EDICOLA NEWS: THE REVIEWS nr. 254

album: Jurassic World Dominion (Panini)

stickers: 216 (1-154, P1-P62), 50 cards (C1-C50)

starter pack: album + 3 packets + 3 cards limited edition 2,99€

box: 24 packets (4 stickers + 1 card per packet) 1,00€ each

mini box of 5 packets 4,99€

Some albums make your heart beat faster, it doesn’t always happen, less often than we would like, but this time it did. Not because of a close encounter with T-Rex (luckily ..) but because of this new album dedicated to the latest film in the Jurassic World / Park saga. Curated, full of information, exciting, as if the domination of the dinosaurs were really a reality and finally with a glossy paper without creases or problems easily recognizable to the touch and sight.

“Where were we left?”, Thus the album starts and it could not be otherwise. Coexistence with dinosaurs is no longer utopia, in the previous film a little girl wanted to give them freedom and now they are among us, after all it is man’s greed and thirst for money to have recreated them, a sci-fi but damn current warning how much the hand of man, of the powerful, can affect the future of our planet and our very existence.

The strength of this album is knowing how to relaunch what has already been seen in previous albums making it more captivating, targeted and particular. If the Jurassic saga has not only been a success for many years, but it is a true passion for many, especially children, it is mainly due to the curiosity that these creatures arouse, because, let’s face it, everyone has wanted at least once to be able to see a dinosaur. live (let’s be satisfied with cinema, comics and literature, which is better).

This collection is therefore a perfect mix of science and science fiction, page after page the cards of the dinosaurs protagonists and alongside the salient phases of the film. The cards of the animals are really delicious, they are not abstract, like in a school book, but they are a guide to get to know these prehistoric beings, taking the “frame” of the film.

Classic rectangular stickers, but also shaped and illustrated. We know, the shapes are difficult to attach and it is an adventure to fit them exactly with the design printed on the album, but they are their beauty. Enthusiasm for the mini stickers, necessary for the classification of the dinosaurs and the sample of the skin, had it been embossed or rough to the touch we would have reached the apotheosis but even so the idea works. In short, it is certainly a fun album to complete for children of all ages.

We do not intend to reveal too much to spoil the pleasure of the film, it is difficult to understand if it can be more appropriate to browse the album, reading all the details, the locations, the secrets of the film and then get excited go and rediscover them on the big screen, or resist, wait to go to the cinema and then run home to attach the stickers to remember through our little paper friends all the emotions we experienced while watching the film.

Several times you have read in our reviews the doubts about making albums that are too long, even less if they are also connected to a set of cards. This is not the case, in the meantime the album has an acceptable number of stickers, considering that we are talking about a blockbuster, secondly there are no parts that could have been skipped, indeed of the two perhaps a few more pages could also fit, but better thus, taking into account that, if it is true that the album contains “just” 154 stickers, the gigantic poster must also be considered.

The central poster is, in fact, a second album, the inside contains 62 stickers, if we are not at a record we are certainly close. Are we the only ones who imagine having the original copy hanging at home?!? So follow the movements of the dinosaurs based on the sightings (for those who clearly have been able to come back to tell it). An alternative solution to create this maxi poster could be to make the printed map and the various dinosaurs as stick & stack stickers so to allow them to be moved, the children would surely have liked it. If anything, it is difficult to correctly attach 42 (forty-two) stickers next to each other. Here you have to rely on Panini quality, an incorrect cut would lead to disaster, worse than the passage of a Brachiosaurus!

The poster is a pleasure to read even in its external part, a real guide to recognize and if possible, when necessary, avoid the less tame dinosaurs. Does a sign prohibiting riding a Triceratops seem superfluous? Maybe, but when in doubt, better underline it. Brilliant poster, the mix between fiction and reality that almost makes us doubt where one begins and the other ends.

In addition to the 216 stickers, we also find 50 cards. We are often against this solution, because we fear that it is only a means of making the collection more expensive by adding something superfluous. This is not the case in our opinion. We do not cry for a miracle, but compared to other Panini productions, even the cards know how to be an added value. The album lived very well even without it, but they still make themselves appreciated. The top would have been to create a set of survival cards, taking up themes, texts and images from the central poster. Perhaps by creating a combination of the two objects, perhaps even a game, even a super classic one such as the “Gioco dell’Oca” (Jurassic Goose, of course). Dear Panini, take it as a suggestion for a possible future album; what will there be? In our opinion, yes.

The total of the cards is actually 55, adding at least 5 limited edition cards, 3 attached to the starter pack, 2 exclusively on the Panini website by purchasing a box of 24 (the same one that is on newsstands). To understand if more will come out, as already happened with the last Harry Potter.

The worst mistake you can make in collecting this album is just sticking the stickers, really enjoy it, reading all the captions, you won’t regret it. Another tip, for the central poster, to avoid possible problems, collect all the stickers and then give yourself to the completion or at least do it when you have found a whole row of stickers, horizontal or vertical 😉

(EN)

EDICOLA NEWS: THE REVIEWS nr. 150

album: ULTIMATE JURASSIC WORLD (Panini)
stickers: 216 (1-216) + 50 cards (C1-C50)
starter pack: album + 5 packets € 4.90
packets: € 1.00 (4 stickers + 1 card)

Album released quietly, so much so that in some newsstands it has yet to arrive while in others it has been for 10 days. Too bad because the idea is really interesting, re-proposing the whole universe of Jurassic films in a single album. Panini had already released a similar album on the Harry Potter saga, with excellent results, just try again. Indeed, hopefully it will go ahead with the idea! (e.g. Batman)

We have reached the milestone of 150 reviews and we are happy to do it with an album that is still important, some might see it as a mere filler, in reality it is well done.

In the first pages of the album we find the history of the construction of Jurassic Park, so not from the first film (1993) but since, based on the story of the film, it was decided to recreate the dinosaurs in the laboratory.
These pages are curious because they list events outside the films (company founding, first cloning, etc.) with film events, placing them in the right place in history.
Don’t you remember them all? Jurassic Park (1993), The Lost World (1997), Jurassic Park III (2001), Jurassic World (2015), The Destroyed Kingdom (2018) and we already know about the upcoming Dominion, scheduled for 2022.

To the delight of the children and not only the album continues with the Dinosaurs, animals that in the various films in the end you cannot stop to support, so evident is the human cruelty towards them. Like real movie characters (which they are), a page is dedicated to the most important, starting with Blue, then all the others up to 13 different dinosaurs. They do not follow a chronology but if anything, perhaps, the dinosaurs that have remained in the heart. Caption and form complete the information.

The next part is dedicated to Humans (more appropriate term would be Sapiens), even here the characters are not presented chronologically, in principle we find the most recent first but it is not a rule. Beautiful quotes that accompany each page with the famous phrases recited during the films.
An interesting detail is the whole setting of the album as if Jurassic Park / World had really existed, we do not find space for the names of the actors but only those impersonated in the various films. However, the main ones are all there: Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Chris Pratt, etc.
“Do you remember the first time you saw a dinosaur?”

After a few beautiful pages that tell the story of Nublar Island and all its places, as if it were a Holiday Club, here is the final part of the album with an overview of all the films and their unforgettable moments. Starting with 5 different logos! Captions and many stickers that reproduce every evening spent at the cinema (yes, a Dinosaur film must be seen first of all on a mega screen). 72 stickers on the films are a really nice feast of images.

The stickers are mostly images taken from various films, after all it is difficult to ask a T-Rex to pose, the main detail are the 20 stickers with the volume icon, you can find them both between the pages of the Dinosaurs and those about movies. By downloading the app you could hear the roars or watch some memorable scenes.

The 50 cards do not completely convince us, although they are nice and cared for so much that they are called Dinopedia. The designs are beautiful and the features are interesting, but they repeat what has already been presented in the album, although here it is more expanded. We would have seen everything in stickers perhaps shaped for a central poster or the creation of 50 different cards, Panini sometimes manages to do splendid work, for example in the case of the Harry Potter Saga album, with cards even of much higher quality than these (the back is the same for all, since the numbering is in front).

Apart from the criticisms on the cards, albums of really excellent workmanship, there is (again) the poor quality of the card used. We hope that the end of this tormented 2020 will also take away certain editorial choices that are not very understandable by the Modenese house.
An album with this card risks canceling the great work done in terms of graphics and content, think about it!

(EN)