Top 5 Character Ideas for the New Lego Movie

[CrONoS]

Kind of funny:

http://www.cinematical.com/2009/08/12/top-5-character-ideas-for-the-new-lego-movie/

According to Hollywood logic, the success of the Transformers and G.I. Joe movies obviously means that people want to see more movies based on toys. To that end, Warner Bros. announced this week that it's developing a family-friendly adventure comedy based on Legos, the timeless Danish building blocks that have fostered countless hours of playful imagination, not to mention the innumerable swear words they have caused to be muttered by barefoot parents who have stepped on them in the middle of the night.

WB says the movie will be a mixture of live-action and animation and will be set "in a Lego world," whatever that means. (I assume a Lego world is not the same thing as Legoland.) And since we assume WB is seeking input on which Lego characters ought to be included, we did some browsing on the Internets (mostly at the Lego Mania blog) and found a few that would surely enliven any Lego-based cinematic work.

Here some ideas:

Lego Stephen Hawking. Surely there's a place in a Lego movie for the world's smartest man. Bonus: Since his voice is computerized, you wouldn't even have to hire a voice actor to play him.


Lego Suicide Guy. Hilarity will ensue when, just after stepping off the box, the Lego man's head detaches from his body. Does being taken apart even kill a Lego person? If it does, then what gives a Lego person his spark of life to begin with? These and many other existential questions will be addressed.

Lego Drunk Guy Puking in Toilet. When things get crazy in Legoland, this guy is always the heaviest drinker and the first vomiter. You'd think someone who drinks as much as he does would be better at holding his booze, but no -- that's part of the comedy!


Lego Prison Rapist. The press release didn't say so specifically, but we assume the film will be an adaptation of The Shawshank Redemption.


Lego Jesus. Wow, this one's actually really impressive. It does introduce a lot of thorny theological questions, though, not the least of which is how people will take communion when the wafer is a single Lego block.

[DaShi]

Lego Spinal Tap!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/business/11lego.html

August 11, 2009
Lego Rejects a Bit Part in a Spinal Tap DVD
By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

In 2007, when Coleman Hickey was 14, he made a stop-action film using Lego pieces and figures to depict a concert performance of the song “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight,” by Spinal Tap, the parody band featured in the 1984 mock documentary “This is Spinal Tap.”

Among the fans of the video, which has garnered 82,000 views on YouTube and includes a musician hurling himself into the audience of Lego figures and crowd surfing atop their upraised plastic arms, are the members of Spinal Tap. The band showed the video during performances of its recent “Unwigged and Unplugged” tour.

But Lego is not amused.

As final editing was being done on a concert DVD of the tour, which included footage from the video projected on stage, Lego declined to grant permission to use its figures, which are protected by copyright.

“We love that our fans are so passionate and so creative with our products,” said Julie Stern, a spokeswoman for Lego Systems, the United States division of the Lego Group, a Danish company founded in the 1930s. “But it had some inappropriate language, and the tone wasn’t appropriate for our target audience of kids 6 to 12.”

As is Spinal Tap’s wont, the song, addressed to a minor, parodies rock stars’ inflated egos and libidos.

Kia Kamran, an intellectual property lawyer representing Spinal Tap, said the band could have prevailed had Lego sued alleging copyright infringement, because Mr. Hickey’s video does not show the brand’s logo and is satirical. But the band did not deem the fight worth the expense, he said.

“In my heart of hearts, I do think this is fair use” of copyrighted material, Mr. Kamran said.

Harry Shearer, the voice of several characters on “The Simpsons” and a member of Spinal Tap (with Christopher Guest and Michael McKean), said other copyright holders, including the Rolling Stones, whose “Start Me Up” was used in Spinal Tap’s concert footage, granted permission for use on the DVD, which will be released Sept. 1.

“Lego are the only people who strictly said no,” Mr. Shearer said. “It was Lego Kafka.”

In the excised footage, Mr. Shearer told the audience after the video projection that the Lego concertgoers with raised C-shaped hands (for gripping Lego components) reminded him of rock audiences who gesture with index fingers and pinkies pointed. Later, when the band did an encore, many in the crowd raised their hands in the cupped gesture of Lego hands, which, having lost its setup, no longer functioned as a joke.

For the recent tour and DVD, Mr. Shearer, Mr. Guest and Mr. McKean did not perform in their long-wigged Spinal Tap costumes, but rather as themselves, and performed songs from their other fictional band, the Folksmen, as well.

Many are tempted to place wholesome looking Lego characters in unwholesome situations, as evidenced by a video that has drawn more than 1.4 million views on YouTube, “Lego Weapon Store.” It begins with one Lego character approaching another at a sales counter and saying, “I’d like to buy a weapon to kill my neighbor.”

Another YouTube video, a parody of “Girls Gone Wild” called “Legos Gone Wild,” depicts the figures exposing themselves to the camera as they “Lego their inhibitions.” It has been viewed more than 200,000 times.

But Lego has not acted to have either video, or Mr. Hickey’s, removed from YouTube.

“YouTube is a less commercial use,” Ms. Stern said. “But when you get into a more commercial use, that’s when we have to look into the fact that we are a trademarked brand, and we really have to control the use of our brand, and our brand values.”

Mr. Hickey, now 16, who lives outside Columbus, Ohio, says he and his eight siblings have amassed a collection of about 42,000 Lego bricks and characters.

“In a way I’m disappointed that it won’t be forever memorialized in a DVD,” Mr. Hickey said of his video. “It’s not like I was going to get any money for it, but it’s too bad. Lego has the right to do that, but it’s unfortunate that they don’t have a little more of a sense of humor.”

[Zevico]

WB says the movie will be a mixture of live-action and animation and will be set "in a Lego world," whatever that means. (I assume a Lego world is not the same thing as Legoland.)

Those bastards had better not **** up the canon universe...

[Nostromo]

A LEGO movie? How ****ing retarded...

Anyway here are some ideas...

http://www.thebricktestament.com/