San Diego Comic Con was this past weekend, and it gave us a look at the second trailer for “The LEGO Ninjago Movie”. Putting aside the constant LEGO Movie “parental issues” plotlines, there are some solid gags in this preview—as well as a tease at how this film will integrate the live-action world, which is something that was almost completely lacking from “The LEGO Batman Movie“. I am intrigued.

The LEGO NINJAGO Movie – Trailer 2 – YouTube

I was all set to write a review of “The LEGO Batman Movie” way back in February, before the film even came out. The first of 2017’s two sequels to “The LEGO Movie” focused on not only a beloved character from the first film, but on one of the most popular fictional characters of all time. Batman is a pop culture institution. So is LEGO. Combining them is a sure thing.

And for the most part, that’s accurate. The film did well; it’s got a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The product line was robust and full of beautifully designed sets and characters. There was even a lovely Making-of book for the film (though it’s really more a collection of concept art book than it is a comprehensive look behind-the-scenes).

So why did I find it so hard to write anything about this film? Why didn’t I have the same vigor I had while writing my in-depth review of the first film?

I think it’s because a “LEGO Movie” is no longer the gamble it once was. This sequel was another fun, well-made film in the LEGO Movie universe, with a great cast and some wonderful designs. But unlike the original, the marketing for this film definitely had the vibe of “yeah, come on… we know you’re all gonna come see this.”

On top of that, the “Batman” of it all is nothing new, either. All of the familiar motifs are here:

• A gang of Gotham’s worst criminals (led by The Joker, natch) is loose in the city, wreaking havoc and conspiring against our heroes,
• The Gotham City government and police force struggle with this excessive amount of crime. And, of course,
• Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne dresses like a bat man to clean up the town and work through the pain of losing his parents at a young age.

On paper, this might sound like a recipe for a dull film. But as with the first LEGO Movie, what makes it all work is a wonderful dose of humor, self-awareness, and an obvious love for the property. LEGO Batman is definitely a fun watch, and if you liked the original, you’ll probably like this one, too.

But unfortunately, this all means that I don’t much else to say about The LEGO Batman Movie itself. Dave Pickett and I talked at length about it on my YouTube channel back in February (see above), if you’re interested in some further random discussion.

However, I will say this: I am curious to see what comes next, given the fact that we’ll have “The LEGO Ninjago Movie” to watch and think through a few months from now. As far as IPs go, Ninjago is certainly no Batman…

You can catch The LEGO Batman Movie on DVD, Blu-ray, iTunes, and elsewhere.

We’re a little less than one month out from the North American release of “The LEGO Batman Movie”, the first of this year’s two (!) sequels to 2014’s “The LEGO Movie”. In the time since our last post about it, there have been a number of trailers for the film, as well as a few TV spots with additional footage. Let’s review.

Teaser Trailer #1 – The Batcave

The first teaser sees Batman introducing us to his Batcave, general solitude, and the overall concept of the film. It also features an opening prologue, which suggests (albeit jokingly) that the film was written and directed by Batman himself. I would love it if that conceit carried over to the actual film.

Teaser Trailer #2 – Wayne Manor

The second teaser followed only a few days later, and gave some insight into LEGO Batman’s parentage (spoiler alert: Batman’s parents are dead) as well as how this film fits into the overall Bat-continuity. The Wayne Manor fireplace room is a gorgeous design, and the animation of Batman flopping around the floor like some sort of fish is very entertaining and well-posed. #ABR

Comic Con 2016 Trailer

The Comic Con trailer was the first to feature Michael Cera’s Dick Grayson/Robin, as well as more looks at the Batcave and Batman’s expansive costume collection.

Trailer #4

The succinctly-titled “Trailer #4” serves as an amalgam of the previous previews, while also showcasing more of the plot and characters—including Rosario Dawson as Barbara Gordon, and Zack Galifianakis as The Joker.

Extended TV Spot

Finally, the Extended TV Spot confirms something that I was curious about—this film will take place in “Gotham City” (or a reasonable brick-built facsimile) and not Bricksburg (home of Emmet from the original LEGO Movie). We also get more of the Dark Knight’s rogues gallery, including The Riddler, Catwoman, Penguin, Gentleman Ghost (real), Calendar Man (very real), and the Condiment King (really really real). Of course, my favorite villain (seen here in a quick glimpse) will most likely prove to be Killer Croc, if only for the retro LEGO crocodile head he sports in this film.

What are you most looking forward to in The LEGO Batman Movie? Did we miss any of the trailers? Let us know in the comments!

Warner Bros. has released some promotional images for its forthcoming, aptly-titled film: “The LEGO Batman Movie.” (Not to be confused with “LEGO Batman: The Movie”, a home video release from 2012.) The caped crusader, once again played by Will Arnett, will be swooping into theaters on February 10, 2017.

Batman in a new version of the Batwing, flying over… Gotham? Bricksburg?

A Batcave detail, with costume variations like the “Raging Bat” boxing outfit, and “Excalibat”, which seems to be a Castle-themed suit of armor. (I also see “Bat By Gaslight”, “Glam Bat”, “Current Bat”, and “New 52” signs at the bottom.)

It appears that the brick-built explosion motif will carry over from the first film, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Batman in his cowl and dinner jacket, microwaving a lobster. Nothing weird about that.

The man himself.

According to ComingSoon.net, a trailer for the film is supposed to drop today. No word on that so far, but we’ll update you as soon it hits the web.

How will this film tie into the established LEGO Movie continuity? We’ll just have to wait (though not quite as long as last time) and see.

Sneak peek: ‘Lego Batman’ shows his brick-made lair | USA Today

Here’s the first look at Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Lego Batman movie | Polygon

Something is happening in outer space…

Peter Reid’s Exo Suit is the latest release from the website-formerly-known-as-Cuusoo, LEGO Ideas. To announce the impending arrival of this set, TLG put out the above CG animated video, “co-created” (whatever that means) by Chris Salt of Oblong Pictures. I think having promotional videos for upcoming LEGO Ideas sets is a great concept on TLG’s part, but as with so many of their releases, this one suffers from being about twice as long as it needed to be.

Oddly, I don’t think the running time would have stuck out to me as much if the video had been done with stop-motion. As much as I’d love to see the real Exo Suit kit get animated (and I’m sure we will), it is a fragile-looking design. TLG tends to use CG when there are clear advantages to having a weightless wire-frame model, and that makes sense here from a production standpoint.

Except… none of those advantages are really utilized, and there’s large swaths of time where we’re basically looking at a video of a still image. It’s neat that the characters adhere to real-world minifig limitations (the influence of The LEGO Movie continues to be felt), but there is just SO MUCH DEAD TIME in this piece that it makes me wonder why they bothered making an animated video at all. When Exo Suit pilot Yve punches the keypad at 2:00, and the door starts whirring open with all the quickness of an inebriated turtle, I literally yelled at my computer screen for it to hurry up.

Anyway, I can certainly appreciate the effort that goes into making an animated video of any kind; this one just didn’t do it for me. Despite the less than stellar (space pun) execution, I’m hoping that promo videos for LEGO Ideas sets become something we see more of in the future. At the very least, it did get me excited about the set itself.

LEGO® Ideas #007 — Exo Suit – YouTube

If you haven’t done so already, you can watch the episode on Hulu or Fox.com now (or in a week if you don’t have an account that can unlock it). Once you’ve watched that come back here and tell us what you thought.

Overall, I would rate the episode a “Yellow 4×2 Flat” on the Love Tester in Moe’s Tavern. There were a few hilarious bits (the scene in the church made me laugh the most, and there were some great pause-or-you’ll-miss-them puns [here’s the best round-up of those]), some mediocre bits (“The Hunger Games” parody wasn’t very inspired) and plenty of smile-worthy material in between.

Visually, this episode would have been a lot more impressive if it hadn’t come out a few months after “The LEGO Movie“. The CGI is a cut above the style used for Ninjago and Chima (or “Clutch Powers“) and it really is a perfect blend of stop-motionesque CGI and the Simpson’s existing aesthetic, but it’s hard not to compare it to the much shinier movie (especially since the episode compares itself to the movie).

What did you think? Was this episode a sell-out or just great cross-promotion? Did it tickle your funny bone or leaving you feeling flat? Does it count as a “real” LEGO movie?

As of this writing, the most-viewed article on The Set Bump is this short-and-admittedly-more-snarky-than-helpful piece entitled “No, ‘The LEGO Movie’ isn’t stop-motion”. I posted this commentary last year, as a response to several articles that jumped the gun by describing the contents of The LEGO Movie trailer as stop-motion when it was clearly done with CG.

Now, when I say:

It was clearly done with CG.

I of course mean:

Based on my 20+ years of study; and my knowledge of the limitations of LEGO stop-motion, film scheduling, and cash money; I (and my well-trained eye) can say with 99.9% certainty that not one shot in “The LEGO Movie” trailer is pure stop-motion photography.

Of course, motion pictures are illusions by definition, but I was still confident in my assertion that The LEGO Movie wasn’t stop-motion. Further adding to the confusion were contradictory comments from the directors and filmmaking crew, which skirted the line between actual information and marketing hype soundbites. What we really needed was hard evidence in the form of behind-the-scenes featurettes and footage.

And over the past month or so, we got just that.

First up was this “Behind the Bricks” mockumentary featurette, which was basically just a promo piece and not anything about the making of The LEGO Movie itself. Funny, but not helpful. It all still looked like 100% CG.

Next was this weird footage dump from ScreenSlam of some LEGO Movie making-of clips. Still no sign of stop-motion. (They did release some fun behind-the-scenes bits of the dialogue recording session with Chris Pratt, though.)

Then came this (veeeeeery dry) episode and article from fxguide, featuring interviews with Animal Logic crew members who detail (greaaaaaat detail) the CG approach and pipeline used for The LEGO Movie. Vindication was mine!

Finally, earlier today, Art of the Title gave us a look at the creation of the end titles from The LEGO Movie, and — lo and behold — they actually are stop-motion. Annoyingly, I can’t embed the videos here, but you should definitely check out the link. There’s a ton of cool making-of goodness to pour over.

On the set of the full end title reveal.

So what does this all mean? Well, it means that technically the directors weren’t kidding when they said there was some stop-motion in the film. Although it does still feel a tiny bit disingenuous to describe the entire film as “part-CGI and part actual real LEGO bricks in stop-motion”.

To be honest, having seen The LEGO Movie for a third time this past week, I still wasn’t sure myself as to whether the end titles were stop-motion or not. The animation and physical built pieces looked like stop-motion, but the structure of the “cubbyhole” layout seemed too CG-like to me. Knowing now how much CG pre-vis was done on the sequence, that assertion makes total sense.

Anyway, I guess the most important thing to take away here is that it really doesn’t matter what medium is used to make a film; as long as the story is compelling, memorable, and filled with characters who invite you to join them on their journey. Of course, I’ll still be waiting with bated breath for The LEGO Movie on home video… despite being CG, there are some amazing builds that I really want to go through one frame at a time.

I’ll also be checking the DVD featurettes veeeeery carefully for any signs of stop-motion.

One of the few reviews I’ve seen that actually focuses on the animation style of the film is this one over at Cartoon Brew:

Many films have attempted to break the Pixar-by-way-of-Disney animation mold by suggesting a more stylized approach to animated movement, among them the Madagascar series, Wreck-It Ralph, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. Lego Movie pushes further than any of those films with a consistently inventive style of movement (the key word being consistent).

This feature on io9 has some interesting quotes from the directors. Chris McKay, who was in charge of the animation, has nice things to say about brick films:

There’s a charm to those brick films. I think part of that comes with the heart and soul of the filmmaker who comes to the table and wants to create something that is probably beyond their scope… We wanted the movie to feel like that.

This NPR review reveals a scene that got nixed:

They initially penned a re-education scene for Emmet, with his eyes forcibly held open, after he strays too far from Lord Business’ way of doing things. The Stanley Kubrick reference was deemed “not perfectly appropriate for family audiences.”

(Don’t worry, someone else has got a LEGO version in of that in the works…)

The AV Club review (contains the spoiler) nicely mirrored my own sentiments and Mr Pagano’s:

The only real bone to pick with The Lego Movie is that the gender disparity of the toys themselves—a pervasive criticism of the brand—has carried over to the film’s major characters… Wyldstyle, though confident and talented, often exists to play the foil of Batman and Emmet. And the only other major female character, voiced by Alison Brie, isn’t portrayed as a mini-figure, making Wyldstyle the catchall female protagonist.

The Variety review helpfully points out how many bricks it would take to build all the stuff shown in the movie:

…if someone had orchestrated the entire experience with plastic toys painstakingly repositioned and photographed one frame at a time… that would have taken no fewer than 15,080,330 bricks

This behind-the-scenes video is a random collection of footage, but it does shed some light on the animation process:

Lest you think all the reviews of the LEGO Movie are effusively positive (though most are), there are some naysayers with some valid points. This bit from the Wrap is what resonated with me the most:

But while the film’s underlying message about creative independence and playfulness is a strong one, the movie takes a third-act turn (which won’t be spoiled here) that’s bold but ultimately wrong-headed, restating what we’ve already figured out and ruining the delicate balance of this movie’s goofy, click-and-snap universe.

I have more to say on that last bit, but I’m going to wait a couple days before writing about all my concerns with the movie’s big twist.

Which reviews have helped you in digesting the LEGO Movie?

Here at The Set Bump, we’ve been keeping tabs on the progress and development of The LEGO Movie for a while, compiling what morsels of information we could to try and satisfy our curiosity. The announcement of the film (waaay back in 2009) left many unanswered questions in our minds — what would a LEGO motion picture even be about? Would it be done in stop-motion? Could it possibly be as boring as Clutch Powers?

Fear not, dear readers, for we now have answers and so much more. Sound the spoiler alarm (I’m about to spoil pretty much everything), and let’s dive on in.

Story

The LEGO Movie tells the story of Emmet Brickowski, a construction worker minifig who lives his average life in the average LEGO city of Bricksburg. Using very familiar-looking instruction booklets, Emmet helps build skyscrapers for the Octan Corporation, under CEO President Business.

But President Business has a secret alter-ego: Lord Business, a tyrannical despot with designs to conquer the entire LEGO universe by — what else? — gluing everything together.

Fortunately, a group of minifig Master Builders (i.e. our main cast and some licensed supporting cameos) has found the key to foiling Lord Business’ plan: the fabled “Piece of Resistance”. Unfortunately, that piece just happens to be glued to Emmet’s back. And thus, the odyssey begins…

There’s a larger story at work in The LEGO Movie, too (both figuratively and literally), but I’ll get to that.

Characters

Emmet (Chris Pratt) is the focal character of the film. Pratt plays the LEGO everyman to a T — his mastery of goofy charm (refined in his role as Andy Dwyer on “Parks & Recreation”) makes him a perfect fit to carry a LEGO film.

Emmet’s a simple fellow, but his eagerness and sincerity make his adventure a joy to watch. And in the standard “hero’s journey” manner, he picks up a variety of allies along the way…

• Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) is the wise old sage and inveterate foe of Lord Business. Having failed to protect the LEGO universe in the past, Vitruvius foretells of a prophesied chosen one — “The Special” — who will unlock the key to Lord Business’ eventual defeat.
• Wyldstyle, aka Lucy (Elizabeth Banks) is an ambitious and headstrong Master Builder, who’s actively trying to become The Special by finding the Piece of Resistance. You may remember my considerable dislike for the name “Wyldstyle”; fortunately, it turns out the movie agrees with me (via lots of “what are you, a DJ?” jokes at her expense). For better or worse, a lot of Wyldstyle’s character centers around a sort-of love triangle (a “like triangle”?) between her, Emmet, and her current boyfriend…
• Batman (Will Arnett) is the Dark Knight as a hilarious parody; as if the Christopher Nolan films featured Adam West-inspired dramatics. Arnett is perfect in this role, and although much of his funniest material is in the trailer, there is one great sequence where millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne becomes integral to the plot.

Other helpful side-characters include Benny, a 1980s-era LEGO spaceman who REALLY wants to build spaceships; Unikitty, an anime-esque cat/unicorn hybrid with some serious anger issues (and some terrific brick-built alternate faces); and Metalbeard, a giant cyborg pirate who holds Lord Business responsible for his half-minifig, half robot condition.

In the villains’ corner, there’s really only President/Lord Business (Will Ferrell); his underutilized right hand man, Good Cop/Bad Cop (Liam Neeson); and an endless supply of robot police, robot feds, robot swat teams, and robot skeletons as cannon fodder for our heroes.

And then, there’s “The Man Upstairs”…

Design

The design of The LEGO Movie is where things really shine; it’s an amazingly gorgeous film. Every single setting has beautiful detailing and tons of NPU, almost to the point where it becomes distracting. There are dozens of visual nods to LEGO fandom, builder inside jokes, and some great micro-scale gags. Dave pointed some of these out in his review of the trailer, but that’s really only a small fraction of the insane beauty the filmmakers have packed in. That ocean! (I can’t wait to pause and frame-by-frame my way through the Blu-ray.)

For those of you who were worried about the use of computer graphics over stop-motion, I can honestly say that the film does not suffer one bit for it. The framing of many of the shots, as well as the overall texturing and lighting of scenes, really gives you that tactile feeling of being immersed in a brick-built LEGO world. There are one or two shots where the scope of what you’re looking at belies the film’s tiny toy-scale nature, but these are few and far between.

In many ways, the design of The LEGO Movie feels like not only a celebration of LEGO products and the hobby as a whole, but also of the craft of animation. Every major animation technique is at work here:

• The stop-motiony quality to the cinematography and character movement really helps set this film apart from things like Clutch Powers and the other CG releases. It’s super fun, and it feels like LEGO. I’m sure this approach will inform many stop-motion brickfilms in the future, and I would also have no problem with it becoming the new paradigm for CG LEGO animation. (Please and thank you.)
• There’s also some fantastically fluid 2D facial animation on all of the characters. The CG artists went so far as to give depth to the “paint” of the character face designs, as if the faces had been printed on like real LEGO minifigs. As someone who’s spent hours and hours staring at minifig heads through a macro lens, I truly appreciate this consummate attention to detail.
• And then, finally, the CG polish and shine brings everything together.

There’s a fourth filmmaking medium in the film as well — live-action photography. This was another detail made public by the filmmakers early on, though no one really knew what the implementation of it would be. As it turns out, the live-action sections are where the real story of the film lives.

Themes

In a broad sense, The LEGO Movie is built around a few overall motifs:

1. LEGO creations are not meant to be glued together, but to be continuously rebuilt into whatever cool models a creator can imagine.
2. You don’t have to build the greatest creation ever, as long as you’re building together with the people you care about.
3. Embrace the things that make you unique.

These are the main themes as depicted in Emmet’s character arc; though, as we find out, Emmet is not really the main character of this story.

About 2/3 of the way through the movie, Emmet sacrifices himself by tumbling out of Lord Business’ tower and down into a swirling vortex. Having blacked out, Emmet wakes up to find that he’s a toy LEGO minifigure in the human world, being played with by a young boy named Finn.

As the live-action scenes unfold, we come to understand that the events of the film up to this point have basically been a dramatization of Finn’s LEGO playtime scenarios. This makes sense as, earlier in the film, Emmet has a vision of “The Man Upstairs”, as illustrated by his mental construction of a distinctly humanoid hand. Additionally, Lord Business’ collection of non-LEGO human-scale artifacts (erasers, band-aids, highlighters, etc.) tells us that the LEGO universe must be somehow tied to our world.

Finn, however, is not “The Man Upstairs”. In a further twist (one which I found really enjoyable), it turns out that “The Man Upstairs” is actually Finn’s father, the real owner of the tables full of LEGO displays that make up the worlds of the LEGO universe. Finn’s father is quite unhappy, as those LEGO displays are part of his very adult hobby, and are NOT meant to be played with by Finn. When you consider the fact that Finn’s father — a businessman in a suit and tie — is also played by Will Ferrell, the central conflict and meaning of the story becomes unmistakably straightforward. Lord Business’ super-tall legs aren’t just for show.

(I’ve heard some comments from fans who question this portion of the film; saying that it’s a little insulting to AFOLs to be portrayed in such a way. Personally, I thought it was really funny.)

It’s at this point that The LEGO Movie becomes not only a action movie for kids, or a toy advertisement, but a fable about the relationship between AFOL and KFOL, parent and child. The film is fundamentally a feature-length “Build Together” spot — a series of LEGO TV ads that, perhaps coincidentally, began right around the time this film was announced.

A Few Gripes

I’ve already mentioned the somewhat distracting and complex artistry of the LEGO universe itself. The story, by contrast, is rather simplistic. To be fair, the way that story plays out doesn’t have a lot of padding or unnecessary scenes — everything is aptly cut — but it does feel slightly too fast-paced at times.

Which is crazy, considering the film runs for about 100 minutes in total. (Maybe I’m just getting old.) Plus, the notion that the entire tale comes from the imagination of a young boy really helps to lampshade a lot of the less satisfying story elements.

Another thing that made me a bit uneasy was the idea of “The Special”. I’m all for empowering kids to use their imaginations, but the word “special” is immensely overused in our cultural consciousness. As a concept, it just made me think of that line from “The Incredibles”:

When everyone’s super… no one will be.

However, given that the intent here is to embrace those things that make us individually special (and the fact that the prophecy is all but thrown out as malarkey in the third act), I’m willing to give The Special a pass, too.

The only thing in The LEGO Movie that I couldn’t find any rationalization for was the utter dearth of female characters. Seriously. Where are all the women?

• We’ve got Wyldstyle as the the only lady character with any real agency, though her role is not much more than that of Action Girlfriend.
• Unikitty (Alison Brie) is female, but is technically an animal and not a minifigure. Plus, she doesn’t come into the film until around halfway through, and even then, her presence is not terribly significant.
• Wonder Woman is on the poster, and they went through the trouble of casting Cobie Smulders in the role, but the only thing she does in the film was already shown in the trailer. I honestly can’t remember if she had more than one line of dialogue in the whole film. (EDIT 2/16/14: She speaks literally eight words in the entire film.)

If you ask me, an easy solution would have been to cast a woman in the role of Vitruvius. There’s honestly not much you would have had to change about the character. It’s great that we now have a recording of Morgan Freeman saying the words “Taco Tuesday”, but I would have gladly given that up to have this film pass the Bechdel test. Wyldstyle is essentially Vitruvius’ apprentice, and it could have been interesting to have a female-female relationship stand in contrast to the live-action father-son relationship.

Given the recent furor over LEGO Friends, and the fact that a lot of the film’s tie-in sets include female minifigures, I expected a lot more from The LEGO Movie in that regard. (EDIT: I feel like this girl might agree with me.) I think I might have cheered aloud when, towards the end, Will Ferrell tells his son that he’s going to have to let his sister play, too.

(Hilarious Duplo payoff notwithstanding, I don’t think it would have been too much to ask to actually see the sister on screen, though, even if just for a second. You can’t be what you can’t see.)

Putting it all together

One of the inside jokes of the LEGO fan community is that of the “Rainbow Warrior,” a name fondly given to those weird-looking multi-colored models we all built as children.

In some ways, The LEGO Movie is a bit of a Rainbow Warrior itself. For one thing, it ably tackles the unique problem of tying all the disparate LEGO worlds together; presenting the various play themes as parallel dimensions (and eschewing the nonsensical “play themes as planets” approach that Clutch Powers attempted to put forth).

But more than that, it manages to capture the fun, ubiquitous crossover vibe of every child’s playroom. Batman shooting his grappling hook at the Millennium Falcon in order to steal some spaceship parts from Han Solo and Lando Calrissian? That scene definitely happened in my backyard when I was a kid — and it happened in this movie, too.

Similarly, I couldn’t help but react to every pop culture reference and film allusion —

• Terminator (“Come with me if you want to not die”)
• The Matrix (Real/dream world analogies, The One, and the “Think Tank” room)
• Total Recall (The “Think Tank” again)
• Robocop (“Where are my pants?” is this film’s “I’d buy that for a dollar”)
• Super Mario Brothers: The Movie (Random dancing as a way to disable enemy forces, “cause everybody loves to dance, that’s why.”)
• Star Trek (“The Kragle” might as well be “V’Ger“)
• Clash of the Titans (“Release the Kragle!”)
• They Live (The subtle “Conform!” propaganda posters, and a few of the skeletal robot feds)
• Hot Rod (I kept waiting for Batman to do this towards the end)

And that’s not even including the official LEGO licenses. In a normal film, such an overabundance of seemingly random references might have felt lazy or unwarranted; but here, they somehow felt justified. I’ve already referenced “The Hero’s Journey” in this review, and maybe that’s all too appropriate — the minifigure might be the most literal encapsulation of The Hero with a Thousand Faces ever.

Overall

If I haven’t made it clear already, I thought The LEGO Movie was really fun, well-made, and an absolute delight to watch. The stunning visuals alone make it worth the price of admission, but the story is efficiently told and has some legitimate stakes, too. It’s not a perfect film, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

Those of us who do LEGO stop-motion (myself included) can admittedly be a bit snobby when it comes to the relationship between CG and “true” Brick Animation. When discussing brickfilms in interviews and at workshops, I tend to describe them thusly:

Brickfilms are a way for LEGO fans to tell their stories through the use of film and animation techniques. They can use any style, and can be about anything, but they all have one thing in common — the use of LEGO bricks and elements!

If that’s true, then I think it’s fair to say that The LEGO Movie qualifies as a brickfilm. Given the nature of the film’s story — a child whose imagined LEGO worlds are directly translated into on-screen action — The LEGO Movie might be the most ambitious, high-concept brickfilm ever. A meta-brickfilm, perhaps.

At the same time, The LEGO Movie also feels like a love letter to the entire brickfilming community. The directors have stated these intentions in interviews, but there was one other fun touch I noticed in the film’s live-action sequence: the aforementioned swirling vortex that Emmet tumbles down is, in the human world, an over-sized kaleidoscope with the words “Magic Portal” written on the side. Kind of reminds me of another Magic Portal…

But that’s not so important. What IS important is that this film is going to get a lot of people building. And animating. Heck, I left the theater and immediately went to the LEGO store to pick up one of the sets.

Go see The LEGO Movie.

“The Adventures of Clutch Powers” is like so many LEGO CG releases — a lumbering mass of basic tropes, non-jokes, and now-retired LEGO products (none of which feature the actual main characters of this film). In essence, nothing more than one giant commercial.

At least, that’s how I remembered it. I hadn’t seen the film since it was released direct-to-DVD in 2010, after which I immediately retired it to my bookcase for some dust-collecting action. Four years later, the trailers for The LEGO Movie seem to imply a similar storyline and vibe, so I though I’d take a second look at Clutch Powers.

(Spoiler alert: my memory did not fail me.)

Story

The story of Clutch Powers somehow manages to be extremely simplistic and extremely confusing at the same time. Clutch, our main character, is “the greatest LEGO explorer ever” (think a blander Indiana Jones/James Bond) and works for LEGO — which, in this film, is not a toy company but an interplanetary organization that does, um, something.

Peg: “Well… it’s about helping others!”
Brick: “Fighting the good fight!”
Bernie: “Engineering better solutions!”
Clutch: “Doing whatever it takes, wherever it takes us.”

Delightfully vague.

After a throwaway cold open, the LEGO Organization sends Clutch and his team to investigate an incident on a space-prison planet. Finding that the most dangerous only three inmates have escaped, the LEGO crew then heads to a Castle… planet… to capture a wizard who had been one of those prisoners. There, Clutch attempts to instill confidence in a young prince, while also learning to work together with the members of his own team, so that they can all stop the wizard from doing… something. 

If it seems like I’m having trouble summarizing what happens in this film, it’s because I genuinely am. The whole thing plays out like an “And then…” screenplay written by a 6-year-old — not in a good way, like Axe Cop, but just the type of scenario a child might come up with while playing with some assorted LEGO kits. “And then MALLOCK THE WIZARD escapes from SPACE PRISON and they have to go to the CASTLE PLANET OF ASHLAR to catch him before he gets the GOLDEN SWORD OF KING REVET and takes over the whole world etc.” Insert spaceship swooshing noises here.

At the same time, the thinness of the plot is undermined further by some pretty obvious plot holes and contradictions. For example:

• When the LEGO Organization gets a distress call from the prison planet, the video footage shows Space Police officers who literally exclaim, “the prisoners are escaping!” Clutch and his team then proceed to wonder what happened… “it’s a bit of a mystery!” It’s really not; the prisoners escaped.
• The team arrives at the prison, where the Space Police watch commander says that the escaped prisoners can’t leave the planet, since he removed key parts from all the Space Police vehicles. That being the case, the prisoners end up stealing Clutch’s ship. It seems as though the LEGO team is stranded, since all the other Space Police ships are disabled. Except… they’re not stranded, since the watch commander could literally just replace the parts (which we see him carrying) and all of the ships would work.
• On the Castle planet of Ashlar, the Troll in charge of guarding the kingdom has built a giant wall to hide the castle so that Mallock (the wizard) can’t find it. I’m not sure why the Troll would need to do this, since Mallock has been locked up in space-jail for years, up until like an hour ago.

Characters

Clutch’s big character trait is that he always works alone; a habit he adopted after the loss of his father (Rock Powers, natch) a few years earlier. He even has a song about it.

At the start of the film, Clutch is put in charge of a team for the first time; and yet, none of the other team members are surprised to be partnered with him, even though EVERYONE knows Clutch (and the fact that he works alone) since he is also THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON IN THE LEGO UNIVERSE FOR REASONS WE’RE NEVER TOLD. Clutch’s arc seems like it should be that he learns to work with his team, which is sort of what happens — though out of narrative convenience, rather than character interaction and development. At a certain point, it’s as if they all just randomly decided, “ok, let’s work together now.”

Speaking of the team, I should probably introduce them:

• Brick Masterson is a Fireman, Weapons Specialist, and Demolitions Expert. He’s the muscle of the group, and kind of looks like Ron Swanson. Brick tends to destroy more things than he actually builds; the best weapon he makes is a glorified battering ram.
• Peg Mooring is a Biologist and a woman (FYI, this film does not pass the Bechdel test in any way, shape, or form). She uses her biology know-how to recognize footprints and tame a dragon off-screen. She also has extra hair that she brings with her, because girl. There are no other named female characters in this film, although we do catch a glimpse of a few extras from the Medieval Market Village who say nothing and do nothing.
• Bernie von Beam is an Engineer who does wacky things and wears a gear on his head for a significant portion of the film. He has an accent.

Jokes.

The teams’ terrestrial backup includes Kjeld Playwell (hah), head of the LEGO Organziation, and his in-house scientist Artie Fol (hah), who also does wacky things and is Clutch’s biggest fan (we know this because he tells us).

On Ashlar, there are some skeleton flunkies (one of whom is Chris Hardwick), a good-guy Troll who loves Monty Python references, and Prince Varen, heir to the planetary throne. Mallock the Malign is the main villain of the film, even though some other evil guy named “Omega” gets name-dropped and then immediately forgotten.

Design

The design of the film is pretty bare-bones. Like many of the LEGO video games, the locations and vehicles that are not official LEGO sets are rendered as generically textured 3D backdrops; lots of grass, trees, rocks, cement, and solid colors.

CHECK OUT THOSE GRAPHICS

There are a few things here and there that appear to have had actual thought put into them — Mallock’s stronghold comes to mind — but most of these are designed as a kind of weird kludge between brick-built and CG creations.

For the most part, though, the brick-built sets shown are actual LEGO products that were available in the time leading up to this film’s release. The same thing goes for the majority of the characters — the skeletons, the Troll, and Mallock (who was merely an ‘evil wizard’ in the 2007 Castle line) all appeared in official LEGO kits, as did the Space Police officers and all of the extras.

Ironically, none of the main cast were ever created as minifigures. In fact, Clutch himself cannot even be built out of existing parts, as his torso and pants have custom printing, and his hairpiece has never been made in black. Peg and Bernie’s wigs have never been made, either, and all of the faces are custom.

So, if you were a kid who watched this movie and wanted to build and play with the characters: not only could you not buy them in stores, you couldn’t even make them out of parts from your own collection. Even LEGO Universe wasn’t that bad.

If there were such a thing as un-synergy, I think this would be it.

Animation

The animation is fine; nothing to write home about. There’s some wonky mouth shapes and one or two floaty walks, but in general, the animation is effective and does the job it needs to do.

Acting

The voice acting in this film is decent, but it’s brought down by the poor writing and terribly stock dialogue. The biggest names involved are Ryan McPartlin (as Clutch) and Yvonne Strahovski (as Peg), both of whom are from the TV series Chuck. I’m not sure how they got involved with this film, since the target audience doesn’t exactly overlap. Maybe someone in casting was like “Chuck is about a secret agent. Clutch is kind of a secret agent. Let’s get some of those actors.”

Even stranger is the fact that, on Chuck, Ryan McPartlin’s character is not a secret agent or an explorer, or even a main character. He’s got a deep man voice with a nice sound to it, but it felt kind of wrong for the character of Clutch, who doesn’t really behave like a grown adult.

Again, part of that might be the writing. It’s obvious that the filmmakers wanted Clutch to be a cool Indiana Jones/James Bond type, but the way he’s written feels both immature and amateur. While watching the film, I wondered why they didn’t have the guy playing Prince Varen voice Clutch instead. Their story arcs are basically parallel, and even though the movie keeps TELLING us Clutch is famous and amazing, he feels just as young and inexperienced as the prince.

Overall

Clocking in at just under 90 minutes, Clutch Powers isn’t an offensive disaster, but it somehow manages to capture that rare combination of complexity and boredom. It unsuccessfully tries to be a movie by hitting those beats that other movies hit, and ultimately fails to be memorable, charming, or fun.

I did not laugh once.

Clutch himself is neither engaging nor lovable, and actually comes off as kind of a jerk for a significant portion of the movie. We never see or hear about any of his other missions, and most of what we do know about Clutch is merely what other characters tell us about him — even if that information contradicts the things we see him do on screen.

“I’m ambiguously mad at my father. It’s his fault for going missing under suspicious circumstances!”

The script is weak, and the majority of the dialogue has no subtext. When the characters aren’t spewing tired clichés (“Lock and load — we’re going in”), they’re either saying exactly how they feel or just giving mindless exposition. There are one or two attempts to tie in some LEGOish values (“We build on each other!”, “Time to get creative!”), but these are few and far between, and feel like an afterthought.

One of the strangest recurring subjects is the notion of a “creation spark”. This is apparently the equivalent of a minifigure soul, although nothing about it is ever explored or explained. In a practical sense, it seems to be a way for the writers to talk about characters being killed or dying without having to say “killed or dying”. But in a storytelling sense, I find it baffling — are these characters alive or not? Is the creation spark a physical thing? Are minifigures kind of like Transformers? We’re never told.

Other plot lines that lead nowhere include the fate of Clutch’s father, and the identities of the two other escaped prisoners. This film is very obviously trying to be the first part of a franchise, but in doing so, it fails to tell a coherent stand-alone story.

As with LEGO toys, I want the LEGO videos and movies that I watch to be of the highest quality; the kind of material I can return to and enjoy no matter how old I am. TLG’s target market of 5-to-12-year-olds may hold water in terms of toy sales, but there’s no denying the universal timelessness of LEGO products. A big deal is made of the fact that bricks and elements from the ’70s, ’80s, and so forth will all fit together with parts from modern sets. LEGO cinematic releases should follow the same long-range principle — films with something for everyone.

That’s not the case with Clutch Powers, which is just a plodding, meaningless exercise where we see some sets that you could have bought in 2010, and then it’s over. I bring up the irony of “Only The Best Is Good Enough” far too often when talking about LEGO home video releases, but TLG has set the bar really high for themselves with that motto, and as far as I’m concerned, has yet to reach it.

Fingers crossed for The LEGO Movie.

Where to watch this film

If you really must see this film, it’s available to stream on Netflix for free. You can also rent it on Amazon for $2.99, or buy the DVD for three bucks more. But I really don’t recommend spending any money on this.

Can a live action short film be a “brickfilm” too?  AndrewMFilms must think so. His new film called LEGO Invasion! mixes live action and CGI brickfiming together for a wild ride that is a mix between the LEGO Movie, Aliens, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Pulp Fiction.  Okay, maybe the last one is a stretch. The short film does showcase real plastic LEGO bricks which are used as the protagonist’s weapons.  All of the brick animating is CGI which is layered over the live action sequences quite seamlessly.  It is a really fun watch, unless you don’t seeing like your favorite super heroes getting blasted to bits by the protagonist.

I was intrigued to find this pamphlet tucked away inside the November-December 2013 issue of the LEGO Club Magazine. Billed as the “Special LEGO Video Guide”, it purports to feature the “top 2013 LEGO videos, free online games, apps, and more!”

In reality, it’s just one big advertisement for LEGO multimedia content (much like what the Club Magazine itself is for LEGO toys). But it definitely points towards increased coverage/awareness of LEGO films and animated content, most likely in preparation for the release of The LEGO Movie next February.

And since “increased coverage/awareness of LEGO films and animated content” is our middle name here, I figured I’d take a second to walk you guys through this “Entertainment Guide” brochure…

The Cover

• The cover is made up to look like an “Entertainment Weekly” magazine, both in terms of layout and font choice for the title. In fact, I’m kind of surprised they were able to get away with that. Parody… I guess?
• Chase McCain is holding a LEGO Clapboard tile, which says “Awards!” on it. I’m not sure what that’s referring to, since there are no awards given or listed on the pages within. It almost feels like a movie industry word association game. “What are some other Hollywood-related words… how about ‘Awards’?”

Pages 1-2

• The first spread is titled “Top 2013 LEGO Videos!”, though based on the content being presented, that’s a pretty arbitrary label. All the videos in this pamphlet are official LEGO releases, which means they’re somewhat limited in scope. How or why these particular videos were chosen to be the “top” videos, it doesn’t say, but there was basically nothing noteworthy I hadn’t seen before.
• Seeing the Paganomation-produced LEGO Superman and Iron Man videos listed in there was a nice touch, though.
• The only new content to catch my eye was not a video at all, but a notice for a “NEW FREE LEGO TV APP” available on iTunes. This was the first I had ever heard of such an app existing; though, thanks to similar notices on subsequent pages, it was not the last.

Pages 3-4

• More of the “Top 2013 LEGO Videos”, including the “first trailer” for The LEGO Movie. Didn’t the second trailer already come out?
• I can appreciate how repetitive it must be to write short blurbs about so many conceptually similar LEGO videos, but some of the grammar/sentence structure in this brochure is kinda wonky. “How did it go from idea to finished LEGO Specials?” How indeed.

Pages 5-6

• These pages focus on LEGO City video/game media from 2013. Page 6 is solely devoted to advertising a new LEGO City game for mobile devices.
• Page 5 does focus on videos; though oddly, they’re all CGI entries. What’s weirder are the “milestone”-type captions on a few of the thumbnail images: “First Appearance of Dalmatian Firedog”! Oh… okay. “Most Minifigures in a Single Video!” Well, that’s not really true; it’s CG, so technically there are no minifigures in that video.

Pages 7-8

• Pages 7 and 8 feature an ad for the Cartoon Network “Legends of Chima” CG series, which I have yet to check out in any capacity.

Pages 9-10

• The spread on pages 9 and 10 is entitled, “Mini Movies… Big Creativity!”
• Rather than focusing on specific video entries, these blurbs talk more generally about a few LEGO video genres — Microsquare (a series of Master Builder how-to videos), LEGO CGI Animation (technically a medium, not a genre), and Seasonal Shorts (Adventures of Max, the Brick-a-Brack Bunch, etc.).
• More strange sentences: “Featuring the Brick-a-Brack Bunch  on zany adventures, look for these videos during holidays and when the seasons change.” “A Club Member favorite, ‘Adventures of Max,’ from the LEGO Club TV Show have been an online mainstay for a few years, following the LEGO Club mascot on adventures that take him under the sea, into outer space, and follow him through almost every LEGO line.”
• And another ad touting “2 ways to watch: catch them all at LEGO.com/clubvideos OR Ask your parents to download the FREE LEGO TV APP on your iPhone or tablet.”

Back Cover

• Yet another ad for Legends of Chima.

Overall thoughts

• The biggest takeaway from this brochure is the existence of the LEGO TV mobile app, which I think is pretty cool. Anything that gets LEGO videos further out into the public eye can only be a good thing, I think.
• However, there are some inconsistencies. For example, our aforementioned LEGO Iron Man short is nowhere to be found on the LEGO TV app, despite the claim that all videos shown in the guide are available to watch on the app. I wonder how many other videos might have been lost in the void.
• The other interesting thing I discovered via this brochure is the existence of yet another outlet for LEGO Video content. When the blurb mentioned checking out club videos on the LEGO website, I assumed it was talking about the LEGO Club Videos page. In fact, it’s talking about something else entirely: a Videos page on LEGO.com itself.
• This newer videos page does seem to be more thorough than the Club Videos page ever was; though, on this new page, there is again a subcategory for Club Videos, effectively rendering the separate Club Videos page outmoded and redundant.
• I am again baffled by the ways in which The LEGO Group continues the fracturing of their video releases; especially when it’s clear from this brochure that they want more people to check out said videos. Now we’ve got the official LEGO YouTube channel, the old (dead) LEGO Club TV channel, the Club Videos page, the LEGO.com Videos page, the LEGO Movie Maker App “Movie Gallery” section, the LEGO TV app, ReBrick.com… sheesh.
• Why not just have ONE central location and drive all the traffic there? I get wanting to have as many people as possible see the video content itself, but this just feels like a big mess. I want to be able to come back to the same place every time and see all the video content there is; not have to figure out which videos were uploaded where, when, and then try to keep tabs on all of them.

Anyway, what did you guys think of the The 2013 LEGO Club Entertainment Guide? Are you going to check out the LEGO TV app?

The LEGO YouTube channel has some new trailers for, uh… the upcoming new trailer… for The LEGO Movie.

There are “Meet” previews for both Emmet and Wyldstyle (a character I really, really wish had a different name), but not a ton of footage that’s terribly different from what we’ve seen before. I’m as excited for the movie as the next LEGO fan, but I feel like we’re in danger of being caught in an infinite hype loop.

EDIT 10/29/13: There’s a “Meet” preview up for President Business now, which is actually my favorite of the three so far. It’s a nice little bit of insight into a character we know next to nothing about; plus, shameless LEGO fandom in the form of Octan shout-outs.

The LEGO® Movie – Meet Emmet – YouTube

A host of new LEGO film and TV content has been added to Netflix. It’s all CG stuff, but cool nonetheless.

Among the new titles are:

• The first two Bionicle movies (joining the third one that was already available)
• The LEGO Atlantis 22-minute short that aired on Cartoon Network a while back
• A Hero Factory TV show two-parter called “Breakout”
• Season 1 of Ninjago
• A 22-minute LEGO Friends short called “New Girl In Town”

Of these, I’ve only managed to watch the Friends and Atlantis shorts. “New Girl In Town” has about as bland of a story as you’d imagine; though what really bothered me about it was the design of the thing. Every character has the same build and appearance, and can pretty much only be told apart by their hair and clothing. The men all look like 12-year-olds with beards (watch especially for the creepy mayor and his smooth dance moves), and everyone’s got bizarro mouth shapes that match their dialogue almost as often as they match the characters’ emotion.

Meanwhile, “Atlantis” plays out like a feature-length script that someone condensed into 22 minutes. It’s got no payoff, but it’s harmless fun with some neat characters and energetic voice acting. I’d say it’s worth checking out, especially for kids who dig the sets.

Atlantis actually reminded me of a more successful version of “The Adventures of Clutch Powers”, particularly in the structure and characterization. “Old Guy, Meathead, Nerd, and The Girl all go off on an adventure where they use building skills to do… something.” Clutch Powers is also on Netflix, but I’ll have to save my extended thoughts on that yawn-fest for another time.

To narrow things down, let’s just look at the genre of brickfilm movie trailers. Movie trailers done as brickfilms are typically animated frame for frame to the existing original trailer’s soundtrack. I found nine movie trailers recreated in LEGO to examine and showcase.

1) “The Heat” by Garrett Barati

I am a huge fan of Garrett Barati and I love this brickfilm movie trailer. The animation is very realistic and true to the original trailer. All of the props and scenery in the backgrounds give such depth to each scene. I especially like the floor patten in the police jail scene, simple with a nice addition. The real movie Heat had decent success at the box office, but the recreated version doesn’t have many views. It surely deserves more than it has right now. Perhaps the R rating hurts the potential audience that appreciates brickfilms.

2) “Wolverine” by Antonio Toscano

Antonio Toscano has his niche in brickfilming. It’s making brickfilm movie trailers. He has found success in his brickfilm movie trailers as he has over a million views between his four trailers. “Wolverine” is Toscano’s most recent brickfilm movie trailer and is the first of four on this list of nine brickfilm trailers.  It currently has just over 10,000 views on YouTube. The sets and the lighting are all good and the energy of the animation totally works for the brickfilm trailer. The animation is a bit little choppy at times, but doesn’t distract or take away from this great brickfilm.

3) “Star Trek Into Darkness” by Antonio Toscano

This one is my favorite of Antonio Toscano’s brickfilm movie trailers. Maybe I just have a fondness for Star Trek. The micro-scale that was used in some of the scenes worked well. The trailer had a great selection of the minifigures. An article about Toscano’s trailer was written by ITWORLD.

4) “Lego Man of Steel Trailer #2” by Antonio Toscano

This video has over a quarter million plus views on YouTube. It stays very true to the original trailer. There are a few issues with the animation here and there, but like some of the other Toscano’s brickfilms, it doesn’t hurt the energy of the recreation. EntertainmentFIX and Unleash the Fan Boy wrote blogs about this video.

5) “Iron Man 3 Trailer #2” by Antonio Toscano

This brickfilm recreation is closing in on one million views. It’s loaded with extensive chroma keying that’s well achieved. The scene with the helicopters attacking Tony Stark’s home was the scene that worked best for me. Toscano had fun with this one. There are a few easter eggs that are hidden in the film. I also like Toscano’s style of making explosions with special effects. The explosions have a realness to them as they are not just keyed in explosions from Detonation Films, the explosions use real bricks in the effects.

6) “The Dark Knight Rises TRAILER#1 in LEGO!“by forrestfire101

This is the first of the movie trailer recreations that have earned over one million views. It’s brilliantly done with great animation, lighting, special effects, and incredible CGI scenes. My complaint with this trailer has everything to with the original trailer, not Forrest Whaley’s recreation. There’s not enough Batman, I think he’s in only one scene. I want to see BATMAN! You can always count on Forrest for top notch brickfilms.

7) “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 TRAILER” in LEGO by forrestfire101

This is a first class professional grade recreation and my favorite of the two Forrestfire101 trailers on this list. It has great special effects, great lighting effects, and is also incredibly well animated. Forrest did not rely on CGI like his Dark Knight Rises Trailer. Forrest might be the king of college age humor using LEGO animation, but he can also make top notch movie trailers in LEGO. Kudos Forrest! It’s also great to be able to share a few of his brickfilms with our young daughter.

8) “Dark Knight Rises Trailer 3: IN LEGO” by ParanickFilmz

This is a very well done recreation, and must have taken ages to make. Some of the scenes rely on CGI and have a less of an authentic feel compared to the stop motion scenes. The mouth movements and facial animation are also well done. The lighting and special effects were superb. Comic Book Creation posted an article about this trailer.

9) “Cars 2” by Patrick Boivin

Patrick Boivin is a professional stop motion artist and it shows. Although he doesn’t work with LEGO for most of his animations, the Cars 2 Trailer that he created is one of the most impressive brickfilms that I have ever seen. This jaw dropping trailer was released back in 2011 and now has over ten million views. It was a paid commission work from LEGO, Disney, and Pixar. Mr. Boivin was not completely alone on this project. He had the benefit of getting help from a “builders team at LEGO” on the scenic elements. I wish I had a team like that for my brickfilms. The “facial” animations are top notch and don’t seem like some painted on effect done in post production. Folks, it doesn’t get any better than this.

The first trailer to The Lego Movie is here. Shows fun, stop motion and Batman – Columbus Film | Examiner.com.

Lego Movie trailer shows off all-star cast, stop-motion goodness – SlashGear

‘The LEGO Movie’ Trailer: Lego Action, Lego Jokes & Lego Batman [Updated]

EDIT: Check out all our ongoing Lego Movie coverage.

The first teaser trailer for the much-anticipated “The LEGO® Movie” is out, and I have to say… it looks pretty great.

Many of us (myself included) were dubious of the choice to go with computer graphics over stop-motion, but it seems like the filmmakers have embraced a kind of stop-motion style — minifigure characters with appropriately limited animation and ranges of motion. It reminds me a lot of the animation approach taken with the “Nicelander” characters in Wreck-It Ralph, which were given intentionally jerky movements to approximate a kind of 8-bit sensibility.

Anyway, between the fun animation, character designs, voice and fig choices, and overall vibe of the trailer, I am definitely sold. Might be time to go watch “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” again…

What do you guys think?

The LEGO® Movie – Official Teaser Trailer [HD] – YouTube

So I speak from experience when I say that there is nothing quite like the feeling of contributing to a successful Kickstarter campaign. We are at a wonderful historical moment where it is possible for a relatively wide range of people to become direct patrons of the arts for a relatively small amount of money (i.e. these days you don’t need to be a Medici to help support working artists).

One thing that has become quite clear to me in the past few years is that we all end up paying for the culture we consume (i.e. animations we watch) one way or another. Sometimes we pay by watching ads before YouTube videos, sometimes we pay by spending a few dollars on the iTunes store, sometimes we pay by buying a movie ticket or a DVD, sometimes we pay with a subscription to NetFlix. However, those are all examples of paying to watch something that’s already been produced. It’s a rare an wonderful thing to get to pay to help make something which does not exist become a reality.

Which brings us to:

You should all be familiar with the work of Nick Durron (whose real-life name is Jonathan Vaughan, but I am incapable of thinking of brick animators other than by their usernames on YouTube/Bricks in Motion), if for no other reason than we’ve featured it here twice. With “Melting Point,” he is setting his sights higher than ever before and attempting to make a 30-minute brick animation.

The story follows a cop, Tony, as he tries to protect the city from a ruthless villain intent on melting the entire plastic world.

By this point, you should already have enough information to want to go donate , but if you need further convincing, don’t miss his clever promotional video which has lots of call backs to his previous works. The part of his pitch that really convinced me to donate is his ambitious desire to build an entire LEGO city as the set for the film rather than using CGI. We here at the very-soon-to-be-officially-renamed BrickAnimation.com are big believers in using physical, brick-built effects instead of CGI. I’m proud to be able to say that I am helping support another brick animator stay true to his vision by doing something the slow, costly way. If you look carefully at the project management triangle, you’ll notice that the majority of good projects are neither cheap nor fast.

On that note, I really ought to get back to putting the final touches on my Kickstarter project (I finished animating it earlier this week!), so I can finally get my backers their richly-deserved rewards.

LEGO would never, ever make this as a real game. And yet, here we are.

LEGO Breaking Bad The Video Game parody – YouTube