Nearly 30 years after Jurassic Park released and had helped reform the general public’s perception of dinosaurs, Jurassic World Dominion released in 2022. It is the first film in the franchise to feature fully feathered dinosaurs (and a pterosaur), another major step moving in line with the science that had been going on for decades. While Jurassic World did feature Dimorphodon with a partial covering on its back, and Fallen Kingdom did feature a Mononykus in one of the Lockwood Manor dioramas with feathers on the arms and tail, Jurassic World Dominion has gone all out with several new fully feathered species, the Moros intrepidus, Oviraptor, Pyroraptor, Quetzalcoatlus, and Therizinosaurus. Of those the Pyroraptor may be the most significant of the bunch, being that it is the first fully feathered dromaeosaurid to feature in the franchise, after the nod given to the advances in paleontology back in 2001 with Jurassic Park III’s quilled male Velociraptor (which is returning in Jurassic World Rebirth releasing this summer, albeit with new coloring).
Feathers on dinosaurs was a bit of a mystery until the 1990’s, outside of Archaeopteryx in the mid 1800’s. Sinosauropteryx prima was described in 1996 and was the first non-avian dinosaur to be described with feathers. Since then, an explosion of new feathered non-avian dinosaur fossils were found from numerous groups across Dinosauria, including the dromaeosaurids. Sinornithosaurus, and shortly thereafter with Microraptor, described in 1999 and 2000 respectively, revealed to the world that members of this group were covered in bird-like pennaceous feathers (in comparison to the simpler filaments of Sinosauropteryx), like Archaeopteryx discovered long before. While the bird-dinosaur connection has had support since at least John Ostrom’s work on Deinonychus in 1969 and after, if not with Archaeopteryx prior, never before has there been more obvious evidence of such. While dromaeosaurids are outside of the bird line of theropod dinosaurs, they are some of their closest relatives among the theropod non-avian dinosaurs. Following Sinornithosaurus and Microraptor, several other dromaeosaurid fossils where found with impressions of feathers over the years, those being Changyuraptor in 2014, Zhenyuanlong in 2015, Wulong in 2020, and Daurlong in 2022. With how widespread the evidence of feathers within the group is (direct, and inferred in the case of several dromaeosaurids preserving with quill knobs on their arms, like Velociraptor for example), and taking into account their phylogeny, most modern reconstructions of dromaeosaurids depict them fully feathered like a bird, complete with wings. While Pyroraptor itself is known from fragmentary material, with no evidence of feathers, it’s safe to infer them based on its many relatives. The depiction in Jurassic World Dominion seems to have been at least partly inspired by Zhenyuanlong, with its large wings, and Archaeopteryx-like tail feathers.
As mentioned Pyroraptor is only known from fragmentary material, with the holotype specimen MNHN BO001 being the infamous sickle claw of the left foot. The other material consists of various hand and foot bones, and some vertebrae. It’s name means “fire thief of Olympus”, having been found after a forest fire in 1992 at Mont Olympe in Provence, France. Pyroraptor lived during the Late Cretaceous period, about 72 million years ago, during the late Campanian and/or early Maastrichtian. Pyroraptor may be a dromaeosaurid, or an unenlagiid, which may or may not be a type of dromaeosaurid, or be its own family. It’s material may or may not be synonymous with Variraptor, another dromaeosaurid from France. With how little material there is, and how much uncertainty over what type of animal it was, there was ultimately a lot of creative freedom for creating the design of the animal seen in Jurassic World Dominion.
Shortly prior to Jurassic World Dominion released, was the launch of the Hammond Collection, a replacement for the prior Amber Collection line (close to the popular 1/12 or 6 inch scale many action figures are produced in), only this time the figures would be in scale with the mainline (1/18 or 3 and 3/4 inch scale). After the mainline figures for the Pyroraptor were revealed, I had hoped we had gotten a more film accurate Hammond Collection figure of it as far back as in 2022, shortly after the Dominion toy line’s launch, since the mainline figures were clearly based on older concept art before the film model was finalized. As a result the prior figures lacked wings, had simpler coloration, and had exposed teeth. Mattel finally released the Pyroraptor in the Hammond Collection in summer 2024 (alongside other Dominion animals like the well received Giganotosaurus and Therizinosaurus). So does this figure hold up to what I was waiting for?
In regards to screen accuracy, out of any of the smaller Hammond Collection figures, I think this is one of the most faithful, but there are a few noteworthy issues. For starters it lacks lips, which the film design has, much like the older mainline Pyroraptor figures released alongside Jurassic World Dominion, despite having a new head sculpt, and surprisingly, there’s too few teeth compared with the film design (although it is more in line with real theropod jaws, with no teeth on the jugal, the part of the skull under the eyes, and continuing past the maxilla). The skull is somewhat shrink-wrapped, but that appears to be the case on the screen design. The primary feathers look to be sculpted as part of the arm, where the film design has them attached at the wrists (although they attached to the second digit in real dromaeosaurids and other paravians). The hands are also properly positioned, facing each other, which is line with the film design (and real theropods). Feathers have been sculpted on most of the body, only stopping at the underside of the torso, and the feet. There is wrinkled skin on the rest of the belly, which continues down the underside of the tail. The backs of the thighs, and from the knees downwards have small down like feathers sculpted on them, although the feet are scaly like on a bird (or other theropods). The feet are also properly proportionally small, compared to the earlier Hammond Collection Velociraptor figures. The large wing and tail feathers are reminiscent of what was found on the dromaeosaurid Zhenyuanlong, as with the film design.
The figure is primarily a mix of red and black. There is a dark wash on the red backside of the figure, which does a little bit to bring out some of the sculpts detail. There is a blue color on the bottoms of the wing and arm feathers, and a lighter blue or grey on the tail’s tip. There is a sort of salmon coloration on the face, which can be easily seen on the animatronic or puppet, mostly on the lips. The amber glass eyes are a little bit of an improvement to the older Hammond Collection figures with them (like the original T. rex for example). The pupils are easy to spot at most angles, so long as it is in good lighting (though not so easy to photograph, and in turn makes most of the images here look soulless). There is unfortunately a lack of paint in several places which detracts from the final result. The light blue or grey color should continue down the rest of the tail, ending at the backs of the thighs, and the blue color on the wings is lacking on the underside. The third claw on the hands is also left unpainted. Otherwise the rest of the paint on the figure more or less reflects the coloration of the animal’s film design, and is certainly a step up from the prior mainline figures (or even the more recent Strike Attack figure).
Being a Hammond Collection figure, there’s a bit more articulation here then the mainline figures, which typically only have articulation at the shoulders, legs, and sometimes the neck, jaw, and tail. There is articulation at the jaw, at the back of the head, which can be rotated around, and has very little up and down range. There is articulation at the neck, which can be moved up and down, and rotated around (though rather stiff on mine compared to the head’s joint), and moved side to side. There is articulation at the shoulders, which can rotate, and move in and out, as well as the elbows, but those seem very delicate, if not poorly designed (when compared to the likes of the various Creative Beast Studio feathered dromaeosaurid figures, for example, if not other action figures). They can move up and down a little bit, and also be rotated, but I didn’t mess with them much, for fear of breaking them. The legs can be pulled in and out, and can rotate around. The knees can also rotate around, and can move up and down, but as far as the up and down movement goes, they were really stiff on mine, so I left them be (although warming up and softening the joints might have helped). The toes, or bottom half of the feet (below the ankles) have the same sort of articulation as the knees do, but were a little easier in moving around. The tail is on a ball joint, and has a bendy wire in it, though I didn’t mess with it much at all (only for a few select poses for this review’s images).
Although it doesn’t fully live up to my expectations (mostly due to the lack of lips, and lack of paint in some places, and delicate poorly designed elbow joints), overall I’ve been getting a lot of enjoyment of this little figure now that I have it in hand, and I dare say it is one of my favorites in the line now. I’ve had it sit out on my bed next to my laptop to fiddle around with since it arrived. That said, I had to pay like triple the MSRP for this one, due to its very poor supply and distribution, and not jumping on it off the bat. It released around July or August 2024. I got mine on ebay, though it might still be available through Amazon Japan as well. If you want one of these (or even multiple for pack building), I would urge one to get around to it as soon as possible, before the demand and market price increases further due to its upcoming inclusion in season 3 of Chaos Theory, and also just being of a more limited stock compared to its wave-mates Velociraptor Delta and Claire (which still seem to be available on amazon US at least, albeit double the MSRP). And if you don’t care to shell out for this one, but want a Pyroraptor with the full wings there is the new Chaos Theory Strike Attack Pyroraptor that released this year, but availability might vary depending on location. And as far as any more fully feathered dromaeosaurids from Mattel goes, there is the upcoming Wild Roar Utahraptor coming out this summer.
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