People who have known me understand that I have been a Lego fan my entire life. I’ve collected Lego since the age of 2 and would not be the same person without them. They have caused me grief (both in stepping on them and dealing with the cost/burden of having so much) but they consistently have inspired creativity and a love for building things that have led to my career as a developer. When The Lego Movie came out, I felt skeptical mostly because these types of movies generally are aimed at children with children themes and very lowbrow humor. And I regret not having seen this movie earlier.
I could do a plot summary with my criticisms/comments afterwards but I feel that it’s better for me just to make my comments and point out certain aspects of the film that really hit me. First, I have to take back my statement that the movie was aimed at children. Sure, a child can thoroughly enjoy this movie but I truly felt that the movie was subtly aimed at adults like myself who grew up with Lego as part of their lives.
The movie is chalk full of humor with cultural references that poke fun of geeky movies and themes that people like myself. You would see things such as the Millennium Falcon made a cameo along with a Gandalf-like wizard/prophet voiced by none other than Morgan Freeman (even though the movie does have Lego Gandalf too). But it’s these cultural references that crop up everywhere that challenge us to inspect every little detail thrown into this movie. And this movie is pretty detailed when it comes to these things.
Any hardcore Lego fan would not only catch the pop culture references but the really subtle references to our lives as Lego fans. For instance, stepping on a mini figure (who hasn’t done that????), the broken Lego space man’s helm even the throwback Lego sets. These are just a few of the things that you have to keep your eye opened to with this movie.
And when I say that the movie really is aimed at adults you can sense that from the way the villain of Will Ferrell as Lord Business is portrayed. Lord Business is certainly an allegorical figure of absolute conformity and single dimensional thinking that has come to represent the world to us adults where our sense of inspiration and creativity have diminished as a result of corporatism. To enforce his dictatorship and OCD-level strive for perfection, Lord Business wants to use a super weapon (which is Super Glue) to force all Lego beings to remain in picture perfect stances as demonstrated by Bad Cop’s vicitmized parents.
In some ways, the movie’s main plot isn’t that much different than a slightly less cynical but far more tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek version of the Matrix. The main character, Emmet Brickowski, played by Chris Pratt, represents the average/normal person. He has both the qualities of Neo from the Matrix and Joe Bauers from Idiocracy in that he is incredibly average/unspecial yet he eventually will become The One. Or at least, that’s what other people such as Wyldstyle/Lucy keep telling him.
While he does show promise here and there, for the most part he still is average throughout the movie. Much of the expectations for him are to envision and create radical things that can save their world. Instead, because of his normalcy his best efforts are weird and unconventional at best while justified that he somehow contains some power.
The interesting part is when Emmett sacrifices himself with the super glue cap attached to his back and enters into the real world. Although he manages to inspire Lucy to rally the Lego people to rebel against Lord Business, Emmett finds himself dealing with a young boy and his father. At first, the scene feels really cheesy since it’s a kid after all. But Will Farrell’s character is what makes the scene for someone like me.
Will Farrell’s IRL character is an avid collector of Lego who has managed to construct a magnificent town similar to other collectors who have displayed their creations on the internet. However, Will Farrell is highly OCD, just like Lord Business, and demeans his son for intermixing the genres of Lego. I will say that I completely can empathize with this portrayal of the avid Lego collector here; I’ve always wanted something like this where I’d have my own basement and massive town collection setup and organized neatly for display. And like Farrell in the movie, if I had my own children, I probably wouldn’t allow them downstairs until they were somewhat responsible to touch my creations.
At that point, the child argues with his dad that Emmett’s character is the hero and that the creations are things he did. His father begins to realize what’s going on and most importantly has an epiphany when he finally sees that Lord Business is none other than himself. Despite the odd creations from his son, the father respects what his son has done and welcomes it and begins to use nail polish thinner to unglue the damage he started.
The parallel of the IRL world occurs in the Lego world as Lord Business too sees the folly in his ways and that he too is “The One”. As both worlds reconcile, Farrell comments that his son’s sister can join him in playing with his Lego collection. That of course introduces the surreal Duplo collection.
All I can think about at the end of the movie was how fantastic this was. Most people who might read my blog may think that I just hate Hollywood for being soulless, lacking originality and resorting to cheap themes. While the main plot isn’t that original in itself, it does address something close to my heart and something that I feel others who have grown up with Lego understand very well. The thing of conformity, inspiration and creativity as something beautiful are handled very well in this movie and is something that as a core value of the Lego company.
Usually, rebellion is seen in movies as a force to fight for an abstract notion of freedom where the point after obtaining that freedom, the handling of it becomes an after thought. Here, conformity is seen as a thing that stifles creativity and they use concrete examples where odd vehicles, landscapes, etc. are seen as a positive and a method of progression. Similarly, the movie is a reminder to us adults that we probably have lost something as well along the way where our aesthetic sense of the world has been diminished through carefully controlled imperatives via mass media and our corporate rulers.
And it’s funny too because I remember years ago when Lego introduced the Time Travelers theme how much I hated it and merely would’ve collected those sets for the sole purpose of spare parts. Looking back and seeing how this movie introduced a number of sets that resembled the ideas from the Time Travelers theme, I feel that like Will Farrell’s character, I, too, have become far too complicit in my own life in understanding the world.
Lego does such a great job of abstracting the things around us but it’s also reflective of our own personalities. For instance, I remember growing up how I’d never mix the castle, space and town Lego together. I mean, blue walls for castles? Guns and cars with horses? You could do these things but you wouldn’t because of what we abstract in our daily lives and make concrete through what we build in Lego.
For me, it’s truly rare to see a movie these days made with soul. I feel this movie accomplishes that and it really pokes at the hearts of true Lego fans with the way they’ve managed to pull so much together in such a small time frame. I think people like Peter Jackson and Christopher Nolan should take note how to make movie with love again.
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