The Lego Movie


 * This article is about the 2014 film. For the franchise, see The Lego Movie (franchise).

The Lego Movie is a 2014 American-Danish-Australian 3D computer-animated adventure comedy film written for the screen and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller from a story by Lord, Miller and Dan and Kevin Hageman. Based on the Lego line of construction toys, the story focuses on an ordinary Lego minifigure who finds himself being the only one to help a resistance stop a tyrannical businessman from gluing everything in the Lego worlds into his vision of perfection. Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, Charlie Day, Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman provide their voices for the film's main characters.

The first film produced by the Warner Animation Group, and, as of being their seventh feature film, under their new company name, it is also the first film from Warner Bros. Animation since 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action, The Lego Movie was released on February 7, 2014 by Warner Bros. Pictures. It became a critical and commercial success, grossing $469 million worldwide against a $60 million budget and receiving praise for its visual style, humor, voice acting and heartwarming message. The film won the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Animated Feature and the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film; it was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for "Everything Is Awesome".

The film has since expanded into a major franchise which ties into the Lego brand, with a sequel to the film, entitled The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, scheduled for release on February 8, 2019. A spin-off film, The Lego Batman Movie, was released to theaters on February 10, 2017, with a second spin-off, The Lego Ninjago Movie, released September 22, 2017. A third spin-off, The Billion Brick Race, is in development. A 4D film based on the film itself, entitled The Lego Movie: 4D - A New Adventure, was released to Legoland parks across the world after its premiere at Legoland Florida on January 29, 2016.

The film is dedicated to Kathleen Fleming, the former director of entertainment development of the Lego company, following her death in Cancún, Mexico in April 2013.

Plot
In the Lego universe, around the mid to late 2000s, populated by anthropomorphic minifigures, the evil Lord Business finds a super-weapon called the "Kragle". The wizard Vitruvius attempts to stop him, but is blinded by Business's robots. Before Business leaves with the weapon, Vitruvius prophesies a person called "The Special" will find the "Piece of Resistance", a brick capable of stopping the Kragle.

Eight and a half years later, in the city of Bricksburg, construction worker Emmet Brickowski finds a woman, Wyldstyle, searching for something at his construction site after hours. When he investigates, Emmet falls into a hole and finds the Piece of Resistance. Compelled to touch it, Emmet experiences vivid visions and passes out. He awakens with the Piece of Resistance attached to his back, in the custody of Good Cop/Bad Cop, Lord Business's lieutenant.

Wyldstyle rescues Emmet, believing him to be the Special, and takes him to meet Vitruvius in the Old West. Emmet learns Wyldstyle and Vitruvius are "Master Builders"[10] – people capable of building anything from their imagination without the need of instructions – who oppose Business. Wyldstyle explains that Business wants to use the Kragle (a tube of Krazy Glue with a weathered label) to freeze the world into perfection. Though disappointed to find Emmet is not a Master Builder, Wyldstyle and Vitruvius are convinced of his potential when he recalls visions of a seemingly human deity referred to as "The Man Upstairs".

Emmet, Wyldstyle and Vitruvius evade Bad Cop's forces with the aid of Batman, Wyldstyle's boyfriend. They go to the hidden realm of Cloud Cuckoo Land to attend a council of Master Builders, all of whom are unimpressed with Emmet and refuse to fight Business. Bad Cop's forces attack, having placed a tracking device on Emmet, and capture everyone except Emmet, Wyldstyle, Batman, Vitruvius, and a small group of other Master Builders, and Cloud Cuckoo Land is destroyed. Escaping, Emmet devises a plan to infiltrate Business's office tower and disarm the Kragle, but the group is captured and imprisoned in the Think Tank, where all the Master Builders are forced to make instructions. Trying to retaliate, Vitruvius is decapitated by Business, who sets a self-destruct protocol and leaves everyone to die, including Bad Cop.

As he dies, Vitruvius reveals he made up the prophecy. He soon reappears to Emmet as a ghost and reveals self-belief is what makes one the Special. Strapped to the self-destruct mechanism's battery, Emmet jumps into the abyss outside the tower and severs the connection, saving his friends. Inspired by Emmet's sacrifice, Wyldstyle rallies the Lego people across the universe to use whatever creativity they have to build machines and weapons to fight against Lord Business's forces.

Emmet finds himself in the human world as a Lego mini-figure, unable to move. The events of the story are being played out by a little boy named Finn on his father's expensive Lego set in their basement. His father, "The Man Upstairs", comes home from work and is horrified to see his son ruining the set by creating variations of different playsets, and immediately proceeds to rebuild and glue his perceived perfect creations together. Realizing the danger his friends are in, Emmet wills himself to move and gains Finn's attention.

Finn returns Emmet and the Piece of Resistance to the set, where Emmet now possesses the powers of a Master Builder and confronts Business. Meanwhile, Finn's father looks at his son's creations and realizes Finn had based the villainous Business on him and his perfectionism. Through a speech Emmet gives Business, Finn's father comes to his senses and tearfully apologizes to his son, and the two unglue the constructions with mineral spirits, which plays out as Business getting finally freed from his evil nature, capping the Kragle, and thawing his victims. Emmet is hailed as a hero and begins a romantic relationship with Wyldstyle with Batman's blessing.

As a result of Finn's father allowing Finn's younger sister to join them in playing with his Lego sets, aliens from the planet Duplon beam down on the Lego world and announce their plans to destroy everyone.

Cast

 * Chris Pratt as Emmet Brickowski, an everyman and construction worker from Bricksburg.
 * Will Ferrell as Lord Business, president of the Octan Corporation under the name of President Business.
 * Elizabeth Banks as Wyldstyle, a Master Builder who is Emmet's love interest and Batman's girlfriend, whose real name is Lucy.
 * Will Arnett as Batman, a DC Comics superhero who is a Master Builder and Wyldstyle's boyfriend.
 * Nick Offerman as MetalBeard, a giant makeshift pirate and Master Builder.
 * Alison Brie as Princess Unikitty, a unicorn-kitten and Master Builder from Cloud Cuckoo Land.
 * Charlie Day as Benny, a "1980-something space guy" who is a Master Builder.
 * Liam Neeson as Bad Cop/Good Cop, a double-faced police officer that leads the Super Secret Police.
 * Morgan Freeman as Vitruvius, a blind old wizard who is one of the Master Builders and Wyldstyle's teacher.

Development
Dan Lin conceived of the idea for the film and began discussing it with Roy Lee before leaving Warner Bros. to form his own production company, Lin Pictures, in 2008. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. home entertainment executive Kevin Tsujihara had recognized the value of the Lego franchise by engineering the studio's purchase of Lego video game licensee Traveller's Tales in 2007, thought the success of the Lego-based video games indicated a Lego-based film was a good idea, and reportedly "championed" the development of the film. By August 2009, Dan and Kevin Hageman were writing the script described as "action adventure set in a Lego world." Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were in talks in June 2010 to write and direct the film. Warner Bros. green-lit the film by November 2011, with a planned 2014 release date. The Australian studio Animal Logic was contracted to provide the animation, which was expected to comprise 80% of the film. By this time Chris McKay, the director of Robot Chicken, had also joined Lord and Miller to co-direct. McKay explained that his role was to supervise the production in Australia once Lord and Miller left to work on 22 Jump Street. In March 2012, Lord and Miller revealed the film's working title, Lego: The Piece of Resistance, and a storyline. In April 2012, Warner Bros. scheduled the film for release on February 28, 2014, a date that subsequently changed.

Casting
By June 2012, Chris Pratt had been cast as the voice of Emmet, the lead Lego character, and Will Arnett voicing Lego Batman; the role of Lego Superman was offered to Channing Tatum. By August 2012, Elizabeth Banks was hired to voice Lucy (later getting the alias "Wyldstyle") and Morgan Freeman to voice Vitruvius, an old mystic. In October 2012, Warner Bros. shifted the release date for the film, simply titled Lego, to February 7, 2014. In November 2012, Alison Brie, Will Ferrell, Liam Neeson, and Nick Offerman signed on for roles. Brie voices Unikitty, a member of Emmet's team; Ferrell voices the antagonist President/Lord Business; Neeson voices Bad Cop/Good Cop and Offerman voices MetalBeard, a pirate seeking revenge on Business.

In July 2012, a Lego-user contest announced on the film's Facebook page would choose a winning Lego vehicle to appear in the film. Miller's childhood Space Village playset is utilized in the film.

Animation
The film is strongly inspired by the visual aesthetic and stylistics of Brickfilms and received a great deal of praise in the respective online communities who saw the film as appraising nod to their work. Many Brickfilm-Fans and AFOL’s (Adult Fans of Lego) praised the painstaking amount detail in the production. Animal Logic tried to make the film's animation replicate a stop motion film even if everything was done through computer graphics, with the animation rigs following the same articulation limits actual Lego figures have. The camera systems also tried to replicate live action cinematography, including different lenses and a Steadicam simulator. The scenery was projected through The Lego Group's own Lego Digital Designer, which as CG supervisor Aidan Sarsfield detailed, "uses the official LEGO Brick Library and effectively simulates the connectivity of each of the bricks." The saved files were then converted to design and animate in Maya and XSI. At times the minifigures were even placed under microscopes to capture the seam lines, dirt and grime into the digital textures. Benny the spaceman was based on the line of Lego space sets sold in the 1980s, and his design includes the broken helmet chin strap, a common defect of the space sets at that time.

Post-Production
The film's total cost, including production, promotion and advertising (P&A), was $100 million. Half of the film's cost was financed by Village Roadshow Pictures. The rest was covered by Warner Bros., with RatPac-Dune Entertainment providing a smaller share as part of its multi-year financing agreement with Warner Bros. Initially Warner Bros. turned down Village Roadshow Pictures when it asked to invest in the film. However, Warner Bros. later changed its mind, reportedly due to lack of confidence in the film, initially offering Village Roadshow Pictures the opportunity to finance 25% of the film, and later, an additional 25%.

Release
The Lego Movie premiered at the Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles, California on February 1, 2014, and was released in theaters on February 7, 2014. The film was released in Australia by the film's co-producer, Roadshow Films.

Marketing
Over twenty Lego sets inspired by scenes from the film were released for the film including a set of Collectible Minifigures. A website was opened up so fans could make minifigure versions of themselves, and later, put that in the film's official trailer. The company recruited a roster of global partners to a broad, multi-category licensing program to support the film. Official Lego Brand Stores also scheduled events. Each week of January 2014, a new character poster (Wyldstyle, Batman, Emmet, Lord Business) came with every purchase. By building a creative model in-store, people received a free accessory pack. Barnes & Noble hosted a themed event in January, February, and March. On February 7, 2014, McDonald's released eight collectible holographic/3D cups in Happy Meals to promote the film.

Video game
A video game based on the film, The Lego Movie Videogame, by TT Fusion for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita, and Windows, was released on February 4, 2014. An exclusive "Wild West Emmet" minifigure was released with preorders of the game at GameStop.

Home media
Coming soon!

Box office
Coming soon!

Critical response
Coming soon!

Main transcript
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

Trailer transcript
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.

Sequels and spin-offs
Coming soon!