How Many Lego Pieces Were Used in 'The Lego Movie'?"According to filmmakers, that would have required 15,080,330 unique physical pieces of the plastic toys."Averaging new parts price in new sets gives around 100€ for 1000 pieces, 10 cents per piece.150,803,300€ But most likely more, as large parts and rare colours add a lot of cost.As mentioned in Ricardo Marques's answer, the filmmakers quote 15,080,330 LEGO pieces that were used in the movie. 15 million sounds low to me. Take a look at this image of a giant Einstein head in Legoland California:That one's reportedly 1.1 million bricks.This guy's supposedly about 2 million.Legoland California said it took about 20 million bricks to make the entirety of its "Miniland" display (hard to show a single picture of that for scope). That's more than used the LEGO movie?If you ask me, I would guess in the 20-50 million ballpark for the LEGO movie. 15 million seems kinda low. So... something seems missing from this picture.I expect 15 million is how many individual elements were used for RENDERING, not how many you'd need for BUILDING it.
For instance, there's a scene in the movie where a LEGO-built ocean surface has waves that rise and fall. But... they only show you the bricks that are on the top. In order to build it in reality, you couldn't have a piece at the top of a wave with nothing underneath it-- you'd have to attach it to something which wouldn't be seen in a rendered image.So, that might give us at least a ballpark guess for how much raw LEGO material was needed. How much would that cost?In the USA, LEGO pieces usually go for ballpark $0.10 per piece retail, although it can vary greatly depending on many factors. For the LEGO Movie sets, for instance, it varies between about $0.08 per piece and $0.12 per piece, with an average of $0.09 per piece.But if you were building this, you could probably get a good bulk purcahse deal from LEGO. And if LEGO were "buying" them for the LEGO Movie production? It'd be even cheaper. Easily half price if buying externally, probably even less (a lot of the cost of a LEGO set isn't the cost of the pieces, but the very complex production chain).$0.10 per piece:15 million ==> $1,500,00020 million ==> $2,000,00050 million ==> $5,000,000$0.025 per piece:15 million ==> $375,00020 million ==> $500,00050 million ==> $1,250,000So, ok.
You've got your pieces, and you've bought them. Now you have a big pile.Now you have to build them. That takes time, which also costs money!I've clocked myself building sets from instructions between 3.4 to 5.4 seconds per piece, and I'm a pretty fast builder (That might actually sound slow, but a lot of that time is spent reading instructions and searching for the right piece). I expect most people build more slowly-- but then again, if you're repeating the same steps and filling in big chunks of a solid-color wall, it's faster. Let's assume 5 seconds per piece.Depending on which piece count we want to use, we get different estimates of the time needed to assemble them:15 million * 5 seconds => 20,833 person hours20 million * 5 seconds => 27,778 person hours50 million * 5 seconds => 55,556 person hoursNext, how much should we be paying these people? LEGO doesn't exactly pay big bucks for repetitive piece assembly, but I believe it's more than minimum wage. So, it'll cost you a ballpark guess of $200k - $550k to build, plus the cost of the bricks.
That puts you between roughly $600k and $5.5M, depending on your assumptions.Lego bricks are generally awesome, and by all accounts The Lego Movie, opening this weekend, is as well. So we thought we'd make sure the folks at Lego didn't get too full of themselves by reminding the world of the worst toys, figures and building sets they've unleashed upon the world. JUST NO. I have no idea what possessed a single Lego engineer to create this cast-off from the Island of Dr. Moreau, let alone what made the company release it on an unsuspecting world. Or why they thought the two white round bricks underneath the nose-piece would represent two buck teeth and not some kind of abnormal growth. All I know is that all of these decisions were made in hate and fury. I put this is in quotes, because as you can see, while Lego assures us that this 1997 set is of a fire truck, it clearly looks nothing likeOh, it's red, and it is a vehicle, but that's pretty much where
And what good is a completely bizarre fire truck without an equally bizarre fire chief? Admittedly, this fire chief is too good to ride on the truck with his peons, and has his own mini-vehicle, without doors or even sides, to travel on. He also has his own little hose for… little fires? he's out fighting fires by himself? Because all the other Lego firemen think Call me crazy, but I think I'm got a pretty good idea how the robber could break into this bank. Or out, I guess. they behind the bars or in front of them? Is this guy trying to break into to access an ATM, or is he trying to get the endless void on the other side? either case, this thing sucks. Back in 1979, Lego created Fabuland, a line full of anthropomorphic animals, as sort of an intermediary set between Duplos andThey're kind of terrifying, like if Hunter S. Thompson had designed a toddler's Lego line while high on mescaline. But nothing is more chilling that The Fabuland Big Band set, featuring Peter Pig and Gabriel Gorilla.
monsters would listen to a band consisting of nothing but a drummer and tuba 6) Star Wars Final Duel IIYes, now you can recreate the thrilling action of Luke Skywalker's final duel with Darth Vader and the Emperor by… watching him walk down the hallway to his final duel with Darth Vader and the Emperor? long as he walks no more than four steps, because that's all the hallway In 1998, Lego introduced their K'nex-like building sets called Znap, because Zs make everything cooler. Indeed, the line wasn't overall bad — most of the kits looked all right, an they had crazy things like a Dino-Jet a giant ant along with the hover-subs and other vehicles. this piece of crap — which Lego tried to pass off as a "Jet-Car" — even more 8) Jack Stone Red Flash StationOkay, Lego, now you're not even fucking trying. Remember back in the early '00s, when Lego started trying to make sports games out of Legos? One of the earliest catastrophes was the NHL
Slammer Stadium, in which sentient giant head statues from Easter Island played a rousing game of hockey. But what's worse is the rink itself — a flimsy cardboard rink, surrounded by an even flimsier wall. If only Lego has some kind of more durable building material to work with! Horse and Clara Cow's Ice Cream Shoppe Another Fabuland set, obviously, begging a very disturbing question: Where does Clara get the milk to make the ice cream? Well before Lego Friends, Lego tried to reach girls with Belville set, a 1994 series which focused more on figures and playsets moreThe problem was the figures were godawful and the sets were a weird mix of fairy tale stuff and standard, mundane doll activities. Lego exhausted the traditional beauty salons and stables, they threw together this — sure, an interior designer is a pretty progressive progression for a doll to have in the '90s, but it kind of undercuts the message when her design
equipment consists of a stand-alone sink, a bathtub (the hell?) and a brush. can think of a sadder image than a girl trying to brush her ugly, tiny doll's plastic hair helmet, please let me know. I wasn't lying about the dolls. If Artoo had a skeleton, this is what it would look like. Lego couldn't be bothered to make a single piece that would prevent him fromFeel free to insert a C-3PO/Phantom Menace "I'm naked!" joke here, if you're a bad person. 14) Jack Stone Fire Response SUVDoes no one at Lego know what a goddamn firetruck looksOr an SUV, for that matter? In 2002, Lego had big plans for a new toyline call Galidor. They were so confident that they ordered a CG cartoon and had it on the air, about two teens named Nick and Allegra who are transported to an alien world threatened by evil aliens. It didn't do well at all, and I'm confident it wasn''t helped by this promotional figure of Nick, which looked like Chinese bootleg