There is something about dinosaurs: they capture the imagination of kids from an early age, and rarely let go! We have already taken a look at a most excellent but fairly normal-looking Creator 3in1 T. Rex this year; in the true sense of the DREAMZZz ‘Mash everything up’ philosophy, we have a new dinosaur model in this theme, this time a C. Rex.

Now… just what is a C. Rex? According to the DREAMZZz wiki, it’s a Coopersaurus Rex, and we can expect to see it early on in the next wave of episodes, due to drop on AUGUST 31. In the meantime, let’s take a closer look.

This set has five minifigures, one raven and 987 pieces! It is now available from most retailers, and has a recommended retail price of $AUD129.99/USD79.99/£69.99/€79.99. The LEGO Group supplied this set for review purposes. All opinions are my own,

I’m going to start with a bit of a gripe. My set arrived after a reasonably uneventful shipping voyage, without any dents or bruises of note on the box. That said, the sticker sheet arrived looking a little worse for wear!

I have long wondered how much it affects performance if a sticker sheet arrives somewhat crumpled. Let’s give it a go, while we wait for a replacement sheet to ship. I expect it will show up in the next week or so. By this stage, I expect to have almost finished writing this review.

In the meantime, I’ll probably place most of the stickers, as I build the model, as a test of the efficacy of the screwed up sticker sheet..

The Pieces

Once again, many thanks to the Knoller-in-Chief for taking the time to lay the elements out for our appreciation:

Now, back in the 90s and 00s, the colour scheme for a model would be determined by the product line it was part of: M-Tron would be red, black and transparent neon green; Power Miners would be Lime green and Orange (in the first wave, anyway). A few things have happened in the meantime: Colours are no longer ‘Theme locked’ – accessories and hidden bricks might appear in any colour That said, the colour scheme of a model related to the primary character involved with it. This has been Standard practice for LEGO sets since the advent of Friends and Ninjago, over 10 years ago. However, as I have been spending a little too much of my spare time staring at 90s sets recently, I thought I should make comment! As such, we saw Cooper’s preference for bright red and medium azure in his Monster Truck last year. This year the colouring remains similar: we have many red and azure elements, in particular wedge plates of various sizes. There are also plenty of black and grey parts to build up the model’s infrastructure. Of note is the large red windscreen like element, that we saw as part of 71481 Izzie’s Dream creatures.

The Minifigures.

There are four minifigures included in this set, and one grimspawn: Robot Cooper (This is the only set that he appears in), Zoey, and the Evil Doppelgangers, Dooper and Doey. It also features Sneak – one of the grimspawn who seems to be querying the central nature of his existence since the end of season one.

Cooper has one of the new puffer jackets, which debuted in this wave of DREAMZZz. Between this, the hairstyle and backpacks in previous waves, Dreamzzz has been great for further outfitting your city residents. Now, just why Cooper is currently in Robot form is somewhat of a mystery at present: I hope we find out soon.

The other highlight with Cooper is the printing featured on the side of his legs: It adds such a level of detail that I would not typically expect in a non-licensed minifigure. The puffer jacket features a stud, used to hold onto a plate with a clip, in this situation, but which I am sure will find a wide variety of uses in the future. I love the details in general – particularly Cooper’s Hoodie and tool kit in his belt. Dooper and Doey are presented as corruptions of the first wave Cooper and Zoey, while Zoey has the same outfit as seen with the Cat Cycle, albeit with a standard quiver/ purple bow.

As with all of the recent DREAMZzz sets, this one comes complete with a raven and a dream jar. This time, it has a picture of the Sandman’s castle within.

Let’s take a closer look at the build process.

As always with the LEGO Dreamzzz sets, the instructions start with magnificent hand-drawn illustrations to set the scene for what could be going on. In my experience, this never seems to bear any resemblance to anything that has happened in the series to date.

We begin by putting together the common elements: in this set, we build a small Zoey-coded motorbike—although it is hard for her to ride on it properly—a cockpit fashioned out of the front end of a rusty car, an engine block with an angled disc on one end, and, finally, something that bears a remarkable resemblance to a shipping container. The motorbike can fit inside the container.

The cockpit feels like the front end of a small car, with room for Cooper to stand at the controls.

Also as always with DREAMZzz sets, we are presented with 2 options to build towards. I started with the red pterodactyl.

The Pterodactyl

We start work with the wings held in place with the ‘double hip joint’ introduced a couple of years ago to provide larger mechs with the strength they need to stand up.

We start work on the wings: one at a time. They are essentially symmetrical. Some of the angled plates that feature in the wing, to build up its size, do not feature in the dinosaur build. I like the way the ‘Maxaroni’ tube forms the forward sweeping angle , as well as the way bar and stud elements are used to give an appearance of hydraulic mechanisms.

We move on to enhance the symmetry with the second wing before we add wing tips along with a tale to the vehicle.

Finally, we form the head, which attaches to the angled plate on the top of the shipping container. The angled elements , combined with the car engine and bonnet elements feels just like a giant mechanical bird. I was disappointed that so much of the overall appearance was dependent on stickers, but I have found myself pleasantly surprised at how well my crumpled stickers were able to be smoothed out as I applied them.

The platform comfortably holds Cooper and Zoey as they fly off to do whatever they are planning…As large as the final model is here, it remains quite swooshable.

From here, I removed the wings and head and set about reconstructing the Coopersaurus Rex.

Coopersaurus Rex

We start by constructing the hips, which connect to the click joint mechanism.

Rinse, repeat, and add in the megaroni tubes to connect to the foot. Again, these are mirrored left and right.

I appreciate the role the stickers play in decorating this part of the build, and again, I am surprised at how easily they were able to be flattened and applied.

From here, we add on the claws and tail before starting to build up the head.

The tail isn’t quite complete: we add the finishing touches and start work on the head, again showing neat parts usage with the car bonnet element.

And finally, we put it all together.

The pseudomechanical look of this build is a lot of fun. It could be an interesting exercise to redesign it in brown, black and gold, for a total steampunk look.

The mouth opens and shuts, and there is a slight degree of neck flexion and extension, but does not rotate.

The Hips are adjustable, although in the absence of moving ankles, this only affects the angle of the body. As noted, the head can nod, and the tail can also swing. So, How does it compare with other recent dinosaurs?

Head to head

Let’s look at the C. Rex head-on with the Jurassic Park/World moulded T. Rex: The JW Dinosaur is significantly smaller, has the same ankle issue, but has a head that can twist, turn, and nod.

How does it compare with the Creator 3in1 T.Rex, which we looked at earlier in the year?

While they are similar in size, the C. Rex is a little taller and more blocky. It doesn’t rely on elegant colour blocking and curves as the Creator set. I guess one looks like a dinosaur, and one looks like a robot dinosaur!

My Thoughts

This is a great Cartoonish Robot dinosaur model, and the design team have gone all out to make it look as though it has been thrown together out of scraps. There are a couple of things I might have liked to give it just a little extra oomph. In particular, while we have two wheels on the dinosaur and another two on the motorbike, I might have liked to have four wheels to make a ‘normal’ car model.

While I am griping here, I might have missed something, but I found it challenging to get Zoey to sit nicely on the motorcycle: Perhaps I just didn’t get it.

But it is not all gripes:

A few of the stickers are really necessary to capture the spirit of the robot – especially the eyes, but the others that add to the Junkyard rustiness of its appearance are fairly optional. As I mentioned, the sticker sheet was fairly crumpled on delivery, but the plastic stickers (printed on white stock) were somewhat robust, and able to be applied without appearing creased on the final model.

As I write this, my new stickers arrived exactly 10 business days after I contacted customer service.

I am impressed by Cooper’s minifigure: In the first wave of sets, I thought his figure was a little ‘Meh’, but this new one has been given all the glitz and glamour that you might otherwise expected from the ‘Ultimate’ configurations of Mateo and Izzy. As for why Cooper is now a robot? No Idea! I’ll wait and see when the new episodes drop ‘Real Soon Now’

Overall, I enjoyed this set. I reckon it won’t be too long before we start seeing some nifty, bright red jet plane or spaceship MOCs made using the parts – but I feel that is probably beyond me at present (too much to do, too little time)…

I enjoyed both of the builds but preferred the robot dinosaur over the pterodactyl. I am impressed by its overall presence. It is a sizable build, and there are enough minifigures to allow a bit of storytelling and drama. To say nothing of the super secret motorcycle garage in its torso! The Ravens and Dream Jars add intrigue to this wave of sets, but might not add much if you aren’t engaged with the source material. I’ll give a 3.5 out of 5 Arbitrary Praise Units: If you are into this sort of thing, you’ll enjoy it. If not, its good for parts.

LEGO DREAMZZz Set 71484 Cooper’s Robot Dinosaur C-Rex is now available for $AUD129.99/USD79.99/¢69.99/€79.99. If you are interested, you can pick it up from LEGO.com now.

What do you think of this set? Was a robot dinosaur on your 2024 LEGO Bingo card? Do you follow the DREAMZZz series? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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Until Next Time,

Play Well!