Buy the latest movies now and enjoy them when they release on digitalHow many Lego pieces did it take to make The Lego Movie? As it turns out, the film’s creators, directing and writing duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, didn’t just rely on actual Legos for the film; as the New York Times pointed out, just the number of bricks required for the task alone would’ve already cost millions of dollars. According to Warner Bros. Pictures, there are a total of 3,863,484 unique Lego bricks seen in the movie. But if you were to recreate the entire film only using Legos, you’d need 15,080,330, the studio said. With a unique blend of CG animation and actual Lego sets, the final look of The Lego Movie has a surprising visual depth; it almost appears as if someone painstakingly animated each and every movement through stop-motion. That’s because the animators went to great lengths to ensure that they included aspects of real Lego pieces when creating their characters.
In the video above, which was edited using footage provided by the studio, several animators of the film describe the intricate process of bringing virtual Lego bricks and scenes to life. “We tried to be quite authentic with the actual Lego product itself,” said CG supervisor Damien Gray. “There’s a lot of detail put into the sticker work, the decal work, the mold lines, chips, chunks, scratches — we tried to incorporate a lot of that.” In order to achieve that “played-with” look for Emmet and the other 182 unique minifigures that appear in the film, animators observed the physical models under microscopes to get every detail right. In addition to scrutinizing the appearance of the Lego bricks themselves, Lord and Miller also took into account other factors they wanted to mimic from stop-motion videos. “If you were animating this in real life, there would be all of these dust particles, and there is a bit of actual dandruff,” Miller told the Times.
“We did a little test of how much was too much.” So what else from the film resembles real life? Take a look at this blooper reel in which the Legos (or is it their voiceover actors?) have a little too much fun:If you saw my post for the April 2017 LEGO Store Calendar, you probably saw that the US is finally getting the LEGO Creator Mini Volkswagen Beetle (40252) as part of a promotion. It is a 141 piece set that is basically a smaller version of the Volkswagen Beetle (10252) which was released last year. We will be getting it from April 1-15, while supplies last, with purchases of $50 or more at LEGO Stores and on [email protected] The April 2017 LEGO Store Calendar is now available and we can see some of the promotions and events for the month. April 1-15: FREE LEGO Creator Mini Volkswagen Beetle (40252) with purchases of $50 or more, while supplies last. April 1-30: FREE LEGO Friends Tic Tac Toe game with a $20 LEGO Friends purchase, while supplies last.
April 1: LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales The Silent Mary (71042) available to the general public. April 4-5: VIP Monthly Mini Build event for a Chick. April 1-16: Easter Egg Hunt at LEGO Stores. Find all the Easter eggs and get an Easter sticker sheet, while supplies last. April 15: VIP LEGO Friends Mini Build event. Sign up is required. April 7 & 21: Family Game Night. April 22 & 29: LEGO Life meeting. February was a pretty news heavy month and here’s a recap of some of the more popular LEGO posts from the month. LEGO Disney Beauty and the Beast BrickHeadz Officially Announced – LEGO announced the new LEGO Disney Beauty and the Beast BrickHeadz which now available to everyone on for $9.99 each. LEGO Named 2017 World’s Most Powerful Brand – LEGO was named the world’s most powerful brand in the Brand Finance yearly Global 500 rankings. LEGO Dimensions Wave 8 Expansions Packs Announced – Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced the new LEGO Dimensions expansion packs which include The Goonies Level Pack (71267), the Hermione Fun Pack (71243), and LEGO City Fun Pack (71266).
The LEGO Ninjago Movie First Trailer Released – Warner Bros. released the first official trailer for the upcoming The LEGO Ninjago Movie. LEGO House Website Now Live – LEGO launched a new website for their LEGO House which opens in September. The LEGO Batman Movie The Ultimate Batmobile (70919) Revealed – LEGO revealed one of the new The LEGO Batman Movie sets with The Ultimate Batmobile (70917). LEGO New York Toy Fair Set Images – The 2017 New York Toy Fair kicked off and there were a lot of images for the upcoming summer 2017 LEGO sets. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Spider-Man: Homecoming Sets Revealed – During the NY Toy Fair, some of the sets for LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Spider-Man: Homecoming were shown off. LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series 17 Revealed – Also shown off at the Toy Fair was the characters for the Series 17 LEGO Collectible Minifigures. LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales The Silent Mary (71042) Officially Revealed – The last major thing that was revealed at the Toy Fair was the LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales The Silent Mary (71042).
LEGO Ideas Second 2016 Set Winner Announced – The winning LEGO Ideas project for the Second 2016 Review Stage was announced to be the Women of NASA. A reader has let me know this morning that there are some LEGO minifigure plushies that has been released in stores or will be released soon. Currently, there are four characters to choose from including Batman (853652) and Batgirl (853653) from The LEGO Batman Movie and Kai (853691) and Nya (853692) from LEGO Ninjago. Each minifigure plush will stand 12″ tall and are made with brushed tricot fabric with silkscreen-printed decoration. Update: They have shown up on . Today is the last day for the promotion to get The LEGO Batman Movie Disco Batman/Tears of Batman (30607) polybag at LEGO Stores and on . You can get it for free with purchases of $75 or more. The polybag is fairly easy to get especially with a lot of new sets already available. I’ve already done a review of the polybag if you haven’t checked it out yet.
LEGO Ideas has announced the winner of the Second 2016 Review Stage and it is the Women of NASA. This set was stated to be releases in late 2017 or early 2018. In addition, the Voltron – Defender of the Universe project is still under consideration so that could also be a set in the future. The results of that will be announced at the Third 2016 Review results. There were twelve projects that qualified for review which included Voltron – Defender of the Universe, Spaceballs – Eagle 5, The Addams Family Mansion, the Merchant’s House, the Large Hadron Collider, LEGO Observatory – Mountain View, Modular Construction Site, the Women of NASA, Star Wars UCS X34 Landspeeder, Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, Lovelace & Babbage, and The Plum Creek – The Little House on the Prairie. Honestly, the Women of NASA project didn’t really surprise me because LEGO does have a partnership with NASA and there are a few space-themed sets already including the upcoming Saturn V one for later this year.