Branko continues his reviews of the latest LEGO Dreamzzz Sets, and finds the ‘B’ on this one strangely familiar. In many different ways!
When LEGO gifted this set for review my eye was immediately drawn to the alternate build on the back of the box; the eagle. There is quite a lot to see in this set before we get to that point, so join me while I share my opinion on this set, and highlight several references and associations this set conjures.
For example, is Logan the dreamworld manifestation of Marvel’s Rocket Raccoon? Does this mean Dreamzzz may become a licensed series after all, or does it still qualify as a story theme (read my essay on that here)? How does Eris the eagle tie into all of this?
This set was gifted by LEGO but all opinions are our own. 71512 Crocodile Submarine comes in with 1107pieces as the second largest and the second cheapest set in the Dreamzzz 2026 line for AU$109.99/£59.99/$69.99/€69.99
Box and contents
Like all boxes in this run of Dreams, the colour scheme of the main build is very clear and present. I am personally not drawn to the crocodile too much, maybe because we had one on 2023 with Logan and Cooper’s 71458 Crocodile Car.
My eye was drawn to the back of the box, where an eagle dominates the picture, conjuring all kinds of pleasant associations. Inside the box are 6 bags, and an envelope with instructions and a small sticker sheet.
The colours of the instruction manual show that the variants, indicated with blue and green, represent a significant part of the instructions with the common part (yellow) representing less than a fifth. This suggests there could be good rebuild value ahead of us!
Minifigures
In this set we have Logan and Zoey. Zoey is unique in this set, where Logan is also included in 71514 Dino Jet. The variant of Arika included in this set is also unique, although the torso and head is the same as other variants. This means that this set comes with only one (1) humongous sword; the blue one. If you are looking at collecting these things please read our collector’s guide.
Common build, the submarine
The first part of construction is for the submarine. As we have learned from the most famous submarine song; a submarine should be yellow. Immediately 6 pipes appear that remind me of the exhaust of a 12 cylinder engine. They are become less pronounced as the build proceeds, but it bodes well.
When we reach the second bag, we have build a storage compartment in the body of the submarine, for unknown purposes.
The next part fleshes out pretty much the entire body of the submarine. There is a one seater cabin, for Logan, and s place to store his sword, there are doors to cover the storage compartment, a periscope and a shape that resembles an early 20th century auto-mobile.
I was surprised to see the front of the submarine have a brick built variant of a fairly common slope (of which several are included in yellow in this set! Why is it necessary to use several pieces to approximate a slope that can be achieved in a single piece? I typically like such detail, but for a play-set like this it feels like unneeded parts inflation.
The submarine at this point looks the part, it looks like a device that could believable sub marine.
But we’re not satisfied with just sub-marining, we want a bit of presence and power! Two big outdoor motors are added to the front of the submarine, mounted at an angle giving a slightly more aggressive look. The screws/propellers at the end of these motors make it clear, this is not a spaceship, it’s a submarine!
Almost as an afterthought we imprison the blue Crystal Creature. This creature contains the inner spirit of the crocodile or the eagle so you can decide to either summon the crocodile from the crystal creature, or the eagle.
Option 1 : Crocodile
We will commence with the crocodile. First with two legs, on one side. Impressively the sub can stand on two legs! (huh? yep, that is what happened. The submarine, standing on legs.)
The mirrored legs are then built to provide stability to the submarine. With four legs it’s a lot harder to get it to balance on just two legs, but it has no issue standing on four legs.
The next parts give us the tail and the head of the crocodile. The tail looks fearsome and jagged as is common with, in particular wild, crocodiles and alligators.
The head is impressive in another way. Sure also fearsome, but the use of round shapes along the head emphasises the organic nature of the head, giving it more volume and roundness. The yellow tongue adds the the scariness, as a place you do not want to be.
This finishes the crocodile and it looks the part. Clearly Logan has learned a few tricks from his crocodile adventure with Cooper in 2023 and levelled up. This is a much more imposing creature. It’s nice that the legs tail and head can easily be removed to transform back to a regular submarine, and then back into Crocodile.
Inspired by the two legged stands the crocodile attempts a baby freeze but can’t quite achieve it and needs to support it’s read with the toenails. But in fairness a crocodile isn’t really known for flexibility. The legs, head, and tail have limited movement, which doesn’t provide much poseability.
Very few pieces are left at the end of this build. The only indication that these are not just spare pieces is given by a few pieces that have not been used at all in the current build, so they would be strange to be included as spares.
Option 2 : Milano, er… Eagle.
So let’s have a look at the eagle. From the images I expected the eagle to use two of the crocodile’s feet and be done with it, but it turns out that, despite the similarities, the eagle’s feet (claws) are quite a lot bigger than the croc-feet so you have to rebuild them from the start.
Once two legs are built it is also clear why this is the case; the two feet need to carry the body of the sub stably, which the croc struggled with.
Next we build two wings using a neat pattern of wedge plates to build the feathers with a nice colour pattern.
The tail uses smaller wedge plates to make another cute feather pattern, resulting in a surprisingly mobile tail. Out of all parts the tail turn out to be the most versatile for posing!
The head is designed just as well as the crocodile head using curved pieces to add roundness to the overall appearance. The beak is accurately resembles the menace of a real bird of prey but unfortunately there is no mouth that can open.
I repeat again, the eagle is what drew me to this set because is strongly reminded me of one of my favourite sets, 70003 Eris the Eagle Interceptor from the great range Legends of Chima. If you missed out on this series you are in luck, this latest batch of sets has a very strong spiritual connection to that.
When LEGO designer Mark Stafford visited Australia in 2013 I was lucky enough to get him to sign my copy of Eris’ interceptor and I have to agree:”Eris Rules!”.
What do you think; can you see a similarity between the sets? Logan’s set contains a lot more pieces, is more detailed and it uses some colours that were not available in 2013, but there is certainly a shared essence. Note however that Eris’ interceptor has the ability to turn it’s talons back, like a bird would do in flight, but Logan’s eagle sub has the legs completely fixed.
Even the wings have significantly less mobility than Eris’ variant; the wings can only bend up and down after the sub motors, which is like the elbows of the wings. It would have been nicer if the engines could move up and down as well as one large wing.
Our editor in chief noticed an even stronger resemblance:
The Guardians of the Galaxy Milano, especially the version pictured (76021 The Milano Spaceship Rescue) using yellowish orange rather than full orange. The limited mobility in the legs and wings suddenly make a lot more sense, the Milano has the same, and as a spaceship you do not have the same need for flapping wings as you do with a flyer.
Rocket Raccoon is always a bit passionate about machinery and looks a little menacing when visiting Logan’s eagle sub. It begs to question; since Rocket is real, and Logan in the dream-world, could there be a direct dream connection between Rocket and Logan? Logan has the ability to transform into an animal, and Rocket *is* an animal. Are we smelling the first traces of a Deamzzz-Marvel crossover?
Conclusions
While I was not at all excited about the crocodile I have grown to greatly like this set. Eris’ Interceptor and the many inceptions of the Milano spacecraft are among my favourite sets, so it doesn’t really surprise me that the eagle form of Logan and the blue crystal creature make me giddy. And the crocodile isn’t bad at all either!
The poseability is a little disappointing, which is apparent in some of the awkward poses shown in the photos, but it just gives me some incentive to do some modifications to improve on that; I think the pieces are present in the set, it just requires a bit of time and a dream.
I give this set 4 out of 5 arbitrary praise units; it’s a solid LEGO set giving several layers of play and build pleasure and for some reason it is relatively affordable compared to the other Dreamzzz sets.
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Until Next Time,
Play Well!