Lego’s latest roarsome Jurassic Park set is almost as big as an actual dinosaur

God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man creates Lego. Lego creates Lego dinosaurs. God doesn’t destroy Lego dinosaurs. Because Lego dinosaurs are cool. Is probably what Ian Malcolm said in famous dino flick Jurassic Park. It was a while ago now, so we don’t really remember. What we do remember: the film’s massive stompy tyrannosaurus rex, reimagined here – albeit in fossilised bony glory.

Yep. Since Lego already gave us a massive Lego T. rex a few years back, Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus rex now gives you the chance to build and gawp at the famous creature’s skeleton. And it’s huge – much bigger than Lego’s previous crack at a fossils display set. At 105cm (41in) long and 33cm (12.5 in) high, it towers over the bundled minifigs of Dr. Ellie Sattler and Dr. Alan Grant in a very much not-in-scale fashion.

Museum (3,145) piece(s)

Naturally, this isn’t just a static display piece. You can pose the head, jaw, arms and tail to your liking, allowing for dynamic arrangements – or entirely daft ones that would earn you A Look from the folks at the Natural History Museum. And if you’re as much a film buff as a dinosaur fan, the set’s got you covered with its display stand, Easter eggs, and movie highlights you can peruse while taking a break from working your way through the monster of an instruction manual. 

Mind you, the last of those things feels like a cheat for any wannabe palaeontologist. So for a more authentic experience, you could always take the set’s 3,145 pieces – most of which are precisely the same shade of beige – dump them in a hole in your garden, and then spend happy weeks excavating them. On second thoughts, don’t do that. It’d take even longer to build the set as it would for an actually good Jurassic Park sequel to arrive. As in, forever.

Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus rex stomps up on to shelves on 15 March (12 March for Lego Insiders). Yours for $249.99/£219.99, assuming other huge Lego sets haven’t already made your savings extinct.

• Related: I spent 20 hours building the 5471-piece Lego Barad-dûr set. Here’s how I survived it

Craig Grannell Contributor

About

I’m a regular contributor to Stuff magazine and Stuff.tv, covering apps, games, Apple kit, Android, Lego, retro gaming and other interesting oddities. I also pen opinion pieces when the editor lets me, getting all serious about accessibility and predicting when sentient AI smart cookware will take over the world, in a terrifying mix of Bake Off and Terminator.

Areas of expertise

Mobile apps and games, Macs, iOS and tvOS devices, Android, retro games, crowdfunding, design, how to fight off an enraged smart saucepan with a massive stick.