Develop Your Sense of Story » The critique round-up site Rotten Tomatoes, which granted The LEGO Movie a 96% rating, offers this concise summary: Boasting beautiful animation, a charming voice cast, laugh-a-minute gags, and a surprisingly thoughtful story, The Lego Movie is colorful fun for all ages. Surprising thoughtful stories have strong thematic structures at their core. They have a purpose, some message they are trying to argue. The LEGO Movie continues this trend by resting its "beautiful animation" and "laugh-a-minute gags" atop a strong and well-developed storyform. Balanced and fully argued, this form beneath the laughs accounts for the film's rampant success--and repeat viewings. The Dramatica theory of story defines a storyform as "the structural and dynamic skeleton of a story." Most films struggle with completing one storyform. Writer/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were clever enough to fuse two skeletons together, reinforcing their argument by doubling up.
Without giving too much away, the central story and the substory that surrounds it both address concerns of creativity (OS Concern of Conceiving). They both end in success, with one's resolution leading to the other (Story Outcome of Success). And they both leave the Audience feeling fulfilled emotionally (Story Judgment of Good). Their difference lies in the resolve of the Main Character. In the main story construction worker and Main Character Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) struggles with being a nobody. Everyone knows him, but no one really knows him. in fact, jonone even thinks about him (Main Character Throughline of Fixed Attitude, Main Character Concern of Contemplations). Along comes Influence Character Wildstyle (Elizabeth Banks) who focuses on what she can do in the here and now with what pieces are in front of her (Influence Character Concern of The Present). Her name suggests an uncomfortability with her lack of status as a Master Builder (Influence Character Throughline of Situation) and frequently ends up labelling her as a "DJ".
Unlike Emmet, people have a name and a classification for Wildstyle, and it impacts him. While Emmet falls for Wildstyle in an instant, it takes her quite a bit longer. Emmet is a horrible builder. Their relationship develops around teaching Emmet to build like the best of them (Relationship Story Throughline of Activity). With all four Throughlines firmly set in place (Main Character, Influence Character, Relationship Story and Overall Story) the central story begins its argument for out-of-the-box thinking. Emmet eventually overcomes the blindness of "Everything is Awesome" and embraces his own unique, if occasionally flawed, potential (Main Character Resolve of Change). This change of perspective allows the substory to play out its take on the argument at hand. The Main Character here remains Steadfast in their Resolve while the Influence Character Changes (vague identities intentional...spoilers!). The emotional home run witnessed from that change cements the Author's arugment that new ideas are best, and leads back into the successful resolution of the main story.
Two storyforms, one argument. One from the perspective of the unaware, the other from the position of unwavering imagination. By offering both in support of one message, the Authors of this film open up their viewpoint to all. No matter where one sits in regards to the power of ideas, they can't help but become a part of this story and thus become influenced by its stance. On the surface The LEGO Movie excels because of its wit and charm. The structure below takes responsibility for capturing our attention and opening our hearts to its message.It's only been out for one weekend, but you've probably — like most of the world — seen "The LEGO Movie" multiple times. But did you catch all the Easter Eggs and plot points that zip by during the non-stop speedy dialogue and action? Here are some of our favorite blink-and-you-miss-it moments. And spoilers on, of course: "Eight And A Half Years Later" Right at the top of the movie, after Lord Business (Will Ferrell) and Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) battle for possession of the all-powerful Kragle, we cut to a title screen that says, "Eight And A Half Years Later."
While this is a nice preview of the running "very specific time frame" joke throughout the movie, it's also way more important to the plot. That's because Finn (Jadon Sand), the kid who ultimately turns out to be playing with the LEGOs in the movie is eight and a half years old. So though it's never explicitly stated, when Finn was born, The Man Upstairs locked his toys away, separated the worlds and made sure that his son would never play with them. Given the poignant ending, this is yet another beautiful, emotional detail that adds to the richness of the film. Batman, Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman all get their time to shine in the movie, but there is one other DC Comics superhero gets his big screen debut. That would be the Flash, seen during Metal Beard's flashback to the Master Builders' initial assault on Lord Business' stronghold. He doesn't get any lines, so hopefully we'll get to see more of the speedster in the sequel. When Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and Emmet (Chris Pratt) visit The Old West, you can hear a plinky, olde timey Western version of "Everything Is Awesome" playing in the bar.
One of the biggest cameos in the movie has to be when the Millennium Falcon shows up unexpectedly next to our heroes' pirate ship. Though they weren't able to get Harrison Ford back as Han Solo (he's voiced by Keith Ferguson, who's done various Ford characters on "Robot Chicken"), they did manage to snag Billy Dee Williams for Lando, and Anthony Daniels for C-3P0. It's surprising that the Warner Brothers movie managed to get Disney's talent, but the long relationship between LEGO and Lucasfilm makes the whole thing a little more understandable. And super freakin' awesome. Another big screen reunion, Channing Tatum plays Superman and Jonah Hill plays Green Lantern, reprising their partnership from directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller's "21 Jump Street." The team will once again reunite on "22 Jump Street," though out of their superhero costumes. When Vitruvius runs down all the worlds Lord Business has tried to lock down, he mentions there's a bunch we don't care about. One that quickly flashes on screen is Bioncile, a LEGO line that ran from 2001-2010 with a deep, complicated back-story of its own.
Though this may have been a joke at the expense of some of the brick-maker's failed toys, it's also an indication of places the story could go in the sequel. What's With All The Croissants? One of the more knowing jokes in the movie finds Emmet's "friends" talking about what makes them all different, which includes eating croissants, and loving turkey drumsticks. The reason behind this is that LEGO has a few generic foods that fit right into mini-figs hands. Croissants actually show up in over 30 different LEGO sets, while turkey drumsticks are in well over 50. Probably the only item more popular is carrots, which show up over 60 times. Here's one we actually missed, but according to Deadline there's a shout-out to Jeffrey Robinov. The legendary studio head was working at Warner Brothers and greenlit "The LEGO Movie," before abruptly leaving the company. Perhaps he's mentioned on one of the many, many billboards in Brickington at the beginning of the movie? We'll just have to go watch the movie a few more times to find out...