At a regular drinking party for the Dinosaur Club the other day, the movie "Walking with Dinosaurs" became the topic of conversation. In addition to general comments such as "Kinashi's voice acting for Patch as a child was a bit forced," and "the pterosaur trio added a nice touch," there were also more specific criticisms. For example, "The ankylosaur that appears in the movie is clearly an Edmontonia (which the English description identifies as an ankylosaurid), but the Japanese translation calls it an Ankylosaurus. And to make matters worse, the program even includes a description of a tail club, which Nodosauridae don't have. How can such a basic mistake be allowed?" "Why wasn't it labeled as Edmontonia?" and "Leaving a Gorgosaurus tooth fossil, which would cost hundreds of thousands of yen at a mineral fair, on the hood of a car... Unthinkable!" (That last one was me.) Such opinions, typical of a Dinosaur Club gathering, flew back and forth.
All that aside, as a dinosaur movie, it scored quite highly with me, thanks to its scientific accuracy in depicting the dinosaurs and its stunning visuals, which more than compensated for the clichéd story of talking animals rising through the ranks.
As for merchandise, in Japan, Toys "R" Us imports and sells four types of 20cm-class action figures (Photo 1) that move somewhat (though not as much as Kaiyodo's Revoltech T-Rex) and make sounds, as well as 12 types of mini-figures (Photo 2) that are sold in blind bags, making it impossible to choose a specific one.

I'd really like to complete the mini-figure set, in particular, as it includes figures unique to this movie like Alexornis (birds), Hesperonychus (dromaeosaurids), Parksosaurus (hypsilophodontids), and Alphadon (marsupials). (Unfortunately, I'm still missing a few.) In the UK, there are also games, Gorgosaurus foot toys (what?), a set of three mini-figure Pachyrhino family members, and the main event, a 45cm-tall Gorgosaurus action figure (Photo 3, which I got on Amazon). However, compared to "Jurassic Park" or Disney's "Dinosaur," the number of merchandise items is much smaller, which is a relief for me.

Now, let's look at Gorgosaurus, which was cast as a main character for the first time in this movie. This is what it used to look like (Photo 4).

According to "Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (1977)" in the center of the image, "Its body was hunched forward, and it was not agile. Its abdomen was unusually bloated." In other words, its horizontal posture and abdominal ribs made it slow... It truly feels like a world away. If it hadn't stood like Godzilla, it would have been ahead of its time... What a shame.

The 1/50 soft vinyl model by Clover (Photo 5) is a fairly faithful three-dimensional reproduction of the reconstruction drawings from that era.

For more on Clover, please see "Dinosaur Treasure House Vol. 38".

Next to be modeled was the Gorgosaurus 1/35 resin kit, sculpted by Kazunari Araki of Kaiyodo in the mid-80s. It was later released as a soft vinyl kit, at which point it became an Albertosaurus. During this period, Gorgosaurus was considered the same species as Albertosaurus and had effectively "disappeared." Photo (Photo 6) shows a modified resin kit with its mouth closed. (Photo 7) shows the soft vinyl kit, both in its original style and with a forced horizontal posture. So, we have three of them in our house.

Then, in 1999, Shinobu Matsumura unveiled a bust to commemorate the revival of Gorgosaurus (Photo 8).

It was released by Kaiyodo as a polystone finished product and is still available today.
This is the only Gorgosaurus we have, but I found this one at the "Dinosaur Toy Museum."

Since that's a bit lonely, let's also introduce some figures of its close relative, Albertosaurus. (Photo 9) is a resin kit from SINZEN Modeling Laboratory that appeared once before (Treasure House Vol. 64).

(Photo 10) is a finished soft vinyl product by X-Plus, sculpted by Hirokazu Tokugawa, and is about 50cm tall.

(Photo 11) is a familiar Safari product, but for some reason, it doesn't seem to have been imported into Japan much, so it's a rare find. (I got it on Yahoo Auctions. It's a bit scratched, though.)

*I'm not too familiar with it, but the "Kabaya Hone Hone Zaurus" series includes both Gorgosaurus and Albertosaurus. It's an impressive series, but I hesitate to collect them when they're that deformed.

Gorgosaurus and Albertosaurus are reasonably sized for those who want to display a replica of a T-Rex skull (like Stan) but don't have the space (money aside). So, I have an Albertosaurus on the piano (Photo 12) and a Gorgosaurus (libratus AMNH5664) on the stairwell wall (Photo 13), but my current unattainable dream is to add a ridiculously cool Gorgosaurus from Black Hills, which costs $6,800, to this collection.

《Bonus》Recently acquired quirky items

(Photo 14) shows three types of rubber skeletons I got on Yahoo Auctions. The Iguanodon among them is something I begged to buy two of about 30 years ago, when they were prizes in a lottery. For this type of item, they're surprisingly well-made, but for some reason, they're missing the pubis and ischium, which I then made myself out of youthful exuberance (Photo 15). It's a memorable item.

(Photo 16) is a wooden deformed figure I found at a souvenir shop inside Izukyu-Shimoda Station. It seems to be handmade by a local artist, and surprisingly, it's named Protarchaeopteryx! Since it has four wings and is flying, I thought it might be better named Microraptor, but it's very beautiful and has a nice feel to it.