Guardian film blog Lego Movie
Judging by the trailer for The LEGO Movie, I thought it might be really interesting in terms of its mashing up of different pop-culture worlds (DC superheroes, Lord of the Rings mythology, My Little Pony cuteness etc) in a way that chimed with what I like about sweding – treating media franchises as folk culture and lovingly reworking their elements for new ends. Turns out the film is a lot more interesting as politics, so that’s how I covered it for the Guardian.
Here’s the set-up, the idea that since the financial crisis,
Our screens have been filled with images of urban collapse and apocalyptic destruction, dystopian wastelands and zombie hordes. But, like Washington and Westminster, Hollywood has been better at scaring us with the threat of calamity than inspiring hope for the new. Finally, however, the studio system has delivered a vision of a radical paradigm shift, a way out of the impasse. I’m talking, of course, about The Lego Movie – a 3D computer-animated family adventure based on a corporate toy range that turns out to be Hollywood’s answer to the Occupy movement.
