Review: 76976 Spinosaurus & Quetzalcoatlus Air Mission from LEGO® Jurassic World™

The Jurassic Park franchise has been with us since 1993. Back then my cinema ticket and a tub of popcorn cost me less than £5 and the idea of a LEGO® collaboration that would make T. rexes, brachiosauruses and raptors was probably as outlandish as the idea of a dinosaur theme park. But here we are, over thirty years and several sequels later, a cinema ticket for Jurassic World Rebirth and a tub of popcorn will probably cost me closer to £15 and LEGO movie tie-in dinosaurs are commonplace enough that we now look to tick off species of prehistoric creature from our wants lists.

Available from today, 76976 Spinosaurus & Quetzalcoatlus Air Mission should tick off at least one of those boxes but, as the largest set of the wave, perhaps comparing it to the price of cinema tickets and popcorn is a little unfair. I'll need to add a tray of nachos, a big gulp of fizzy pop and a bag of M&Ms for me and the family, to come close.

Products in this article were gifted by The LEGO Group; the author's opinions are their own.
This article contains affiliate links to LEGO.com; we may get a small commission if you purchase.

76976 Spinosaurus & Quetzalcoatlus Air Mission

• Release date: 1 June 2025
• Pieces: 984

Price: 

• US$ 159.99 on LEGO.com US
• CA$ 199.99 on LEGO.com Canada
• GB£ 139.99 on LEGO.com UK
• AU$ 229.99 on LEGO.com Australia
• NZ$ 249.99 on LEGO.com New Zealand
• DE€ 149,99 on LEGO.com Deutschland
• NL€ 149,99 on LEGO.com Nederland
• FR€ 149,99 on LEGO.com France
• PLN 669.99 on LEGO.com Polska
• NOK 1999,90 on LEGO.com Norge
• DKK 1299.95 on LEGO.com Danmark

Other countries click here

It is entirely unsurprising that the only new moulds in the set are for the spinosaurus, and given the size of that dinosaur, it also seems reasonable that the other prehistoric creature included – a large pterosaur – is a recolour.

There are a very small number of other recolours and just a few rare parts available in this set, perhaps the budget has mostly been given over to the splendid spinosaurus.

Dinosaurs

Spinosaurus: new moulds and recolours

New moulds:

• 1x - Spinosaurus Body with yellow pattern print in Dark Brown (6551272) NB. the lower half in Dark Tan is the same component as found in all the T. rex bodies (98160)
• 1x - Spinosaurus Head with red scales print in Dark Brown (6551273)
• 1x - Spinosaurus Tail with yellow pattern print in Dark Brown (6551271)

Recolours:

• 1x Animal Body Part, Dinosaur, Baryonyx Lower Jaw with Tan Teeth in Dark Tan (6551274 | 49972)
• 1x Animal Body Part, Dinosaur, Indominus Rex Arm, Right, with Elbow Spikes in Dark Brown (6559730 | 68444)
• 1x Animal Body Part, Dinosaur, Indominus Rex Arm, Left, with Elbow Spikes in Dark Brown (6559741 | 68445)
• 1x Animal Body Part, Dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex Leg, Right, with Pin in Dark Brown (6559744 | 98163)
• 1x Animal Body Part, Dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex / Indominus Rex / Carnotaurus Leg, Left, with Pin in Dark Brown (6559747 | 98162)

Quetzalcoatlus: recolours

It's easy to get tongue-tied on this gigantic pterosaur's name, but OED suggests: ket-zuhl-koh-AHT-luhss is the correct pronunciation. 

A white version appeared in  76947 Quetzalcoatlus Plane Ambush, now a retired set.

• 1x Animal Body Part, Dinosaur Torso and Head, Quetzalcoatlus with print in Sand Blue (6551270 | 77863)
• 1x Animal Body Part, Dinosaur, Quetzalcoatlus Lower Beak/Jaw in Sand Blue (6559704 | 77892)
• 1x Animal Body Part, Dinosaur, Quetzalcoatlus Wing, Left with print in Sand Blue (6551248 | 77588)
• 1x Animal Body Part, Dinosaur, Quetzalcoatlus Wing, Right with print in Sand Blue (6551249 | 77586)
• 2x Technic Rotation Joint Ball Loop with Two Perpendicular Pins with Friction in Sand Blue (6559777 | 47455) - a new EID for an existing element, last seen in 2006!

Recoloured pieces

• 1x Windscreen 3 x 6 x 2 in Trans-Black (6559336 | 92583, 39891)
• 1x Windscreen 4 x 4 x 4 2/3 with Handle in Trans-Black (6559335 | 11289, 63791)
• 2x Chain 6L in Dark Orange (6560439 | 92338, 39890). It is hyperbole to claim delight or even excitement at the introduction of the dark orange for the chain, but dark orange is the perfect rust colour! A potentially a very useful addition to the 6 existing available colours too.
• 1x Weapon Gun / Pistol / Revolver Large Barrel, Long Grip in Reddish Orange (6565378 | 30132, 77078)

 

Sticker sheet and new print

The stickers actually add quite a lot of detail to the build, they have been used sparingly but to good effect. We applied the stickers at the end of the build. 

The printed Jurassic Park logo is common to sets 76972, 76973 & 76976 and one Slope Curved 2 x 2 x 2/3 with print in Red (6551250) is supplied in each set.

 

Rare pieces

• 1x Wedge Plate 8 x 3, 22° Left in Olive Green (6484781 | 50305) only in 31151 T. rex
• 1x Wedge Plate 8 x 3, 22° Right in Olive Green (6484782 | 50304) only in 31151 T. rex
• 9x Brick 2 x 2 Corner in Olive Green (6469102 | 2357) only previously seen in 10326 Natural History Museum
• 1x Geode / Rock with Trans-Orange Crystal in Dark Bluish Gray (6533761 | 49656) only in 76968 Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus Rex (read our review of set 76968)
• 6x Wheel 18 x 14 with Pin Hole, Fake Bolts and Shallow Spokes in Dark Bluish Gray (6490807 | 20896) has been in 3 sets
• 1x Large Figure Wing, Small in Red (6559334 | 61800) in two sets, but last seen in 2018

• 2 x Plate 2 x 10 in Dark Tan (6522352 | 3832) or (6079776 | 3832) in 3 sets
• 1 x Slope Curved 4 x 6 x 2/3 Triple Curved with 4 Studs in Tan (6349885 | 52031) in 3 sets
• 1 x Wedge Plate 6 x 3 Right in Reddish Brown (6503731 | 54383) in 3 sets
• 2 x Slope Inverted 75° 2 x 1 x 3 in Medium Nougat (6426722 | 2449) in 2 sets
• 5 x Plate Special 1 x 2 with Door Rail in Medium Nougat (6433739 | 32028) in 2 sets

Minifigures

After approximately 35 Owen Gradys, the prospect of a newly over-used Jurassic World character is very welcome. Chris Pratt's Jurassic World alter-ego is currently the most common minifigure in the theme but, even assuming successful franchise expansion with this new film, I doubt Scarlett Johanssen's Zora Bennett will ever overtake him. 

The new minifigure elements, plus a couple that I felt were worth highlighting, are listed below.

Zora Bennett

• 1x Hair Ponytail and Swept Sideways in Dark Tan (6561519 | 87990, 18227) – note this is a recolour, seen for the first time in dark tan here.
• 1x Torso with vest and backpack print in Dark Tan (6564520)
• 1x Legs with tool belt print in Dark Brown (6565036)

Martin Krebs

• 1x Torso with white shirt and dirt patches print in White (6560437)
• 1x Legs with belt and hipflask print in Tan (6565035)

Dr. Henry Loomis

• 1x Torso with shirt and jacket print in Dark Tan (6565239)
• 1x Minifig Head with print in Light Nougat (6551216)

Duncan Kincaid

• 1x Minifig Head Kelleran Beq, Raised Black Eyebrow, Moustache, Beard print in Reddish Brown (6472375 | 106789) also in 75378 BARC Speeder Escape
• 1x Torso with shirt print in Black (6560447)

The build

The box is pretty fully packed: 8 paper-based bags, 1 clear un-numbered bag with big hunks of plastic dinosaurs and large parts, and an envelope containing 3 instruction books.

The first thing to build is the quetzalcoatlus, which is mostly packed into that clear bag with the majority of the spinosaurus. The rotation joints do need to be extracted from bag 1 to do this.

The recoloured quetzalcoatlus doesn't really feel like an improvement, more a simple recoloured replacement for the previously released version from 76947 Quetzalcoatlus Plane Ambush. That impression is entirely down to the fact that the moulds already exist and the previous version had what felt like a little more decoration overall, especially allowing for the over-moulding that was included for the beak. 

Comparisons aside, it's still a really cool looking thing, it's nice to have two dinosaurs included in the set and I do prefer the sand blue over the existing white.

The rest of bags 1 & 2 contain Zora Bennett's six wheeled jeep/truck vehicle.

It's a nicely put together vehicle, but there are no surprising or unfamiliar techniques employed to create it. This adequately serves its purpose and while that might not sound like the grandest of endorsements - what more do you want from a LEGO truck that hasn't been entirely achieved here?

spinosaurus, Spinosaurus, SPINOSAURUS!

The main draw of this set for many is sure to be the spinosaurus. As with a lot of paleontology, much of what we think about these prehistoric creatures is conjecture due to fossil records being incomplete. What we believe has changed a number of times, and current thinking on the spinosaurus suggests that it would have had shorter back legs. 

However, it does represent what was thought to be correct until fairly recently. It's a really welcome addition to the range and as far as we are concerned, any new LEGO dinosaur is a good thing! 

It would be remiss of us not to highlight an issue though. The tail really could be improved if it had side-to-side motion; it's not so obvious in other dinosaurs that use this connection, but here, where part of the spine "sail" is continued on the tail, that rotation joint causes a mismatch. It bothered me, but my son is relentlessly positive and didn't mind all that much.

In the past, I have been critical when LEGO have failed to include attachment points. Specifically, I was a bit disappointed when the stegosaurus in set 76965 Stegosaurus Discovery had no stud attachments to allow a minifigure to be a dino-rider! Perhaps my concerns have been heard; thankfully, the spinosaurus does feature just a couple of studs behind the neck joint that can accommodate a minifigure.

Next up, accompanying Martin Krebs in bag 3 is a helicopter, kids love helicopters so I will nip any further criticism right there (although to be honest, I have far more issue with the number of drones that have been appearing in more recent years). Also, there are LEGO helicopters and then there are LEGO helicopters, and this is the latter – one we enjoyed building.

 

At this point a certain incongruity occurred to my son: why is the airborne creature not built with the helicopter and the land based dinosaur not constructed with the truck? The question of this logic we suspect will be revealed when the film releases, although from past experience there's never a guarantee of that.

The remaining bags (4 to 8) contain a large ruined temple. My son's first favourite LEGO sets came from the LEGO® City Jungle theme in 2017, and he noticed some similarities in this that made those sets work so well: Indiana Jones-esque explorers, an ancient tomb or similar, and some neat LEGO creature thrown in too.

The island the action takes place on this time is Isla Muertes, a couple of hundred miles off the coast of Coast Rica. I hesitate to term the styling of this ancient ruined temple as Aztec or Inca or even more generally mesoamerican because this is entirely a fictitious ancient civilisation and merely a backdrop to the reincarnated dinosaurs that the team are here to collect DNA from. 

Whatever it is, the temple build begins with a simple structure that contains a mechanism to support some sort of vicious, spiked-hammer booby trap. You'll see it in a video in a moment.

The 'pull' for the mechanism is made from two of the 6L five linked small length chains (92338, 39890), and here joined together and cleverly secured by the ball joint bar (22484, 67692). 

There is some familiar construction utilising the angle of the  45° 'A' Plate (15706) to create two "wings", a sheer cliff face on one side and a waterfall on the other.

The curved wall panel (2571, 35251), which represents a waterfall,  lifts up to allow temple access. On the opposing side, minifigure 'handholds' for climbing the sheer cliff face are strategically placed in the form of 1x1 "nipples" (20482).

The final section of the build is the upper floor of the ruined temple and the location of the quetzalcoatlus' nest. 

A lot has been achieved here in terms of size without too many large preformed parts. Most of this is good, honest building and although it's all familiar techniques, we found a lot of variety in the build, which made this enjoyable to construct.

Sections of the top part of the temple are rigged to topple by applying pressure to the over-hanging branch/tree trunk.

This video shows that toppling function, preceded by the booby trap from earlier.

My son wanted us to apply the stickers to the set. In terms of looks, these add little in the way of essential details to the vehicles, but do provide the necessary Jurassic World and InGen branding.

The storage case for the DNA samples is improved enormously.

To my eyes the foaming base of the waterfall (below left) looks a tiny bit cartoony, but I can see there might be little else that would graphically work better to convey the concept.

I love the cave painting sticker, and the UFO beaming up an unsuspecting ungulate particularly made me chuckle.

Two identical stickers adorn the pillars at the back, adding interest to an otherwise fairly plain section of the build.

Overall, it seems that a lot of heart, effort and enthusiasm has gone into making this set as much fun as possible.

Conclusion

LEGO Jurassic World Rebirth 76976 Spinosaurus & Quetzalcoatlus Air Mission costs US$159.99/ £139.99/ 149.99€/ AU$229.99 and contains 984 pieces, including two large dinosaurs and four minifigures.

This feels like a lot of money, and almost certainly puts this set beyond the means of many of the target age group (8+) for anything other than the biggest occasions.

As a large playset, it is fairly common to have the build broken down into a number of instruction books (and this is the trend in general across all sets, where possible). For a set at this price point, being able to build in tandem or perhaps even allowing a piecemeal approach where the enjoyment can be stretched out enhances the value of the activity. As a parent it is often apparent to me the speed at which a resource can be used up, and I welcome any chance to slow the consumption of our resources!

Irrespective of accuracy based on current paleontological ideas over what spinosaurus really looked like, I believe there has been much anticipation of a LEGO spinosaurus, and I think this dinosaur will be quite sought after. It pleases me that we have the studs just behind the neck; being able to indulge a little 'fan-fiction' here to have Zora in our own dino-rider inspired adventure (or mission) is appealing, especially as we have a great big ancient ruins location to set the action in.

My son arranged the set as shown below, and when I looked at this collection of things and asked myself the dad question, "is that £140?", I was not convinced.

So I broke it down and assigned arbitrary values to each constituent part of the set: there is a decent sized truck (£16-£18), a quetzalcoatlus (£12-£15), a pretty cool helicopter (£8-£10), a new spinosaurus (£20-£25) and there's a big ruined temple scene with action features (£50-£55), add to that the four minifigures and accessories (£14-£18) and perhaps it's not all that far out after all.

Still, the relatively low part count for the price, and the limited offerings in terms of new and rare parts, needs to be acknowledged, even if it can be justified by the presence of those two large dinosaurs. If it's the bulk parts you are looking for, the set probably isn't going to appeal, unless you're getting this heavily discounted from the asking price.

Sadly, the facts are that this is 2025; it feels like everything is twice the price it was just last year; LEGO is more popular now than ever before and my perception of how much a cinema ticket and a tub of popcorn should cost me are almost certainly still stuck in 1993.

So this isn't awful value if you love and want to collect the LEGO dinosaurs.

Now available at LEGO.com

 

READ MORE: Review of LEGO Balrog Lord of the Rings Book Nook

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