The Lego Movie (Spoiler Thread) (Page 1 of 2)

Man, that song is fucking insufferable.

Just got back from seeing it and I also enjoyed the hell out of it. Now it's time to place bets on how long 'Everything is Awesome' stays in my head for.

EDIT: Got two Kids Combos just for the Lego minifigs. I have no regrets.

Last edited by Owen_Ward (2014-02-08 22:37:30)

They also end the exact same way- with a new challenger come to take over the world, never again to be revisited. Though this one was more fitting and funny than the mole things from Incredibles.

I had a great time with the movie. Even while trying to drown out the random and senseless outbursts of laughter coming from an annoying kid sitting a few rows back, trying to impress his friends. That went on the entire time. I need to start waiting at least a week after movies are released before I go see them.

The only thing I didn't like so much was Emmet being able to move on his own in real life, throwing himself off the desk. I liked the idea of the entire story being in the kid's mind. That moment dragged the real father-son story into fantasy land.

I felt that way a little bit, but I warmed up to the idea very quickly. The Emmet autonomy was more disappointing to me.

That is a good way to think about it, but it does introduce some questions, mainly pertaining to the physical autonomy of the LEGO world. Obviously the LEGO action you see in the movie isn't what's really going on physically. That is made evident by the intercuts between Ferrell looking at the table and the action that's going on in the world. It's being imaginatively embellished by... the kid? The storyteller? Maybe the characters are not really pulling all of those sweet animated moves, but that's how they envision what they're doing. Then when Emmet breaks into the human world, he sees how humans see, and realizes how much effort it takes just to move a little bit on his own. When he was in LEGO world it seemed to him like he was in an action scene, but now that he has an outside view on things and no help from the humans, he realizes that moving is actually not a simple task (though not impossible because it happened in the movie and now it's canon) for LEGO, and the "Man Upstairs" had a bigger hand in the goings on of his world than Emmet had ever known.

But I feel like adding that element of it complicates things too much. They didn't have to have Emmet move himself anyway. It wasn't vital in my opinion.

Maybe I'm thinking about it all wrong and missing the point. In fact I hope so. But for now, I'm tired. Goodnightgoodnight.

The live action stuff pretty much breaks the story. It succeeds in being funny and heartwarming, but destroys the stakes and changes the conflict. It could have worked (better) tho if Dad decided to role play Lord Business WITH Son, and we dive back into the story, conflict intact. Then no silly "You're special, Lord Business" speech fom Emmet, and Lord Business is defeated fair and square, with over-the-top, defeated-maniac dialog from Farrell.

This movie has no coherent theme. The stuff about being special is nonsense and is thrown away, then brought back at the last minute in a vain attempt to tie up the conflict. Lord Business doesn't care about who is or isn't special. There's no value in Emmet (or Son) telling him (or Dad) that he's special, yet that's what ends the Lego-world conflict. It's all storytelling sleight of hand. Emmet doesn't even have anything vested in his own specialness except that it gets him close to Lucy.

Thematically, if anyone should be telling anyone else that he's special, it's Dad telling Son. Kid clearly has issues.

I Dig the live action stuff you get to see Will Farrell's character is a Collector and with every collector who has a son they will play with stuff and it upsets them  so you see will Farrell see how silly it is not playing with the lego so then he lets go of his collector ways  and lets his son play with the toys

I felt the same way, like it pulled a back a bit and I was trying to race through, "But what does this mean, and this, and this," but the movie went, "Don't worry, it'll be alright. That house you feel like you were kicked out of? It's part of a larger, warmer house. You're still here, safe and sound. Home." In Morgan Freeman's voice.

I loved this movie so much. I wasn't expecting the father/son story at all and it really made things work*. Emmet's story is no less real when we find out that the broad strokes of it are the Son playing with his father's collection.

*I almost said "click", wouldn't have been able to live with myself.

It was really good! I had possibly the worst experience in a theater I've ever had.. but the movie was good enough to make me not care :3

Hm. Part of me thinks that this debate between pro- and anti-live-action is unresolvable so there's not much point in discussing it. Then again, I really really REALLY think that this movie would be lacking something if we didn't have that element.

I struggled a lot with the theme too, but I came to a conclusion that I think fits which I posted above. And even if they don't sync up perfectly, I think it's perfectly fine for a film to have more than one theme as long as they're semi-related through the plot, and I think The Lego Movie does that.