Review by forum member Gwangi
I’m really starting to dig this dinosaur review thing, I’ve always enjoyed writing, learning and doing anything that involved dinosaurs so naturally I would have to give this a try and as you can tell I’ve gotten fond of it. Hopefully my reviews are meeting the standards of the blog, feel free to let me know. Thinking it was time to do another review I gazed over my collection looking for a figure that hasn’t already been reviewed, not an easy task. I came across my recently acquired CollectA…ummm…what is this thing? I looked under the belly but there was no name. It looked like a generic Ankylosaur and a Nodosaur more specifically but beyond that I had no clue what it was supposed to represent. I almost put it back on the shelf; I am not particularly knowledgeable regarding Ankylosaurs and without even knowing the species how could I review it? In the interest of educating myself I decided to give it a try anyway. I was quite shocked to find out what my figure was supposed to represent, a Polacanthus…what? Seriously? Polacanthus is a genus of Early Cretaceous Nodosaurid from western Europe. The first species discovered was P. foxii in 1865 by Reverend William Fox. The other species P. rudgwickensis was named by William Blows in 1996 and named for the village in which it was found in West Sussex, England. Enough on the detail though, any one of you can read the Wikipedia page as good as I can. For what it is worth the Wiki entry on the genus cites this animal in two pieces of pop culture; “Walking with Dinosaurs” and “The Land before Time”. I think the latter was the model by which CollectA probably designed this figure.
So where to begin with this guy, well lets start on the most well known feature of Polacanthus, the large sacral shield that can be seen in just about every reconstruction of this animal. Its not there! Evidently CollectA made a Polacanthus without the one thing that might distinguish it as a Polacanthus. When I discovered that this figure was indeed supposed to be a Polacanthus I was shocked and I didn’t believe it, how could it be possible? I realize CollectA has produced some really questionable figures but this one was made in 2008, years after WWD popularized the beast. It just goes to show you that they did absolutely no research on this animal and just tacked a name on a generic Nodosaur, I’m surprised they even had the sense to omit the tail club.
Along with not having the sacral shield there are a long list of other glaring errors. The head it beakless, narrow and horse-like…a generic head for a generic dinosaur. The spikes are excessively long and I’m certain there are more of them than should be. The feet even have one toe too many, I guess if you’re going to do it wrong you might as well do it on all fronts. So…what’s good about this figure? Not much. The figure is a flat brown color and covered in small pebbly scales which I guess is something to be thankful for. The pose is fairly static but at least more dynamic than the Toyway Polacanthus. The overall sculpt really isn’t bad and if you can forget that it is supposed to be Polacanthus could pass over for a fairly good generic Chinasaur. The actual Polacanthus was about 16’ long and this figure at a little over 5” puts it at about 1/30 scale.
I hate to give it such a bad review because it is a cute little figure but it is what it is. I really cannot recommend this figure to those who want accuracy but it does make a half way decent hairbrush as I discovered while proofreading this review. If you are a diehard Polacanthus fan (and who isn’t?) then you’ll probably have to settle for locating the Toyway version, good luck with that. Hopefully this genus will someday get its due. One last note: I apologize for pushing the Sideshow Apatosaurus down the list with this thing. I’ll wait for the hate mail to start coming in. (Sideshow Apatosaurus forgives you. –Ed.)
Polacanthus (CollectA) is a post from The Dinosaur Toy Blog