History TearJerker / TheLEGOMovie

[[caption-width-right:350:"[[spoiler:[[DoomedHometown My home]]... ''[[DespairEventHorizon It's gone]]''!]]"]]

-->'''[[spoiler:The Man Upstairs:]]''' [[spoiler: OK, Finn, let's play a game. It's called, "Let's put everything back together."]]

** [[PreMortemOneLiner "It's your turn to be the hero."]]

-->'''Randy:''' We all have something that makes us special... and Emmet has... well... nothing.

-->'''Uni-Kitty:''' (''ears folded, eyes teary'') [[spoiler:My home... It's gone!]] I feel something inside. It's like...the opposite of happiness! I must...stay...positive. (''breathes'') Bubblegums! (''breathes'') Butterflies? (''breathes'') ''Cotton candy?!''

** The notion that [[spoiler: Cloud Cuckooland's destruction may represent Finn's resentment toward cleaning up his playtime [=LEGO=]s.]]
** Even worse, [[spoiler: it could represent Finn's resentment towards ''moving''. Where are his LEGO bricks? They're in a box labelled "Cloud Moving". He could have moved there recently.]]

*** Of course Batman sympathises with her. [[FridgeBrilliance He knows all too well what it's like to lose the most important things in your life.]]

** Although [[spoiler: the Q-Tip did a terrible job of wiping the face off,]] it's still incredibly painful to watch Bad Cop struggle to get up from the floor [[spoiler: while his parents watch in a mix of horror and grief for their son.]]

* Shortly after being caught,[[spoiler: Vitruvius]] is suddenly killed when decapitated by a penny thrown by Lord Business. What makes this scene shocking is how it abruptly follows [[spoiler: Vitruvius's own personal CrowningMomentOfAwesome when he takes out dozens of mecha-mooks. To make matters worse, Vitruvius was one of the few who supported Emmet and even tried to offer some parting words of advice before dying.]] Everyone becomes so disheartened that they didn't even resist Lord Business's mooks.
** As he's dying, [[spoiler: Vitruvius explains he made up the prophecy of the "Special"]], you can see Lucy, Benny, Batman and even [[spoiler: Bad Cop]] all gasp in shock.

** [[spoiler:When his dad looks back at him after tearing his son's creations apart, Finn is simply standing and doing nothing to the naked eye, but you can tell he's holding back tears. ... then Dad walks toward him, kneels down, .... and gives him a soft apology hug. Lord Business does the same to Emmet.]]

* Emmet [[spoiler: [[HeroicSacrifice plunging into the abyss]]]] in order to save virtually EVERY MASTER BUILDER [[spoiler: President/Lord Business and Bad Cop have ever captured and put into the Think Tank. For the next 15 minutes or so, all the other characters think Emmet's really dead!]]

** After the Master Builders [[spoiler: are saved, everyone is in [[HeroicBSOD shock]] as Superman helplessly asks if anyone has any ideas on what to do now. You know that if it's ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' saying that, they're in deep trouble!]]
** [[spoiler: "Emmet had ideas..."]]

* [[spoiler: Finn's father ripping his son's creations apart.]] It's shown offscreen, and only in the Lego world as being swarmed by Micromanagers, and for ''good reason.''
** As this happens, Emmet is [[spoiler: mentally ''begging'' Finn's father to ''stop it,'' because he's hurting his friends.]] He's completely motionless, [[ForcedToWatch he has to watch this,]] and there is ''nothing'' he can do about it. He sounds on the verge of tears. [[spoiler: And Finn probably is too.]]

* The thing [[spoiler: Finn's dad]] says to [[spoiler: his son]] before [[spoiler: ripping his wonderful creations apart.]] It's the way he says it that makes it so menacing.
-->'''[[spoiler: The Man Upstairs:]]''' [[spoiler: OK, Finn, let's play a game. It's called, "Let's put everything back together."]]
* When [[spoiler: The Man Upstairs]] asks his son what a lowly construction worker is doing in the middle of the city, [[spoiler: Finn]] protests--on the verge of tears--that Emmet ''isn't'' just a construction worker ("He's the hero!"). [[spoiler: The Man Upstairs]] refuses to believe it, and tells his son point-blank that Emmet is just an ordinary construction worker, and that he wasn't meant to be anything better. When he just dismissively looks down at Emmet ([[spoiler: who's seen as an immobile LEGO figure at this point]]), you half-expect a tear to roll down Emmet's cheek.
* The [[spoiler: shot of Finn's dad coming down the stairs. One half expects him to be an AbusiveParent]]

* When [[spoiler:Finn's dad goes over to the set his son has constructed and pulls off the Lord Business minifig, which is based on him, and sadly asks Finn, "So...Lord Business is the bad guy?", and Finn just looks away. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone He realizes for the first time just exactly how his son views him]]. And he's heartbroken. At the same moment, Emmet's speech--so Heartwarming. Looking at Lord Business' reaction and face after hearing that made a tear fall out the troper's eye.]]

* When [[spoiler:Finn's dad goes over to the set his son has constructed and pulls off the Lord Business minifig, which is based on him, and sadly asks Finn, "So...Lord Business is the bad guy?", and Finn just looks away. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone He realizes for the first time just exactly how his son views him]]. And he's heartbroken. At the same moment, Emmets speech. Looking at Lord Business' reaction and face towards that made a tear fall out the troper's eye.]]

* When [[spoiler:Finn's dad goes over to the set his son has constructed and pulls off the Lord Business minifig, which is based on him, and sadly asks Finn, "So...Lord Business is the bad guy?", and Finn just looks away. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone He realizes for the first time just exactly how his son views him]]. And he's heartbroken.]]

* The horrified, "please don't go" look on Wyldstyle's face right before [[spoiler: Emmet leaps into the abyss.]]

* '''Uni-Kitty''': Wh-What do we do now? There's gotta be a bright side here somewhere.

** "How can I just believe that I'm special.....when I know I'm not?" I DARE your heart not to break at that line.

** [[spoiler:When his dad looks back at him after tearing his son's creations apart, Finn is simply standing and doing nothing to the naked eye, but you can tell he's holding back anger and tears. ... then Dad walks toward him, kneels down, .... and gives him a soft apology hug. Lord Business does the same to Emmet.]]

** In a level of FridgeHorror, if you recognize that [[spoiler:the human boy Finn is making Emmet this utterly ignored, utterly forgettable character because ''he'' suffers the same thing at school.]]

** The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jJoHTsJMCU music]][[note]]Titled "Requiem for Cloud Cuckooland", no less[[/note]] does not help either.

* The InMemoriam at the very end for [[http://variety.com/2013/film/news/kathleen-fleming-lego-production-exec-dies-at-39-1200449770/ Kathleen Fleming]], who never got to see the release of the film to rave reviews.

*** Bad Cop is the only one who's seen the footage of what Emmett's 'friends' thought of him. At the time, he thought it was the perfect cover for 'The Special'. Now, he knows that Emmett had no idea at all about anything he was interrogating him about.

-->'''Emmet:''' ''{stoic, but clearly very hurt)'' There you go. Told you I was a nobody.

** While not much attention is drawn to it. During the attack on Cloud Cuckooland, a unicorn can be seen running by the screen with it's back on fire. You can tell it must be real fire too because the poor thing whinny's in pain!

** In the first mentioned scene, his eyes shake like he's about to tear up. [[spoiler:He does that after the second mentioned scene.]]

*** It's easy to miss, [[spoiler:but before Lord Business removes Good Cop's face, Bad Cop tries to switch in to protest, and the robots holding him down have to use force to switch Good Cop back in, and hold his head to prevent Bad Cop from coming back.]]
** [[spoiler: Although the Q-Tip did a terrible job of wiping the face off, it's still incredibly painful to watch Bad Cop struggle to get up from the floor while his parents watch in a mix of horror and grief for their son.]]

* Emmet [[spoiler:seeing everyone else being creative, and realizing that ''everyone'' is special]].
* [[spoiler: Shortly after being caught, Vitruvius is suddenly killed when decapitated by a penny thrown by Lord Business. What makes this scene shocking is how it abruptly follows Vitruvius's own personal CrowningMomentOfAwesome when he takes out dozens of mecha-mooks. To make matters worse, Vitruvius was one of the few who supported Emmet and even tried to offer some parting words of advice before dying. Everyone becomes so disheartened that they didn't even resist Lord Business's mooks]].
** As he's [[spoiler: dying Vitruvius explains he made up the prophecy of the "Special"]], you can see Lucy, Benny, Batman and even [[spoiler: Bad Cop]] all gasp in shock.
** [[spoiler: This is mitigated somewhat by the fact that Vitruvius comes back as a ghost. Still, it's hard not to feel initially shocked and saddened that an experienced, likable character was killed off.]]

** There's thankfully a happier tearjerker as [[spoiler:Finn's dad asks what Emmet would say to President Business. Emmet goes on to say how President Business underestimates his own worth, since all the wonderful things created were springboarded from his own initial creations.]]
* Emmet [[spoiler: [[HeroicSacrifice plunging into the abyss]] in order to save virtually EVERY MASTER BUILDER President/Lord Business and Bad Cop have ever captured and put into the Think Tank. For the next 15 minutes or so, all the other characters think Emmet's really dead!]]

*** Made much worse by the fact that his line[[spoiler: right before jumping was [[IronicEcho "see you later,]] [[NeverSayGoodbye alligator"]].]]
** [[spoiler:Wyldstyle's heartbroken look when Emmet is about to throw himself into the abyss. She's spent most of the movie saving him at her chagrin because [[TheChosenZero he's not the Special]]. And the one time she wants to save him, she can't. All she can do is beg him not to go, even if it meant that she would die.]]
** [[spoiler: After the Master Builders are saved, everyone is in [[HeroicBSOD shock]] as Superman helplessly asks if anyone has any ideas on what to do now. You know that if it's ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' saying that, they're in deep trouble!]]

-->'''Emmet:''' *Stoic, but clearly very hurt* There you go. Told you I was a nobody.