"The Lego Movie" opens Friday, and with a strong built-in fan base from lovers of the toy building blocks, it was expected to be the first blockbuster of the season. It may be surprising to discover that many of the people flocking to theaters this weekend will be adults, with or without children: The people who call themselves "AFOL," or Adult Fans of Legos. People such as Steve Lin, who responded to a query from KPCC's Public Insight Network. "I'm 35 and I'm a AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego). It sounds like some sort of addiction, but in reality, I'm just a big fan of anything made out of Lego," Lin said. Lin said that he was excited to see the film. "I hope it does well at the box office. I just need to watch it without any critic or fan reviews. Hopefully, it captures the imagination of moviegoers and gets people out there to build and create with Lego," Lin said. Who are the AFOLs? They have their own subreddit. They put on their own exhibitions. And they've been featured in documentaries:
WATCH: Documentary about Adult Fans of Lego So, yes, it's a thing. And as it turns out, we've got quite a few AFOLs right within our KPCC listener base. Lin said he recently put together a fan-submitted set from the movie "Back to the Future," featuring the characters Marty McFly and Doc Brown and the classic DeLorean time machine. "There's something very exciting about opening the box and dumping all the single pieces on a desk and building," Lin said. "It's extremely gratifying knowing that you are working with your hands and putting something together whether it's following someone else's direction or using your own imagination to build your own creation." Frank Forkl is another self-proclaimed AFOL. "I am a 26-year-old mechanical engineer and lifelong Lego enthusiast. I had Duplos and brick buckets as a small child, got my first set at age 6 and never looked back. Three 1'x'2'x4' bins full of Legos came with me into adulthood, along with my 14-year-old stepson's substantial collection and his little sister's Duplos," Forkl told KPCC.
Forkl said his family even does building competitions and rapid-fire building challenges. His son has the programmable Lego Mindstorms set and is building a model to help him get out of bed on time. And then there's Paul Asimow, who took Legos out of the playroom and put them front and center in one of life's most cherished moments. He told KPCC about a homemade Lego ring box they used in their wedding. "It's a his-and-hers wedding ring box! We used it at our wedding in 2004. Then-8-year old son, soon-to-be-stepson, and ring-bearer Lev Asimow made it," Asimow said. Just how many AFOLs, TFOLs (teens), or any other toy brick tinkerer turn out to see the Lego film remains to be seen, but whatever happens next, Lego's big screen debut has been a long time coming. Lego has already released quite a few straight-to-DVD movies, including flicks like "Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles - Attack of the Jedi" and "LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Super Heroes Unite." Chris Miller, who co-directed the film, told KPCC that when and how a Lego-themed movie finally came to the big screen was ultimately up to the people who run the company.
"They are really a successful company, and they are having huge growth even through a down economy. And so they didn't really need a movie. They didn't even want a movie. They were like, 'Why should we take a risk when this could backfire on us?'" In an interview on KPCC's Take Two, Miller recalled what he had to explain to skeptical executives of the Danish toy company. "The only way this is going to work is if it doesn't feel like it's coming from you guys at all. You're gonna have to hand us the keys, really," Miller said. Therese Wilbur, who teaches marketing at USC and who before that was a senior marketing director at Lego-competitor Mattel, said Miller's instinct was a good one. "It cannot be a 110-minute long commercial for the brand," she said. "There's been so much product placement and commercialization of brands in general. The consumer will read through that. It won't be perceived as authentic." Wilbur said "The Lego Movie" is a big risk for a normally conservative company, moving it into a new consumer category.
"You're no longer a toy brand. You're an entertainment property. So if things don't go well for this release and they don't meet Hollywood's expectations or box office revenue, it will reflect poorly on their parent brand," Wilbur said. WATCH: One young Lego fan's stop-action surf movie8 Things Parents Should Know About 4 February, 2014 There have been plenty of movies that ended up with huge toy tie-ins. There have even been movies based on animated TV shows that were almost solely created so as to sell toys: . But now, with opening on Friday, we have an original motion picture built around a brand of toys in a way we haven’t seen before. Sure, there have been animated movies set in the universes that certain LEGO sets are created around, but making a movie about LEGO itself is a whole new level. It’s like, instead of , they’d made . The worry with such product-driven movies is that they usually favor marketability over creativity. So, is just another 90-minute toy commercial?
Or is a film about the building set we all loved as kids (and still love as adults) able to build something new out of the available pieces? Here’s some things you should know: Will my kids like it? If the 70% kid-filled audience I saw it with, including my 14 year-old son, are any indication, the answer is a big yes. There’s a ton of humor in the movie that hits just right for kids, and anyone who has grown up with LEGO sets will see kits and characters they’ve known. And in a world where things can break apart easily, physical humor can be turned up to 11 with guffaw-inducing results. Will I like it? This is one of those kids movies where there’s so much going on, and at different levels, that everyone can have a great time. Writer/Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller did the first movie that was so well-received, and they use the same rapid-fire pace of joke delivery. But there’s also an obvious love of LEGO at play in the story that will hit any lifelong fan right in the geek-brain.
References to the sets of our youths, like the ’80s Spaceman set, and shout-outs to the DC and minifigs and sets, just pour the nostalgia on, and the core theme of using your own imagination to create new things resonates with every one of us who built the most awesome spaceships out of random bricks. It’s an animated feature, so it’s all about the voices; who do I know in the cast? Front and center are Will Ferrell having a tremendous time as the “big bad” Lord Business, who is already in charge, but who wants to destroy the LEGO universe with the diabolical artifact known as the Kraggle. The unlikely hero is a generic construction worker minifig named Emmet, played by Chris Pratt (the upcoming Star Lord in ), who literally falls on the MacGuffin that can save the universe, and is assumed to be the chosen one at the center of a prophecy. The prophecy was delivered, and reinforced over and over again, by Vitruvius, a blind wise man who acts as Emmet’s mentor. He looks like the pieces from a Gandalf minifig and a Dumbledore minifig were combined, and speaks with Morgan Freeman’s voice.
This may be the funniest role Freeman has ever done. There are plenty more, and a couple surprises that I won’t spoil, but Liam Neeson is a standout you should keep your ears open for. It’s a movie about toy sets; can the plot be more than a 2×2 brick thick? I’ll admit, I went into this expecting just a classic hero’s journey plot centered around LEGO sets and some humor, and while that’s certainly there, I was surprised and delighted by the layers. Without giving away a big spoiler, there’s more going on in this movie than the ads show, and by the end, someone must have been chopping onions, because the screen got a little blurry for me (in a good way). Hint: it has to do with dads. LEGO has recently gotten some flack for being very boy-focused; will girls get anything out of this movie? While it won’t quite pass the Bechdel Test, there is a strong heroine who is shown as a powerful, creative character in her own right. And more than one female character is cited as part of the pantheon of “Master Builders” in the LEGO universe who can make anything they want because they have strong imaginations (they see part and kit numbers with a sort of Cumberbatch/Sherlockian meta-vision).
There were plenty of girls in the screening I saw, and they all seemed to have a great time, so yes. What about the toys? Are there cool LEGO sets? Oh yeah, more than you can count. The LEGO universe in the movie is kind of like a multiverse, with each world focused on one of the classic LEGO lines. Emmet lives in the classic City world, where he’s a construction worker, and technically the movie is “based” on that set of toys. But, without spoiling too much, we also see the old west, pirates, and the medieval world, plus references to plenty others, old and new. In one sense, The LEGO Movie is a bit like , because you keep seeing characters from movies, shows, and other media that have been licensed by LEGO over the years for kits and minifigs. There’s a catchy tune in some of the ads; There are two stand-out songs in the movie. The first, “Everything is Awesome,” is the perky anthem of Emmet’s City world, and so upbeat it acts as an instant earworm that you’ll keep singing either because you’re happy, or you’re being ironic.
The other is Batman’s song. Imagine a Death Metal song about Batman’s life. The overall music duties on the film go to Mark Mothersbaugh, who music nerds will know as a primary member of Devo, and who has been doing TV (and especially animated TV) music for years now, from to , and more. He’s a master of tune and tone, and every world our heroes travel to have their own themes and moods set by the music. It could be worth picking up the soundtrack, especially for the daily drive to drop the kids off at school. All right, bottom-line it for me; why should I go see it? That’s a tough question, because I don’t know you. But let’s just say, if you’re a kid, you’re going to laugh a lot, and learn a lesson about imagination and believing in yourself. If you’re a parent, you’re going to laugh a lot more than you thought you might, and enjoy some stuff that your kids won’t get, or even notice. And if you’re an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO), you’re going to laugh a lot, enjoy the story, and completely geek out at a movie that’s filled with the toy that has filled your imagination all your life, and that was obviously made by people JUST LIKE YOU.