Review: 122005 Tyrannosaurus rex

That’s monstrously innovative!!

My first reaction when I saw the top photo was: “laaaaame!”
But after reading Capn’s review and taking a closer look, I’m quite impressed. I think this might be LEGO at its best. Brilliantly well-designed for such a small model.

I picked this up a few days ago (along with the Hidden Side magazine) on something of a whim. It's a lovely little model, though I think next issue's triceratops is even better.

This is truly charming, I love it. The third Jurassic World movie has been officially named: Dominion.

One of the better brick-built dinos LEGO has done! I may have to make myself pick up the magazine this time.

These books are 10.99 in my neck of the woods. I have picked pretty much every LEGO one they've done (and a Playmobil one with a Viking) only to put it back due to the price.

I'd like to know what my stores do with the sets and figures once the magazines they are attached to are out of date. I have never seen them in the clearance areas of either Food City or Food Lion (the only two supermarket chains I've seen these books in; Walmart doesn't have them).

Anyone have the instrux?

@PaulRevere said:
"Anyone have the instrux?"

The instructions are inside the mag, so they’ll be very hard to get hold of unless you find a kind mate on your friendly Brickset site. That person would not be me.

I saw this set, and was tempted to buy, but then remembered that I have a budget and already bought a space poly bag that week. Wish I’d got it, but mags are expensive.

I have to say, I was totally sceptical about this model, but my dinosaur obsessed 3 year old was insistent on copying his sister by getting a Lego magazine of his own. As an AFOL it was a fun little build and the playability has been outstanding - a positive example of pester power for once!

Also @cody6268, a lot of these magazine poly bags end up on eBay once the magazines come off the newsstands....

@Peek_a_boo_ said:
"I do love reading reviews for these miniature models!

Out of curiosity, how much does the LEGO magazine (that this charming little T-Rex is included) cost?"

I was just in England and bought several (they’re not released in the US which is annoying considering LEGOs new no regional exclusives policy). I didn’t get the Jurassic world magazine. But the Ninjago, Ninjago legacy, friends, and city were all 5 pounds each.

I was at work while i was reading this page (i saw the link on instagram) and it was 6pm in Italy. I search immediately sone informations about this set for my country and i found out that it was inside lego magazine of january, and unfortunately today it's february...however i took the car and i went to 3 newspaper sellers of my little city and...in the last one i found it!!
I didn't believe to my eyes when i saw it.
Thanks a lot guys! You make me happy for this moment!

Btw the cost was 5.9 euro.

It’s a cute model and well done for the small pieces used. A bit weird the arms are different colours though?

Looks so menacing... ;)

@jaredhinton said:
" @Peek_a_boo_ said:
"I do love reading reviews for these miniature models!

Out of curiosity, how much does the LEGO magazine (that this charming little T-Rex is included) cost?"

I was just in England and bought several (they’re not released in the US which is annoying considering LEGOs new no regional exclusives policy). I didn’t get the Jurassic world magazine. But the Ninjago, Ninjago legacy, friends, and city were all 5 pounds each. "

These magazines are not published directly by lego, instead each country has a different local publisher. Apparently there's no US press distributor interested in publishing those magazines.
Also I'm glad that in Poland these magazines seem to be the cheapest :)

I loved this model as well as parts it has that I got 4.
Next one seems to be great as well! Its triceratops!

Brickset lists a lot of sets that are Magazine promos. Are these magazines available in the USA, because I don't think that I have ever seen them.

@cody6268:
Typically there are six possibilities for a published work once it rolls off the line. It could be sold to an end consumer, given away, accidentally destroyed, or stolen. Those are the four obvious options, because they apply to any purchasable goods. Media has two other options, which get a bit weird.

The first of these is that the publisher could decide to take a loss on the leftover copies, sell them "on remainder", and recover as much of their investment as possible. When this happens, the spine on a book will usually look like it was run over a table saw. Partly this lets anyone who purchases it know that it should be priced lower than normal, and partly this prevents someone from collecting the covers to take advantage of the last option. The ugly side of this one is that I've heard that publishers sometimes abuse it, as I once ran across a claim that a publisher sent the entire print run straight to remainder, repurchased all the copies, and then sold them outside of normal channels. The publisher ended up pocketing the full wholesale price of the entire run while the author got nothing (you only get royalties on regular copies).

And that option is that the covers are stripped and returned for a refund. Shipping media can get expensive, to the point that return shipping could wipe out any refund you get for sending it back. So, publishers will issue a refund once they receive proof that the media was destroyed. To do this, you strip the covers and send them back to the publisher (you can ship a _lot_ of covers for the same price as shipping a single copy of the book). Those notched covers will prove that it's a remainder copy, and no refund will be issued. Whole covers, on the other hand, would come from retail copies and you'd get your money back.

With these, all the publisher would be expecting back is the covers. The inner pages would be assumed to have been destroyed (which they probably are). The attached giveaways, on the other hand, _should_ probably be destroyed along with the pages. The problem is that, while a coverless book or magazine is a clear red flag that it's being illegally sold after having been reported as destroyed for a refund, these giveaways are commonly detached from their magazines. Unless you can prove that a particular bookstore is shipping the covers back and selling the sets on the side, there's basically nothing that can be done about it, because there's always the possibility that someone actually bought that many copies of the magazine, chucked them in the trash, and then listed just the sets for resale.

So cute!

@blogzilly said:
"That’s monstrously innovative!!"

@Librarian1976 said:
"Brickset lists a lot of sets that are Magazine promos. Are these magazines available in the USA, because I don't think that I have ever seen them. "

No idea about the exact situation, but I regularly review all the LEGO mags on my blog as much as I can. Here's an alternate review of the one in question with the T-Rex:

https://myleniumsbrickcorner.wordpress.com/2019/12/27/snow-dino/

Typically the "original" issues are published first in Germany by Blue Ocean, then with staggered delays in the UK, Spain, The Netherlands, Poland. The exact pattern isn't always clear, though, with the publishing cycles deviating across different countries and regions.

@chrisaw said:
"It’s a cute model and well done for the small pieces used. A bit weird the arms are different colours though?"

They're not, its just shadows making the one on the side not facing us look darker. The first two photos in the article show the model's left and right sides, and the arms match when you see them in the light

I've just scanned in the instructions from the magazine, and found out that there doesn't seem to be a way to share them on here owing to LEGO's policy of not allowing other sites to host instructions. However, in this case they aren't really LEGO's instructions, so won't be hosted by LEGO themselves...

Huw: could you make an exception for instructions such as these? Or is there a problem with copyright on the part of the publisher...?

Anyone else: PM me and I'll email you a PDF. Is that illegal...?

@bananaworld:
Illegal? That's a complicated question. Every nation has different laws, so there's no one answer that applies to all situations. In the US, if you're not making money off it (you're distributing it for free), and you're not infringing upon their ability to sell a product (the magazine isn't available in the US), it would probably be legal. Such things could still get you sued into the ground, however, depending on which company feels like you're treading on their turf. Under George Lucas, Lucasfilm was very welcoming of the fan community, even going so far as to authorize fan-produced short films being released on home video. You could sell nondescript brown robes, but you couldn't list them using the word "Jedi" in the name, or you'd be introduced to their legal team. Paramount, on the other hand, took an iron-fisted approach to the Star Trek IP, sending out Cease & Desist letters to _every_ Star Trek fan site while they were developing an official Trek site that required a paid subscription to access. So, Lucas was allowing stuff that he legally could have shut down, while Paramount was strong-arming people who were technically protected under the 1st Amendment.

"Or is there a problem with copyright on the part of the publisher...?”

Under UK law, you would be in breach of copyright, for sure.

As for the tiny dino, I thought it was great. Mini-G picked this in WHSmith yesterday (over and about the Friends mag, which she thought looked “pretty”, but she wanted that dino). I’ve never grabbed a Jurassic World mag for her before, because mostly the dinos are single lumps of plastic. But I liked this brick-built chap. Tempted to pick up next month’s issue, too, since it’s more of the same (albeit a different dino, obv).

Given that a minifig costs three quid, four for a dino, a reasonable 20-page comic strip, and a handful of puzzles seemed decent enough value. (The City mag wasn’t bad this month either, with two polybags, each of which has a minifig, but we didn’t buy that.)

Such a pity this will never be a polybag. This a great looking little build.

I got one, it's awesome. 1st time buying LEGO magazine.