LEGO says it’s learned lessons from NEXO KNIGHTS and Hidden Side for DREAMZzz

The Design Director behind LEGO DREAMZzz says the new theme has taken plenty of lessons from previous big bang launches, including NEXO KNIGHTS and Hidden Side.

Unveiled earlier today, the LEGO Group’s latest big bang theme strips away digital experiences to focus on the bricks, with an accompanying TV show to flesh out its storyline. That’s already one major difference between DREAMZzz and its predecessors NEXO KNIGHTS, Hidden Side and VIDIYO, all of which relied on a digital app or component to properly thrive beyond what came in the box.

According to LEGO DREAMZzz Design Director Cerim Manovi, though, it’s not the only lesson the LEGO Group took from its previous big bang launches when approaching this new theme.

“I think one part was to simplify our communication,” Manovi tells Brick Fanatics. “It’s always really hard to compare it with something that we’ve done. NEXO KNIGHTS was very different because we had the tech component in there, and we tried to do something that had this sci-fi knight aspect, and it was more clearly targeted towards boys.

“Hidden Side was more about the tech part, and the experience, and then the storyline within that. It was just more the newness. I worked for five years on NINJAGO and you can’t do anything wrong with NINJAGO because it just works, and it’s so cool to go out and test it and show it to kids. When we did [DREAMZzz], it felt more like exploration – going out somewhere you haven’t been so many times and trying out something.”

DREAMZzz focuses on a core cast of characters exploring the dream world to defeat the evil Nightmare King, and is based on a study of 23,000 children in 29 different countries around the world. The sets themselves – 71453 Izzie and Bunchu the Bunny, 71458 Crocodile Car and more – are zany mash-ups of real-world objects and creatures, born out of the stories of kids’ dreams.

The first wave of sets arrives in August, but the TV show will debut on YouTube on May 15. That focus on the narrative is a deliberate approach from the LEGO DREAMZzz team, based on their experiences with themes as far back as The Legends of Chima.

“It was good to go back and refer to, ‘Okay, what did work in Chima?’” Manovi continues. “We know there are things that worked great in Chima. What worked in NEXO? How did we go out with Hidden Side? And then of course within this mindset to create the premise of the brief and say it has to be LEGO-first; imaginative; creative. It has to be story-first.

“We want to come out with strong content; that’s why the content rolls out two months prior to the product, so we have the time to really land it first and kids can experience the first 10 episodes before anything. I think these are some of the learnings that went in there. And then we are LEGO because we are LEGO, kids love to build, so let’s do something that really caters also for that part.”

The building experience does seem to be a priority across the first 10 LEGO DREAMZzz sets: these are a far cry from VIDIYO’s BeatBoxes, for example, which involved minimal construction and maximum app integration. The premise is similarly wacky, though – and even evokes the retro LEGO theme Time Cruisers, which also mashed up multiple ideas into single products. Manovi agreed that it’s a relevant comparison, but stopped short of saying Time Cruisers had a direct influence on DREAMZzzz.

“There’s something around the wildness of the combination,” the designer explains. “But I have to say that’s also the difference between 10 to 15 years ago, the creative translation into bricks is just more sophisticated. And the time is different – something like this is more accepted. You can do mashup themes now. Before Avengers, nobody wanted to touch time travel.

“There’s this one old movie that did it and then the rest are like, ‘Don’t ever go into time travel.’ And now I think that the time has changed, and that we can go in a wilder direction.”

Time will tell whether now really is the right moment for LEGO DREAMZzz, but the LEGO Group is throwing its full weight behind the theme, which has been in development for four years – and has multiple years of content planned. Click here to check out the first 10 sets and find out more about the research behind LEGO DREAMZzz.

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