The movie Jurassic Park came out when I was 11, which is the perfect age to watch a movie about rampaging dinosaurs. I saw it in the theater, and I, along with the many other moviegoers, was obsessed. I bought a paperback copy of the book and tore through it. It ruled. (I re-read it last year and it still rules.) I bought the movie on VHS, and then decades later I bought it again on 4K Blu-ray. I’ve probably seen Jurassic Park more times than any other movie. I have about 80% of the dialog memorized. I think it’s a perfect film.
In other words, I’m in the tank for Jurassic Park. So I was predisposed to like the Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler LEGO set, which is now available at the LEGO Store. Just something to keep in mind while reading about how much I do, in fact, love this set.
Price: $199.99Pieces: 1,924Ages: 18+Set #: 77984
The set comes with 1,924 pieces divided into 26 bags, plus two instruction manuals, an envelope containing a fabric vehicle cover, and a page of stickers. It’s a lot! Which is mostly a good thing — except for the stickers.
To someone on record as being firmly in the “anti-sticker” camp, this Wrangler includes an upsetting number of stickers, many of which are highly visible in the final build. The Jurassic Park logo on the car doors are stickers. The Jeep numbers, which appear on numerous parts of the vehicle, are stickers. The arrow on the East Dock sign is a sticker, as are the words “East Dock.”
I get it — this set has lots of logos and images on it. But when LEGO prints designs directly on the bricks, they come out looking perfectly straight. When I, with my big clumsy hands, affix a sticker the size of a Tic-Tac on a LEGO brick roughly the same size, it always ends up just a little crooked. It would be nice if the LEGO corporation could print these images directly on the pieces at the LEGO factory, but apparently that’s not possible. I’m not sure why it’s not possible, but after assembling dozens of LEGO sets and placing many stickers slightly askew, I have come to accept that it is.
Moving on to the build itself, the instructions first have you piece together the Jeep’s undercarriage and complicated innards. These are largely comprised of LEGO Technic pieces, with bags full of rods and pegs and gears and ball joints that all snap together in an incredibly complex way. I have no idea how anyone could possibly have designed this set. It’s amazing that it turns into a build resembling anything at all, let alone a highly recognizable Jeep Wrangler.
I have no idea how anyone could possibly have designed this set.
Eventually, as you pile on layer after layer of the Jeep’s floor, you come to the interior of the Wrangler, which has reclining seats and a center console, complete with an adorable little coffee cup resting on it. Then you build wheel wells and doors, on which you (carefully, yet still somehow crookedly) place big stickers with the iconic Jurassic Park logo.
Much of the build time is spent assembling separate component pieces that don’t look like much until you attach them to the main set and you discover you’ve built some integral part of the whole. It might be the engine, which you place snugly under the hood. It might be part of the wheel-turning apparatus that spans the length of the vehicle under the floor. It might be the array of lights above the windshield or the winch on the front bumper. It’s always satisfying to complete a component and press it into place.
The tires go on near the end, presumably so the Wrangler doesn’t roll off the table mid-build. They’re made of rubber, and they roll with a satisfying smoothness. Thanks to the aforementioned Technic pieces hidden in the Jeep’s undercarriage, you can even turn the front wheels by rotating the spare tire on the back of the Jeep.
When you’re nearly finished with the build, you come to a crossroads: which of the four Wranglers shown in the movie do you want this to be? You can pick Wrangler 10, 12, 18, or 29, each of which are outfitted differently. Depending on which you choose, you need to turn to the designated page in the instruction manual, “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style.
The Jurassic Park Jeep Wranglers You Can Build
Jeeps 18 and 29 appear in the movie shortly after the main characters arrive on the island. These are the Jeeps that take them on their first tour of the park. Jeep 18 is the one Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant, and Ian Malcolm are in when they see the dinosaurs for the first time and take off their sunglasses in awe. Riding in Jeep 29 behind them are John Hammond and the “bloodsucking lawyer” Donald Gennaro.
The other two Jeeps play perhaps more memorable roles. Jeep number 10 is the one used to rescue Malcolm after the t-rex attack. This is the one in the famous shot of the t-rex stomping after them in the side-view mirror, with the words “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear” clearly visible. (That shot is re-created in this LEGO set, via a sticker on the mirror).
Finally, you can build Jeep 12, which Dennis Nedry takes to escape the island with his modified Barbasol can of stolen dinosaur embryos. He’s heading toward a boat dock in a torrential downpour. He never arrives. Instead, he crashes into the East Dock sign, loosening the arrow directing which way to go, and then has a fatal encounter with a dilophosaurus.
Each of the Jeeps has unique features. Number 10 has cargo chests in the back. Several have poles to support the fabric roof. Jeep 12 is sort of the default one to build, seeing as the set comes with a Dennis Nedry minifigure. He’s wearing his yellow raincoat, and has two face options: one drenched in rain, the other splattered with dino venom.
Once you’ve completed the Jeep of your choice, you build the East Dock sign. This is basically an accessory – it’s obviously not the main concern of this set, but it still has a number of clever details built into it. I love how it uses clear pieces on the base to represent the rainwater that’s drenching everything in that scene in the movie. I love the varied leaf pieces in different shades of green that give a jungle-like texture to the base of the sign. There’s a tiny frog on the ground, as well as a piece of amber containing a mosquito (not a sticker!). I also love how easily and freely the arrow sign spins on the pole, just like in the movie after Nedry crashes into it. The designers really paid attention to every detail.
The final bag contains the display placard and the Dennis Nedry minifigure. He comes with a stick (“Stick, stupid! No wonder you’re extinct!”) and the iconic Barbasol can (looking at it, I can just about hear Nedry wheeze with laughter when Dodgson shows him how it works, over a lunch that Dennis is not about to pay for (“Don’t get cheap on me, Dodgson”).
While this set probably wouldn’t appeal to younger kids anyway, it’s definitely a LEGO set for adults. It’s a complicated build, with many tiny, fiddly pieces. Some of the pieces curve one way or the other, depending on what side of the Jeep you’re working on. It can be hard to tell which piece you’re supposed to use unless you’re looking very carefully.
Any complaints I have with this build are minor, even the plethora of stickers. I love the finished product wholeheartedly. It’s impressively big — it should be big, since it costs $199.99, but I was surprised by its size nonetheless. It also looks incredible. It’s iconic and instantly recognizable.
After somewhere in the range of 10 hours of build time, this set is my favorite new thing in the house. I have it sitting on my desk, next to LEGO Mario and Yoshi, and it makes me happy every time I look at it. What more could I ask of a LEGO set?
LEGO Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler is available exclusively at the LEGO Store for $199.99.
Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.
