LEGO to say "Welcome to Jurassic Park"

It’s official! Jurassic Park is back in brick, and will be another of the many licensed LEGO themes in 2015. It was back in 2001 that Jurassic Park was part of the LEGO Studios theme, and a lot has changed since. So what should the new theme contain? What will LEGO fans want to see on store shelves?



Firstly, to clarify; this is a purely speculative article, no rumours, innuendo or saturated fats included. 

Previous movie franchises, such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings have seen LEGO release a wave of sets related to the original movies early and then a follow up wave of sets from the new movie later in the year. This worked surprisingly well with Indiana Jones, a franchise that other toy companies struggled with whilst LEGO enjoyed success. With all of the nostalgia for the original Jurassic Park movie, and its absence from toy shelves of late, this could be a really positive move.

One way of doing Jurassic Park in LEGO would be to release sets with a dinosaur, character mini-figure and enclosure to build. This way kids and AFOLs could build up a collection to create their own Jurassic Park, with the iconic gates released separately. There could also be a set of relatively generic bricks for enclosure building, with instruction inspiration, to allow fans to add to their set up. 

Of course that is an unlikely way for LEGO to go, they will want to re-create movie scenes (and no doubt so will Universal). So here would be my choices for a wave of classic Jurassic Park sets – with the LEGO way of doing things in mind!

Raptor Attack – Tim, Lex, two Raptors and a little kitchen to build. This is the low price point, all-about-the-mini-figures set.

Dino DNA – A science lab where the dinosaurs are born, include hatching dinosaurs. Include Richard Hammond, Robert Muldoon and Dr Wu. 

Triceratops Rescue – A Triceratops, obviously. Also the Jurassic Park jeep, Ellie Satler and Dr Harding. 

Dilophosaurus Danger – Yeah a couple of dinosaurs, and then the iconic Jurassic Park vehicle (that has been voted for on Ideas). Include Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm mini-figures.

Tyrannosaurus Trailer Attack – this one’s from The Lost World, but as one of Spielberg’s tensest set pieces it deserves inclusion. A Tyrannosaurus Rex, a baby one, the two trailers and four mini-figures of the team would make the set up. This would be the largest set in the theme.

The tricky thing with this theme will be whether the dinosaurs will be brick built or moulded. Moulded would be good in that it would fit in with the look of other LEGO animals, and the dinosaurs in the Dino theme looked great. The drawback is it would really reduce the building element of sets, which would make brick built dinosaurs preferable. With the talented designers at LEGO and possibility of using some moulded parts, brick built dinosaurs could look effective.

Let’s hope that the sets aren’t purely based on Jurassic World, and that the original Jurassic Park gets a look in too. Fans of awesome movies might be struggling for cash next year if LEGO get this right…