In between the release of The Lego Movie and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, Warner Bros. released two spinoff films. These films were titled The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie, respectively. The two spinoffs were not strictly set in the same worlds as the mainline Lego Movies, instead choosing to tell unique stories that continued the spirit of the Lego brand. These films were very entertaining action comedies, but there is one seemingly minor but important element from the main Lego films that failed to carry over into the spin-offs.
One of the coolest aspects of The Lego Movie, released in 2014 and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, was that everything was Lego. This aesthetic choice was not simply limited to the characters and sets being official Lego pieces. Instead, the filmmakers chose to commit to a fully immersive “Lego-esthetic.” Excluding the relics, which were plot-relevant objects based on real-world items such as super glue and band-aids, everything was Lego. This went as far as recreating particle effects and liquid simulations in Lego.
In The Lego Movie, every explosion and every laser shot was recreated in Lego. Scenes set on an open ocean revealed that the entire surface of the sea was made of Lego studs. During the action sequence set in a desert, the Lego steam locomotive was puffing out smoke made of Lego bricks. There is an incredible amount of commitment to this one rule, but it makes for such an aesthetically pleasing film to look at. But this is where The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie fall apart a bit.
In The Lego Batman Movie, released in 2017 and directed by Chris McKay, the driving force behind the aesthetic of the film went from “everything should be Lego” to “most things should be Lego.” While things like flames were still depicted through the use of official Lego pieces, suddenly, other things like water and smoke became regular particle simulations. That’s not to discount the hard work of the animation team; the animation is still stellar, and the water and smoke effects basically look real with how high quality they are. It’s just an aesthetic choice that takes away from the appealing “Lego” nature of these films.
Unfortunately, The Lego Ninjago Movie, also released in 2017 and directed by Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, and Bob Logan, took this problem even further. The fictional city of Ninjago was a collection of Lego buildings dropped in a strangely naturalistic environment. The water looked real, the sand looked real, and the forest surrounding the city was disappointingly not Lego. Once again, it’s a gorgeously animated film, and the environments look brilliant. But the simple truth is that the parts of the film that aren’t Lego are distracting, especially knowing that the first film would have found a creative way to make everything Lego.
The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie are a pair of wonderfully entertaining animated films. They’ve got smart, inventive writing that appeals to both kids and adults alike. Though this may seem like a nitpick, film is a visual medium. The choice to take away from an appealingly unique aspect of these films in favor of realism is something that ultimately hurt these films more than it helped.
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