This piece was originally written in 2013, just as the subject in question was being released in theatres.
“The
Lego Movie” is a hurricane of no holds barred bombastic fun
whirling in a canvas of creatively cohesive chaos. It begins as a
clever parody of the classic Hollywood-branded Chosen One narrative (with a particular keen eye for "The Matrix") and
it evolves into a multi-layered allegory for… well, many things,
actually! It's a critique on corporate power killing off the individual's
creativity, the dichotomy between childlike imagination and
adult-minded, self-imposed rationale limiting the creative activity, a
commentary about the necessary relationship between Art and a
business model to give Art a direction without abusing its power and, almost by accident, the perennial conflict between Man and Fate. For the sake of brevity, this article will only focus on the first point.
The
overarching theme of this film is indeed the idea of corporate ownership invalidating artistic freedom through relentless franchising and product micro-management
(which makes the fact that this is a film about a franchise owned by
a powerful corporation all the more fascinating) but
there exists a second voice to this argument within the diegesis
itself. If the metropolis created by the vision of President Business
represents the consequences of excessive control, late stage Capitalism and all that, then the world
of Princess Unikitty symbolizes its perfect extreme opposite. We have a land deprived of
an order of any sort, in constant creative brainstorming but without
the necessary tools and common sense to produce
cohesive or consistent results with this much liberty. It’s
an unbridled and disorganized chaos of multiple perspectives and egos
colliding with each other without rhyme or reason, not even in the
face of a common enemy. Said internal conflict causes
the main cast to be so uncoordinated that they’re not even able to
build a proper submarine without clashing with each other's style and
forgetting all about the pragmatic aspect of having an escape vehicle that
doesn’t fall apart almost immediately. The truth of the matter is,
Art needs Direction, a purpose, a general idea of what it wants to
achieve depending on the specific context; it needs to flourish in an
environment that would slightly limits its freedom for the sake of
reaching results. It needs, in other words, a healthy middle-man between the two extremes brought forth by Unikitty’s Cloud Cuckoo Land and President Business' Capitalist dystopia. That literal middle-man is Emmett, the main
character, whom is able to redirect each and everyone’s creativity towards the higher goal of defeating the specter of
mindless corporate stillness. The ending cements this idea
of balance and organized creativity by also incorporating the fundamental
contribution of the Industry as the perennial (inevitable) partner of
the artistic world, which allowed it to flourish into a viable business. It is basically a metaphor for the movie itself: the
result of several creative minds getting together with a common goal,
a reasonable amount of freedom and enough financial resources
provided by their company to make it happen.
"The LEGO Movie" is already enjoyable regardless of its overtly commercial purpose but it becomes downright brilliant when it addresses the very nature of its existence and proceeds to go beyond it, way past the walls of the Metatext, where no product placement vehicle has ever gone before!
You could say, it's awesome.
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