Let me first say that I still have yet to see The Lego Movie as of yet, and haven't been in a theater for months now, but from the trailers and critical responses, I can at least pick off some important information to discuss. With The Lego Movie, I'm seeing all kinds of great stuff from the perspective of an animator. Namely the use of stop motion and Lego bricks. For some reason they seem to work really well in that medium. So what has the movie presented to us?
-It's a ghost in the shell. No, not like the anime, but like the phrase, that we have the organic concept of using Lego bricks put into cinema, but done so through a large amount of digital 3D animation believe it or not! I do mean large part rather than entirely of course as smaller sets and elements do use real bricks to give that uncanny vibe we always have with stop motion. It's a cool concept that I haven't seen executed in anything before.
-Not too far down the uncanny valley there now. Yes it's done heavily with digital soft/hardware, but don't think the filmmakers haven't made sure the movie sticks true to our image of Legos. A "digital perfection" as they put it just doesn't seem right, so the inclusion of real bricks was important to show the real-world worn and well-played with look of real life Lego bricks. When you see the reflections and tiny dents or scratches in the bricks, it brings you to a more familiar, comfortable place. A good choice if you ask me.
-Great minds don't think all that much alike. People who are really really good at building with Legos tend to have very different methods from each-other, and with those different methods becomes a nightmare of conflicting efforts in making a movie composed entirely of Legos. This was proven as the team attempted to build a submarine collaboratively, but ultimately came out with a colossus of some kind of submarine mountain star destroyer war machine.
As someone who actually used to fool around with Legos daily, I'm still amazed at what the filmmakers did with this movie, and I still haven't even seen it. Combining 3D with other elements in animation isn't a very new idea, but with stop motion is certainly uncommon. I think we should see a little more of this in future stop-motion works. It could create a pretty cool experience.
I do feel the flaw of creative differences in building stands pretty tall in creating movies like this, but in the case of animation, this probably isn't a problem that hasn't plagued other efforts before.
Will we see more works done with real life and digital combinations? I could only hope so.
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