook who have encountered the same problem with their Velociraptor Funkos so I'm hoping that by the time the Blue Funko for Fallen Kingdom hits shelves, this issue has been corrected.

     Aside from the whole issue with the peg, the figure itself is still pretty cool.  There's a surprising amount of detail and texture in the sculpt and the claws and teeth are well painted for the most part.  The coloration is a little pale but I can forgive that.  The only other issues I may have with it are the seam lines on the back of the head and around the limbs and tail.  I wish these had been filled in to look like one solid figure instead of an assembled model kit.  Again, hoping that the Blue Funko (or any future dinosaurs from this line) isn't as problematic.

     So in the end, am I sorry I bought these?  No, I've been saying for years that there needs to be Jurassic Park Funkos and I'm happy that they exist.  That being said, I just wish that there was some better quality control.  Any spots and bleeding with the paint I can forgive but the chip in Hammond's beard and the peg hole issue with the Velociraptor disappointed me.  Again, maybe I just got a couple of duds with those two but I'm hoping that the rest of the figures in this line fare better.  I am aiming to get some doubles of the dinosaurs so I can repaint them for my Etsy shop because it'll be fun to try and replicate the screen colors on figures with such odd proportions and fill in those seam lines.

     So are you planning on picking up the Jurassic Park Funkos or are you skipping these?  Let me know in the comments below.  As always folks, thank you so much for reading and if you like what you see on this blog, you be sure to nudge that "Follow" button and stay cynical!

     -The Cynic