I just saw The Lego Movie. It was fun and clever and generally a treat for the eyeballs, but I feel like it has a serious conflict with itself at its core.
Spoilers behind the cut, if you care.The movie is presented as a battle between the forces of FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS AND CONFORM and DO WHATEVER CRAZY COOL THING YOU WANT TO. And on the face of it, the movie ends with a pretty firm victory for anarchic creativity – the real-world father who wants to glue everything together into a perfect, beautiful model has had his heart swayed by his kid’s impassioned, if slightly incoherent, speech about how everyone has a super awesome creative genius inside them and won’t you just have fun and make cool stuff please, and then the six year old sister comes in with even more anarchic ALIENS FROM THE PLANET DUPLO. Which is a sequel I would totally watch, especially if all the Duplo aliens were voiced by lisping little girls. That would rock so hard.
But then the end credits begin. And what plays over the cool animations designed to get you to stick through the main credits? A reprise of “Everything Is Awesome”, the song from the beginning of the movie that’s a celebration of conforming, fitting in, and being a team player who follows instructions and has no ideas of their own.
Then the rest of the credits roll over boring baseplates, and obviously you’re supposed to start leaving now. But for those folks who stick around until the end of the movie, just to rub the real message in, there’s an acoustic reprise of “Everything Is Awesome” to remind you that it’s cool to be part of the team.
I dunno. Kinda schizophrenic. And definitely kinda working against the overt message of the film, because that “Everything Is Awesome” song is really, really earwormy. I’ve heard of people finding themselves repeatedly singing it just from the commercials and trailers, never mind the movie or the soundtrack album.
I’m not going to speculate on which message the directors and/or the various corporate entities involved in the production of this film want you take away from it. Aside from Lego who wants you to take away an urge to buy more Lego and make whatever. But I find it really interesting that the narrative ends with a vague, badly-supported argument for breaking down the walls and letting your freak flag fly high, then closes with an expertly-composed earworm that will have you humming “Everything is cool when you’re part of the team”.
Also there is a lot to dislike beneath the surface of the female lead’s narrative. She is, of course, the only girl (aside from a brief appearance by Wonder Woman, and I guess the psychedelic Unikitty is female but she’s more just the Magical Animal Sidekick in my mind?). And she’s been training for years to be the one who will save the Lego world, she’s got intense skill and dedication… and she has to spend the whole movie coming to terms with the fact that she ends up just being the sidekick of a literal nobody with no skill or training who just believes in himself really, really hard. And then becomes his girlfriend, because that’s the fate of the female lead in this kind of movie. Yeah, thanks, thanks for reinforcing that, The Lego Movie.
I mean, that’s just generic Hollywood, but having it played out that blatantly made me really notice it.
Am I overanalyzing something designed as eye candy for kids, with a few jokes for the grownups? Maybe, maybe not. This is a big, highly-promoted movie, with a lot of money in it and a well-loved franchise connection that will bring a lot of kids and adults into the theatre.
Animator’s-eye view? Lots of funny motion/timing and crazy things to look at, good animation and cinematography throughout. Gorgeous effects work on things like the water, clouds, explosions, and flames, all built out of rapidly-shifting clouds of Lego. Interesting nods to the stop-motion feel throughout, like the way some ocean shots had it running at about 4fps with full-rate characters over it because wow, moving all those bricks sure would be hard, and lots of pains taken to not bend anything in ways too far away from how real Lego minifigs can move. This is an amazingly polished and well-made movie.
But goddamn my brain just keeps on singing EVERYTHING IS AWESOME/EVERYTHING IS COOL WHEN YOU’RE PART OF THE TEAM at me now.
(Which perhaps is appropriate considering how much effort and creativity had to be diverted into the creation of this, or any other animated feature.)