One of the funniest bits in The LEGO Movie is when the Millennium Falcon shows up to come and get Batman. But that Star Wars cameo almost didn't happen — the makers of the film had to rush to finalize their deal with Lucasfilm before Disney bought the company. Producer Dan Lin explains to The Hollywood Reporter in a new feature:We flew up to Lucas Films [in Northern California] and showed them a small sample and they approved. But a few weeks later, Disney bought Lucas. So we had to rush to close our deal with Lucas before Disney closed its deal.That's just one of the many narrow scrapes the film had during its seven-year journey to get to the screen, according to the THR feature. Lin had a huge challenge convincing the skeptical LEGO executives in Denmark that a film was even needed, or could represent their toys in the proper spirit. Superman got held up in litigation over whether Warner Bros. even owned the character any more. And they needed to find a way to make digital animation that looked like LEGO bricks — which they did using a program called Lego Digital Designer to create a hybrid of stop-motion and CG animation, "Lego-izing" their storyboard drawings.
One thing that didn't make it into the final movie: a couple of kissing scenes. In an earlier cut, Batman and Wyldstyle kiss, and you hear a clicking sound as their plastic heads smush together. And there's also a kissing scene involving mermaids. But these were "too edgy" for the final film. Tons more details at the link. Star Wars fans were delighted when three popular characters from the franchise – Han Solo, C-3PO and Lando Calrissian – made cameo appearance in Warner Bros' The Lego Movie, along with Solo's famous spaceship, the Millennium Falcon. But according to the film's writers and directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, a much bigger role was originally planned for another Star Wars icon: C-3PO's fellow droid, R2-D2. “He [R2D2] was a Batman-level character,” Miller told Yahoo Movies. In the film, the Caped Crusader, voiced by Will Arnett, is a key character, and love rival to everyman hero Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt). “We figured we could get R2-D2 because his voice wasn’t a human being,” added Lord.
Sadly for R2 fans, the pair were unable to obtain the rights to the character, and the robot's storyline was eventually dropped. While this may seem strange, given that Warner Bros were able to use Solo, Calrissian and R2-D2's companion C-3PO in the movie, the negotiation process for the rights was a complex one. Disney, who acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, may have been reluctant to approve the use of too many Star Wars characters. Miller explained that the directors didn't think about copyright issues when writing the film. “A kid doesn’t have lawyers that won’t allow the toys to play together,” he said. "Watching my own son play, he does put Batman on the Millennium Falcon and there’s no one saying they take place in completely different times and galaxies.” The Lego Movie opened in February to widespread critical acclaim and was a box office success, with worldwide profits of $468.1 million (almost £300 million). A sequel is planned for 2017. While few details are known about the The Lego Movie 2, Miller and Lord's success in negotiating the Han Solo cameo has led to speculation that additional Star Wars characters might make an appearance in the sequel.
But with JJ Abrams's Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens due to hit cinemas in 2016, Disney may well be looking to protect the franchise's characters. Fans are also hoping that, given Lego's tie-in with Marvel, a few superheroes from the Marvel Universe might also pop up in The Lego Movie 2. However, as Warner Bros own the rights to the DC comics, traditionally seen as Marvel's main rival, this probably isn't the most likely scenario.These photos of 'Star Wars' scenes made with LEGOs are totally incredible Vesa Lehtimäki has loved "Star Wars" since he was 10 years old. "I saw the first [movie] in its first theater run back in 1977. For my generation, that's like Woodstock," Lehtimäki tells Tech Insider. "I should get a T-shirt with [the] text 'Star Wars 1977 theater run: I was there.'" Now, the Finnish photographer is out with a new photo book, "Small Scenes from a Big Galaxy," that depicts classic (and totally unreal) movie moments from the "Star Wars" universe — in LEGO form.
Lehtimäki, recently named on Tech Insider's list of the biggest "Star Wars" fans in the world, shared some of his breathtaking images with us. Follow him on Instagram or check out the book for more. Vesa Lehtimäki has no idea how much money he's dropped on LEGO toys, and he prefers to keep it that way. The Finnish photographer began shooting his kid's LEGO toys in 2009, reigniting his lifelong love of the "Star Wars" franchise. Eventually he started buying duplicate sets of the ships and fighter aircrafts so he wouldn't have to rebuild them after playtime. "I like the limitations of LEGO," Lehtimäki says. "Seven points of articulation on a mini-figure is not a lot to work with." His most photographed figurine is the Snowtrooper, which only has six points of articulation. "Its head doesn't turn because of the helmet," Lehtimäki says. "I compare that figure to the deadpan character of Buster Keaton." When it comes to choosing a scene to recreate, Lehtimäki goes with his gut.
"Sometimes an idea just pops into my head and I go after it with the camera," he says. Here, a Jawa encounters a bot on his native planet of Tatooine. The Sandcrawler behind him looks just like the one in "Star Wars: A New Hope." And in this photo, a band of Ewoks holds a jam session with the Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes, the alien group that plays in the cantina scene. Lehtimäki photographs LEGO in his basement or on the living room table during the dark winter months. The daylight is too harsh in his photos. Many of Lehtimäki’s photographs are set in a snowy landscape, reminiscent of the fictional ice planet Hoth. He substitutes baking powder for real snow, and uses the figurines to make tracks in the snow so it looks realistic. "With the snow photos, I'm not only photographing them, in a way, I get to be a member of the audience," he says. He will set the shot up and see to it that the snow falls at the time of the camera's exposure ... "But when I upload the images to my computer, I briefly switch from being a photographer to looking at the shoot with fresh eyes," he says.