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I just watched The Lego Movie and, apart from all the random advertisement they put in there, it was a decent movie. Up until it changed from being a story about Construction worker Emmet, Lord Business, Wildstyle and all the others, to a story about some random boy called Finn and his dad, whom we know nothing about. It wasn't the first time I noticed this phenomenon. The same thing happened to The Smurfs. The Smurfs originally was supposed to be a story about, well you know, the Smurfs. And in the Smurf universe there aren't supposed to be any humans in there other than Gargamel and those from the medieval kingdom sir Johan and Peewit are from. So in the movie, the story wasn't even about the Smurfs anymore and it changed into a story about the Winslow family. So is this a trend? And if it is, what's the idea behind this?

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  • +1 Man, so many instances of this like Alien vs Predictor, Freddy vs Jason and plenty of others.
    – DustinDavis
    Jul 9, 2014 at 20:06
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    I'll have to object that the inclusion of humans in Lego Movie was irrelevant. The human side of the conflict was the story, and is what elevates this good movie into a brilliant one. Best one this year definitely.
    – System Down
    Jul 9, 2014 at 20:08
  • Well, the obvious answer that comes to mind would be to provide better identification figures for the audience (I'm not saying I'd support that idea, but it's most likely what the makers had in mind). But I haven't seen The LEGO Movie (nor The Smurfs movie) yet.
    – Napoleon Wilson ♦
    Jul 9, 2014 at 21:12
  • @NapoleonWilson: For the audience, or, at least, the parents. ;)
    – Walt
    Jul 9, 2014 at 21:25
  • @SystemDown I agree that in the current movie the humans are not only relevant, but the story is all about them. The problem I have with this, is that the Lego concept becomes obsolete. They could have changed them with any toy and it would have been the exact same story. So I was wondering why they always seem to want to escape back to the human universe instead of staying in the Lego Universe completely. They could as easily have explained the concept, staying within the Lego universe.
    – Peter Raeves
    Jul 9, 2014 at 21:57

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At least in the LEGO Movie, my impression was that the actions of the LEGO characters were led by the boy. The conflicts in the LEGO storyline were the kid acting out his own conflicts with his father.

The father wanted to Krazy Glue (Kragl) all the LEGOs together so they couldn't be played with. The father considered himself a master builder, and everything had to be perfect. The boy considered himself (and Emmett) to be not-very-good builders, probably because he compared himself to his dad. But he liked to play and build and use his imagination (which had been invalidated) and that's why the Kragl was such a terrible thing to him -- it stopped him from playing and building silly things like double-decker couches.

So the way I took the movie, the boy's story had been told by Emmett and Wild Child and everyone else during the first 3/4 of the movie. The boy wasn't superfluous at all.

(I haven't seen The Smurfs, so I'm not sure if the humans were as integral or not. Another non-human movie with humans in it was The Muppet Movie, and the humans seemed kind of superfluous to me. But they gave human audiences someone to identify with.)

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  • I understood the story, but I was wondering why they needed to be humanized. The directors could have shown the conflicts between a son and his father, staying within the Lego universe. Yet they chose to humanize the conflict. What was the reasoning behind this? Also I'm not sure what you mean by "They gave human audiences someone to identify with". Do you mean most people wouldn't be able to identify with the characters unless they are explicitly shown to be human?
    – Peter Raeves
    Jul 9, 2014 at 22:18
  • Good points. I don't know the reason they chose to humanize the conflict, but I'm glad they did; the Lego universe was a metaphor for the actual conflict, so seeing the actual conflict gave insight into the metaphorical conflict that I really liked. It gave the movie a whole lot of depth (for me) it might not have had otherwise. Regarding the Muppet Movie, if there weren't humans in it I don't think people would have felt as connected to the movie. (That's my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions!)
    – BrettFromLA
    Jul 9, 2014 at 22:56

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