PasticheThe film is in the ‘style’ of the Matrix but as though written by a nine year old.

• Emmet = Neo • the boy and Vitruvius = Morpheus, Wildstyle as Trinity • Lord Business = Agent Smith/The AI.

There are layers of reality, and only the main hero is able to see both completely.

It is knowingly ‘bad’, implausible and exaggerated.

The characters play pastiche versions of ‘themselves’

BricolageThe Lego Movie collages different film genres of action, live-action, adventure, comedy and fantasy into one.

Intertextuality

Aside from the links to the Matrix the characters link to existing media texts

Meta – self referential

It contains a text within a text. A plot twist that isn’t revealed till the very end.

The ‘flattening’ effectA depthless vacuous world in which reality is superseded by marking and advertising.

We live in corporate worlds where criticism and negative emotions are marginalised. Success and homogeneous lives are encouraged.

Everything Is Awesome

The theme song “Everything is Awesome” is an ironic reminder of how films/marketing/advertising/modern life brainwashes us into believing that life has always been “great”.

The Film is a metaphor

Postmodernism was a reaction to Modernism, a movement in the early 20th Century that sought to create new conventions of representation, stripping away the frills, and making form follow function. Like the Modernists, the Postmodernists rejected the rigid conventions of the Classicists. Unlike the Modernists, the Postmodernists didn’t mind if things got a little bit messy and frivolous.

Two narratives

Story A of the Lego movie is set in an animated world and is the heroic journey of regular-guy Emmett and his quest to stop Lord Business from destroying the world with his super weapon: The Kragle.

Story B is set in ‘reality’ with a boy attempting to play with his dad’s Legos, while his dad wants to maintain complete and absolute order, not giving in to the creativity that Legos can unleash.

Theory

Postmodernism questions what is real and absolute (Palmer, 2014)

Applied theory

The father is a Classicist, following the rules to put together harmonious, safe creations. The son is a Postmodernist, mixing properties, repurposing used half-eaten lollipops, and disregarding the ‘rules’. The Kragle represents the father’s strict adherence to classical conventions. The son’s unbalanced spaceships and mech-pirates are the intertextual, time-bending, hyperreality, fragmented works of art