Posted on Feb 12, 2014 in , I didn’t have high hopes for The LEGO Movie. Lots of hype makes me suspicious, because I know the power of big money and how it can convince people that Astroturf is really grass. Besides, cool contraptions and flashy special effects often conceal a weak story line. But my buddies on Instagram told me they’d seen the movie multiple times — and that was just on opening weekend. I had a couple of free passes from the studio, so I headed to the local multiplex on a frigid Monday afternoon. Most of my fellow audience members were parents with preschoolers and kids in morning kindergarten. So the big Q: Did The LEGO Movie live up to the hype? For the most part, yes. Furthermore, the writing team and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had the challenge of giving the movie appeal to a wide range of ages, from the young children sitting behind me (who laughed all the way through) to older elementary-age children, teens, and adults. They did this by offering a multi-layered story line: For the youngest viewers, bright colors, goofy contraptions, and nonstop action.
For their older siblings, clever wordplay and cameo appearances from familiar historical and pop-culture figures, from Batman to Abraham Lincoln. For the teens, a sassy heroine and a romantic triangle. And for the adults, thought-provoking riffs on power and money, creativity, conformity, and control. The unlikely hero of this movie, Emmet, believes in following the instructions. Like all of his co-workers on the construction site in Bricksburg, he watches the “Where Are My Pants?” guy on TV every night and sees President Business, the CEO who owns everything (including all the buildings and media) as a benevolent dictator. After all, he builds cool things and keeps people entertained. Yet President Business — who is known everywhere else by the feudalistic moniker of Lord Business — has a nefarious agenda to glue the world together so that the little LEGO people can no longer work, play, or potentially defy him. So far, Lord Business has managed to separate the worlds — modern cities, the Old West, medieval castles, a fantasy land called Cloud Cuckoo Palace — and isolate or imprison the Master Builders who threaten to bring them together and create what he sees as chaos.
When Emmett finds the red Piece of Resistance that will shut off the KRAGLE (actually the top to a tube of KRAzy GLuE), he is hailed as the Master Builder destined to stop Lord Business. Lord Business unleashes his Bad Cop and Micro Managers on the baffled subversive and the ragtag band of rebels who protect him (and who quickly become disappointed in him and his abilities). As someone who has also given personality and life to the yellow minifigures, I found the characters and their story engaging. The writers make the most of the minifig features, as, for instance, when Emmet’s head replaces the broken axle of an escaping wagon in the Old West. The story culminates in a surprise that breaks every rule of how one should end a story, but in doing so, it exposes a principal tension in the story: Are rules the enemy of creativity? Much has been made of the “anti-corporate” bias of The LEGO Movie, particularly the bashing of Lord/President Business. It’s especially ironic since both LEGO and Warner are themselves giant multinational corporations.
Yes, there is a self-critical element that is also played for laughs — the billboards extolling conformity, the herd-like obsession with “Where Are My Pants?”, the naivete of Bricksburg citizens who think President Business is giving them freebies for Taco Tuesday rather than gluing them to their baseplates. However, the movie does raise questions about too much power concentrated in the hands of a single person or corporation, as well as the inefficacy of resistance when the rebels are isolated individuals pursuing their own agendas. Above all, though, this is a story that extols creativity. And while the creativity of the writers, directors, and actors make it entertaining, the movie has already launched a cottage industry of other creators as LEGO has done for nearly a century. On Instagram, LEGO photographers like the excellent @berryyeung reenact scenes with their own LEGO Movie minifigures. I have used various permutations of Lord Business to represent New Jersey governor Chris Christie and his Florida counterpart Rick Scott.
My Pyjamas Emmet woke up this morning not in his Bricksburg apartment but in the Winter Village cottage with his grandfather reading the newspaper downstairs. Did Emmet wake up in the wrong place, or have I now given him a backstory? When we view a movie or read a book and are then motivated to create our own versions of the story, or entirely different stories, creativity becomes a two-way street. We’re not just being fed entertainment, or made to follow the instruction book like the citizens of Bricksburg. We can expropriate the tools we’re given, like the bricks, plates, tiles, and minifigures, to critique or subvert the instructions and the stories — building our own models and contraptions, giving new roles to our minifigures, and having them act in ways that make us see those objects, and society, differently. Now that you’ve read this far, it’s time for a giveaway. I have an extra pass to The Lego Movie (which is, unfortunately not valid for AMC theaters). I know you want it.
Even if you’ve already seen the movie, you’ll want to see it again. I also have a polybag with Pyjamas Emmet. They gave these out at the movie theaters, but most of them are all gone. One lucky commenter will receive the pass and Pyjamas Emmet. If the winner is outside the U.S., the pass doesn’t work, so you will get Pyjamas Emmet and I’ll pick someone else for the pass. Contest ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, February 16, and the winner will be announced on Monday. Every year the global strategy consultancy Brand Finance releases a list of the world’s most powerful brands. In 2014, Ferrari topped the chart, but this February, the Italian super car manufacturer was usurped by a toy. It was, of course, Lego. This classic product, conceived over 60 years ago, has proved infinitely extendible in the modern era. The Lego Movie, a film based on the toy, was itself turned into a series of Lego playsets, while Minecraft, a game often referred to as digital Lego, is now available in plastic form.
It’s a perfectly circular business. And, of course, we have the Lego video games from UK-based studio Traveller’s Tales. Each of these bright, funny action adventures is expertly crafted to exploit both the appeal of the blocks themselves and the various licences – from Star Wars to Harry Potter – that have been converted into playset form. Now it is the turn of Jurassic World, and for those familiar with the Lego game formula, there isn’t much new here besides a change of IP. In the main story mode, players run through scenes recreated from the current blockbuster, as well from the original Jurassic Park and its two subsequent sequels – all filled with puzzles and appended by TT games’ quirky Lego humour. The levels are packed with characters from the cinematic series – not just the obvious leads, but also obscure extras – as well as instantly recognisable dinosaurs, vehicles and locations. And this time the game comes with an inbuilt tips guide in the form of “DNA”, the cartoon helper from the Jurassic movies who bears a disconcerting resemblance to Microsofts legendary paperclip – although fortunately he’s actually useful.
As ever, while exploring film scenes, you’re also smashing up the landscape to collect Lego studs – the small round pieces that usually get sucked up into your vacuum cleaner. These convert into game points that unlock rewards and extra content. The general rule is, if a scenic feature looks like a Lego set, then hit it. Meanwhile, in certain places, piles of unbuilt Lego will bounce enthusiastically around you, and with a tap of the button your character will build some incredible structure to move you further on in the level. Each character also has their own special skills, from throwing a grappling hook to following tracks, squeezing into small holes, or diving headlong into large piles of dinosaur poo and having a good rummage for something useful. Lego dinosaurs, it turns out, like to eat useful items. You can switch easily between the characters involved in your level, and if a situation presents itself where another character might be useful, they often begin to leap about vying for your attention.
The stand out feature for Lego Jurassic World is the ability to control the dinosaurs. Jumping, charging and biting your way through the level as a velociraptor is good fun but these moments are all too short and sporadic in the Campaign section. It’s in the “free play” mode where you can make the most of the dinosaurs and vehicles, creating your own reptilian beasts and roaming the Jurassic islands – like a sort of prehistoric Grand Theft Auto. As in other Lego games, the graphics are clean and the cartoon style perfect for its plastic subjects. The humour is suitably silly and it’s clear that the design team poured a lot of love, knowledge and nostalgia into the game, particularly in the section dedicated to the original movie. What Lego Jurassic doesn’t do is innovate on the previous Lego games a great deal – nor does it really need to. This is aimed squarely at children – or more specifically at parents who want to share some nostalgia with their kids while making use of the perfect drop-in/drop-out co-operative option.
Everything has been designed to make it safe for children who may not be ready for shocks and scares. Character deaths from the films, for example, are replaced with various light-hearted moments such as an unfortunate Lego worker being hoisted from a dinosaur cage, clutching only his dino-patterned pants. There’s also less fighting in this game than previous Lego titles – most of the time you’ll be running away and the only scuffles you see are with the odd baby dinosaur. More recent Lego games have become increasingly open-world in their design allowing the player to choose where to go next – not so much for this one though. Yes, there’s a map, and a hub world structure, but aside from some bonus levels and odd mini-game, the campaign is mainly linear, pushing you forward through the story towards the next cut scene. It also offers less challenge than some of its predecessors: everything is a little more obvious and the puzzles rarely have you searching for very long.