Trivia / The LEGO Movie

• Acting for Two:
  • Liam Neeson as both Bad Cop/Good Cop and his father Pa Cop, and Will Ferrell as both Lord/President Business and the Man Upstairs.
  • The Japanese dub also does this, with Kōichi Yamadera as Batman, Lord/President Business and the Man Upstairs, and Miyuki Sawashiro as Wyldstyle and Princess UniKitty.
  • The video game for the movie has Keith Ferguson voice both Emmett and Lord Business for parts not lifted from the films.
• Ascended Fanon:
  • Various references to LEGO-fandom, such as the term "macaroni brick" for 3063 Brick, Round Corner 2x2.
  • One of the foremen in the construction yard yells for "cheese slopes," a fan term for the 54200 Slope, 1x1x2/3.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Haha, but seriously... A big reason Phil Lord wanted to do this movie was because he was an avid collector of LEGO sets.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: BIONICLE fans who weren't happy about their favorite LEGO theme getting only a Freeze-Frame Bonus frequently say that Wyldstyle referred to BIONICLE as "not worth mentioning" as a unnecessarily mean-spirited Take That!. Except she never said that. The exact phrase she used was "we don't need to mention", which is subtly different phrasing but much less antagonistic in meaning; after all, since BIONICLE has no relevance to the plot or the rest of the movie (justified because Finn was almost certainly too young to be collecting BIONICLE sets during its initial run, while AFOLs traditionally disliked BIONICLE so The Man Upstairs likely wouldn't have collected them either), Wyldstyle is correct in saying that it is not necessary to explicitly mention BIONICLE in her Exposition Dump.
• The Cast Showoff: While the entire role is obviously based on voice acting, Liam Neeson gets to showcase his talent for doing cartoon character voices - most of the scenes where he argues back and forth in both voices are actually done in a single take with no editing, rather than doing both voices separately and splicing them together. The cheery, cartoony Good Cop voice is all him too, no editing on the pitch at all. (Interestingly enough, Neeson has mentioned before that the voice of Good Cop is actually much closer to his natural voice.)
• Casting Gag: Will Forte plays Abraham Lincoln here. This was not the first time this happened.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: Aside from the main cast and cameo characters, there's still plenty of this. Channing Tatum, Will Arnett and Cobie Smulders play Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman respectively. Also Will Forte, Dave Franco, Jake Johnson, Keegan-Michael Key and Jorma Taccone all voice minor characters and various extras.
• Colbert Bump: Good luck going to the comments section of any upload of Judy Garland's "How You Gonna Keep Them Down On the Farm" without finding any comments referencing this movie. No, it doesn't make any more sense in the context of the movie itself, either.
• Creator's Favorite: Emmet mexican voice actor José Antonio Macías, loves playing the main character. He even called The Second Part his favorite movie out of the three LEGO Movies he voiced in the franchise.
• Defictionalization:
  • Played straight: Many of the wild models dreamt up by the Master Builders and ultimately Finn are available as real toys. As is normal for a movie that's Merchandise-Driven.
  • Played with: The movie contains objects like Vitruvius' staff, which are clearly not from the LEGO universe. The licensed toys give these an official brick representation.
  • There is an actual Master Builder Academy, where members are encouraged to be creative and build whatever they want. So yes, it is possible to become a Master Builder in Real Life.
• DVD Commentary: There's two, in fact:
  • First Commentary with Writers/Directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, and Actors Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, Charlie Day, Will Arnett and briefly Elizabeth Banks.
  • Second Commentary with Miller and Lord, co-director and editor Chris Mckay and Film Critic Hulk
• Exiled from Continuity: While the movie is filled to the brim with the then-current and a number of previous LEGO lines throughout the history of the company, licensing issues prevented certain themes from showing up, due to the film being made by Warner Bros. with Star Wars specifically cited in spite of the brand's history with LEGO (it's owned by Disney, Warner Bros.'s biggest rival). They lied about Star Wars, to keep one of the biggest gags in the movie a surprise.
• Fake American: Toronto-born Will Arnett as Batman.
• Follow the Leader: The success of The LEGO Movie would inspire other films that explore a secret world of toys or anthropomorphic beings that exist alongside humans most notably The Emoji Movie, UglyDolls, Playmobil: The Movie and Bobbleheads: The Movie. None of these films were able to replicate the success of The LEGO Movie and ended up as critical and commercial flops.
• Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's had a set of eight collectible cups, each one featuring one of the film's characters; Emmet, Wyldstyle, Vitruvius, UniKitty, Batman, MetalBeard, Bad Cop, and President Business.
• Lying Creator: Before the film's release, LEGO kept telling people that Star Wars characters wouldn't be appearing due to licensing conflicts. This kept one of the film's best cameos a nice surprise.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Two of DC Comics most prominent characters, Wonder Woman and The Flash, actually made their theatrical debuts here. It also marks the first time the Justice League of America have appeared in a theatrical release together, even if they aren't referred to as such.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: This short film won a contest to appear in The LEGO Movie. It appears at the climax on Lord Business' screen when the entire LEGO world mobilizes against his army.
• The Other Marty:
  • The Japanese dub's first trailer had Ichirō Nagai as the voice of Vitruvius. Presumably due to Nagai's death in January of 2014, the role is instead played by Michio Hazama.
  • Also from the Japanese trailer, Emmett was instead voiced by Miina Tominaga , most likely to stay consistent with the climax as she also appears to be the voice of Finn, but in the movie proper was voiced by the more appropriate Toshiyuki Morikawa.
  • The exact same was true for the Hungarian version: early promos featured one of Morgan Freeman's two "regular" dubbing actors (Gábor Reviczky), later ones used the other (László Helyey). With Helyey's death in January, the dub was made using a third actor, who sounded nothing like Freeman. Outside of Wyldstyle, all other character also changed their voices from the promos.
  • Tie-in materials often vary which film actor returns for it. Some things, like the tie-in game, replace the cast entirely, while others, usually shorts or the ride, only do it partially.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Two types as Liam Neeson; as Bad Cop, because he's never outright that mean, and Good Cop, because he's never that wimpy and nice.
  • Zig-zagged with Will Ferrell as the strait-laced dad/Man Upstairs, who is against his usual type, and Lord Business, who isn't as much.
  • Emmet has none of the snarkiness and sarcasm typically associated with Chris Pratt.
  • MetalBeard has none of the calmness or stoicism commonly used by Nick Offerman
• Playing with Character Type:
  • Morgan Freeman plays a Magical Negro, but one who is a Trickster Mentor with an acerbic wit.
  • Will Ferrell plays a villain who mispronounces things the way Megamind does, but it's where the similarity ends. Lord Business is really a little boy's portrayal of his father, who is a control freak.
  • Liam Neeson does his usual tough guy schtick as Bad Cop, but comically exaggerated, and as Good Cop, gets to do a character that's the exact opposite and argues with the former character.
• Production Posse: Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill were the leads from Phil Lord and Chris Miller's 21 Jump Street, are cast here as Superman and Green Lantern.
• Promoted Fanboy: Most of the cast and crew by nature, but Liam Neeson two-fold. He and his nieces and nephews played with LEGO and he jumped at the chance at a role in the film. He also visibly Squeed a little during an interview when he talked about making jokes with Will Ferrell.
• Recursive Adaptation: Yes, the film has gotten LEGO sets based off of it.
• The Red Stapler:
  • Most of the sets, props, and characters can be bought as actual Lego sets.
  • You can make a double-decker couch that looks like the one in the movie.
• Role Reprise:
  • Anthony Daniels and Billy Dee Williams reprise their roles as C-3PO and Lando Calrissian respectively.
  • In the Italian dub, Claudio Santamaria reprises his role as Batman from The Dark Knight Trilogy.
  • In the Brazilian dub:
    • Guilherme Briggs, who voiced Superman in the Justice League cartoon, Man of Steel and Injustice: Gods Among Us, as well as Han Solo in the Star Wars movies, reprises those two roles.
    • Mauro Ramos, who voiced Dumbledore in the last Harry Potter movie, reprises his role.
    • Sérgio Stern, who voiced C-3PO in some Star Wars movies and the Clone Wars cartoon, reprises his role.
    • Luiz Carlos Persy, who voiced Gandalf in The Hobbit, reprises his role.
  • In the Canadian French dub, Batman is voiced by Daniel Picard. While he was very likely cast because he also voiced Will Arnett in most of his other movies, he's also the official Canadian French voice actor of George Clooney, including in Batman & Robin (which starred Clooney as the Caped Crusader himself).
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The "meet me downstairs/upstairs in ten seconds" Running Gag came about because the animators couldn't figure out how to animate the LEGO characters going up and down stairs without it looking awkward.
• Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy:
  • A rather interesting case, as the movie is about the toys themselves. Any sets that existed prior to the movie appeared in the show as they would. In addition, several of the "2 in 1" sets were the models sold in the sets. However, some of the plot-critical sets like Emmet's Construct-o-Mech and MetalBeard's ship are vastly different (at least structurally) from their movie counterparts. Likewise, none of the Micromanagers in any of the sets are identical to the ones that appeared. However, all of these sets at least look like what they're suppose to; presumably the difference in construction is due to scale and design.^note The Sea Cow might not actually be able to be built, as it seems to change size and design depending on which shot was needed. Even if it could be built, it would be huge, as MetalBeard himself appears in a separate set completely movie-accurate, and stands about the size of an action figure. If his ship were made to scale, it'd be the size of a coffee table. Same goes for Emmet's Construct-o-Mech, as it would have a piece count rivaling that of many high-end Star Wars or Technic sets. Lord Business's Evil Lair is very compressed to allow it to be affordable but still including key locations and scenes. A notable example is Bad Cop's Pursuit. His flying-mode car is exactly what appears in the film, but only a tiny section of train track is included to go with it.
  • Benny's Spaceship and Cloud Cuckoo Palace actually appears in near-completely show-accurate form. This is because they both appear in the real world, so presumably an actual, real life model needed to be developed for those scenes. The Spaceship is pretty prominent, but the palace appears in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment when Finn's dad points to Finn's LEGO section. The Super Secret Police Dropship is the same model in the sets as in the movie.
  • An interesting subversion comes in the form of a goof. When developing the model for Emmet, the designers thought to put an "authentic" imperfection on his hairpiece in the form of an injection-molding seam down the front. This turned out to be a mistake, since the physical minifigure used in the live-action shots and the sets does not have the seam, making the model created for the animated sequences incorrect, but presumably, it was too late to fix.
  • One short subverts this by having the Green Ninja (Lloyd Garmadon) sound masculine, and nothing like his normal VA, Jillian Michaels. It's rather jarring for Ninjago fans.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: Bad Cop's "Scribble Face" minifigure revealed his fate in the movie, and while not an exact interpretation of the scenes, the "Lord Business' Evil Lair" playset revealed many details, including Bad Cop's parents frozen by glue and Princess UniKitty in her "business" disguise.
• Star-Making Role: Parks and Recreation got him noticed, but it was this movie combined with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) the same year that propelled Chris Pratt to the A-list.
• Throw It In!:
  • Liam Neeson ad-libbed "Darn darn darn darny darn!"
  • Similarly, Vitruvius' line to Dumbledore, "We gotta write all that down, 'cause I'm not gonna remember any of it" was originally an off-the-cuff remark by Morgan Freeman in the recording studio.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The directors couldn't get all the licensed characters they wanted. They haven't said who these were, but obvious absentees various Disney properties including Marvel Universe, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Star Wars. Except Star Wars characters did make it into the movie, which was thought otherwise thanks to the creators deliberately misleading the audience in interviews. Of course, LEGO has worked with Star Wars since long before Disney came into the picture.
  • A dropped sub-title would have been "The Piece of Resistance".
  • A script for the old ''Piece of Resistance'' title has surfaced. It's incredibly different from the final version, with many of the character's names changed, R2-D2 and Indiana Jones being main characters (this was before Lucasfilm was bought by Disney), Emmet still living with his elderly mother, who turns out to be "the most powerful woman in the universe", had Bad Cop actually swear instead of saying "darn", Larry the Barista having a larger role, and Benny having a co-pilot that's an inanimate mop called Moppy.
  • The ending credits were meant to be more grandiose with the LEGO bricks spelling out the casts' name in a world that represents them (UniKitty would be in a cutesy world, Batman a Gotham-like city, etc). But the producers found it would take too many LEGO bricks and time to do, as the credits were actual stop-motion rather than CGI like the rest of the film.
  • MetalBeard was originally going to be Wyldstyle's boyfriend, until they decided Batman would be even crazier.
  • There was a planned Big Damn Kiss between Emmet and Wyldstyle (Played for Laughs and depicted as two toys awkwardly mashing against each other) but focus groups were iffy on it, and it was decided that Holding Hands was more appropriate.
  • UniKitty was originally going to end up with either MetalBeard or Batman at the end of the movie.
  • Lord Business's name was originally going to be "Black Falcon".
  • The filmmakers considered Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney or Christian Bale to reprise the role of Batman.

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