Just as Lego can be the means to build something extraordinary, so too can the toys be shattered in an instance. A fitting analogy for the height of joy and the destructive depths of spite. They are effectively the frail joiner.
In 2014, The LEGO Movie proved its titular IP was more than a hollow advertisement a la The Transformers: The Movie, but instead a concept prime for a meaningful didactic. Granted, the spin-offs that followed (The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie) were a bit more geared towards selling $270.00 playsets, the intent of the original film still remains sincere in retrospect. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part offers both a return to this sincerity, but also an abandonment of its dystopian roots in favor of an interstellar adventure with a paralleling maturity. The franchise exercises this new found momentum by investigating notions of isolation, toxic development, and the importance of reconciliation.
Though the Lego film franchise pulls inspiration from stop-motion animation, they were primarily made through CGI. Please consider viewing some of its influences during your cinematic voyage.
Opening with a trope nearly obligatory through modern animated sequels, The Lego Movie 2 quickly considers the cost of stagnation and the inevitable loss of childhood. After Finn is forced to share his father’s vast brick collection with his sister, Bianca, the metaphorical LEGO universe is torn asunder. As Finn grows five years older (and apparently studied Fury Road ad nauseam) Bricksburg is converted to Apocalyspeburg, a gritty and violent shell of its former self. Emmet (Chris Pratt), is still as happy-go-lucky as before, simply skips around the degradation of his community and fellow master builders. A concept most recently examined in Ralph Breaks the Internet, Emmet is a fossil in a world far removed from complacent happiness. Emmet’s demeanor begins to grind against his peers, and they struggle to tolerate him as each day passes.
The film’s preface suggests growth is dependent exclusively upon hardship. While practicing their brooding and heavy-handed monologues, Lucy/Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) suggests Emmet’s perspective is shifting towards invalidity. Though he attempts to construct a peaceful existence removed from his surroundings, Lucy contests his attempt to do so is more perverse than their own environment, a literal apocalypse. To Lucy’s credit, where Emmet sought to revolutionize their world in the first film, he now does everything he can to perpetuate the system he previously broke apart. Insisting on suffering as a catalyst for growth, however, conjures a problematic thesis.
Though Emmet’s life is one of stagnation, it is also one of positivity. After his friends are abducted by General Sweet Mayhem, commander of Bianca’s Duplo collection, Emmet resolves to travel out of his world and into the Systar system. This moment marks a break in his form, but his attempts to break out his world proves too perilous for his own capacity. He is unknowingly rescued by a machismo-riddled mini-figure, Rex Dangervest, and returned to his star cruiser maintained by an army of velociraptors. Rex’s influences and intent are fairly clear from his introduction: He seeks to iron out the malleable aspects of Emmet’s character, emphasized in the exchange of brick building for “brick breaking.” Observing Rex’s self-reliance and swift action strikes a chord within Emmet as he seeks to emulate the adventurer.
Rex is in stark contrast to the ruler of the Systar system, Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish), a shape-shifting being built on principles of accommodation. Though years of resistance have pushed Wa’Nabi’s perceived intent more towards malicious assimilation, she appears desperate to preserve at least a fraction of Finn’s collection. While Rex defines growth with destruction and independence, love and unity dictates Wa’Nabi’s philosophy. Unfortunately, Emmet is impressionable as he is naïve, failing to see Rex’s encouragement as the foundation for his own destruction.
Where the first film contends control stifles growth, The Lego Movie 2 finds violence only begets more of the same. Rex is Emmet’s enticing anti-thesis, like the before-and-after of a body improvement advert. In Emmet’s desperation to shed his whimsy, he prescribes to wrath incarnate. This shift in position draws a striking parallel between the past film’s antagonist, Lord Business, and the problematic trajectory of Emmet himself. The former’s stance sought to preserve a system even at the cost of individual agency, whereas brick breaking seeks to eviscerate a system at the cost of progress. Through Emmet’s plight, The Lego Movie 2 strides to the opposite end of personal growth’s spectrum, seamlessly fleshing out its original didactic.
Despite Emmet’s journey across modes of growth and its resistance,
he can glimpse a healthier form of progress. There is, ultimately, little to
gain from a life of stoicism skewed by hostility. To ascend to action hero out
of fear is less of commendation, as a Rex reveals, a defensive impulse spurred
by isolation. His self-reliance comes at the sacrifice of his ability to
establish any meaningful relationship with someone else, as even his crew is composed
of overly-domesticated dinosaurs. Placed against Rex, Emmet is less so ignorant
of adversity but instead a beacon of accommodation. Though his approach is always
a bit light-hearted, it gives him a chance to overcome challenges by synthesis
rather than confrontation.
Emmet’s tale across both films never actually conclude with a climactic battle, but rather a commitment to mutual understanding. Just as the nature of Lego itself, his executive function is to build something and even reconfigure aspects of life that have grown toxic. In doing so, he effectively channels his peers into something a bit more than themselves, something a bit more awesome.
