The Moment in the LEGO Movie that Changed Everything

If you haven't seen the LEGO Movie, stop reading this post and see it as quickly as humanly possible. It is one of the finest pieces of animation to grace human eyes and can genuinely rank among such titles as Shrek, Emperor's New Groove and many Pixar movies. So go watch it, get that little Lonely Island song stuck in your head and come back to read the blog.

I could easily rant about WHY the LEGO Movie was the ridiculous gem that it was (hint: it's the same formula as all good comedy movies), but that's not the focus of today's post. Today's post concerns a moment that happens 2:23 into the movie. At this point we've seen the opening scene of the movie. As a refresher, this scene depicts Vitruvius in some cave. He briefly interacts with some guards, then Lord Business enters the scene. He instantly steals the scene (like Will Ferrell often does) and eliminates any shreds of doubt that this movie won't be amazing. He and Vitruvius have a short scuffle that leaves Vitruvius blinded and the mysterious weapon, the Kragle, in the hands of Lord Business. Vitruvius then utters a prophecy about a special "lass or fellow" with "face of yellow" that will come along and "make the piece of resistance found" (Even writing that sentence, I cringe at the grammar). He concludes his prophecy saying, "All this is true because it rhymes". Lord Business, not being one for poorly formed unmetered poetry, kicks Vitruvius down into some lava or something and leaves.

Okay. That's the opening scene that takes the first 2:21 of the movie, but then there is a single second shot that changes everything. The scene changes and a blank yellow background reads "8 1/2 Years Later".

On the surface this moment may seem trivial, and it's certainly easy to miss, but I think it's implications for the rest of the LEGO Movie are profound. Lengthy passages of time in movies are interesting, but they're especially interesting when kids are involved. Toward the end of the movie, we come to find out that a boy named Finn is the son of the dad played by Will Ferrell. The movie does a brilliant job layering the story lines outside the LEGO world with those within, so it's clear that Dad/Lord Business is the villain in both, intent on freezing the LEGO world with Krazy Glue. Finn/Emmet is the hero set on stopping the Krazy Glue so LEGOs can still be used by master builders to blend sets and create. The crux of the movie hinges on the struggle between structured business and childlike, rampant creativity.

I promise, all that explanation was really important because the kid in the movie looks like he could be about 8 1/2 years old. I can't find the actual ago of Jadon Sand, the kid who played Finn, but the internet seems to be in total agreement that the kid is about 8 1/2. This means the opening scene of the movie happened before Finn was born or else shortly after he was born. One article on LEGO Movie easter eggs picks up on this point, but doesn't stretch it out far enough. It says "...Though it's never explicitly stated, when Finn was born, The Man Upstairs locked his toys away, separated the worlds, and made sure that his son would never play with them" (Alex Zalben, MTV*).

I think it's safe to say that Finn is 8 1/2 and thereby cannot be the one playing with the toys (i.e making the opening scene) at the beginning of the movie. This leaves the question "who is making it happen?" The obvious and only suggested choice is Dad. But this still leaves many questions, chief among them "How does this scene fit with the rest of the movie presented by Finn?"

Allow me to suggest the following explanation. Dad, knowing his wife is about to have their first child, goes downstairs to the basement and locks up his LEGO toys. He has a very large collection that fills the majority of the basement. LEGOs obviously aren't safe for a zero-year-old kid and neither is the basement. He is doing a GOOD think by locking up the toys. When he is down there to lock up the basement, he stops for a moment and plays with a couple of his old toys. He picks up Lord Business and Vitruvius and plays out a short scene. In this scene Lord Business, by no means the villain in his mind, finds some Krazy Glue and takes it out of the scene. This makes perfect sense on both a LEGO level and a human level. In the LEGO world the action could be read as either sinister or helpful, since the Kragle is an obvious weapon. In the human world, it is simply a dad (or soon-to-be-dad) picking up some Krazy Glue and taking it upstairs where it can be of more use.

Now I think this is a really positive and really probable explanation for the beginning of the film, but now we have to see how it fits with the rest of the movie. I can think of two pretty solid possibilities for how this Dad becomes the "villainous Lord Business" that keeps the toys from his 8 1/2 year old kid. Unfortunately both of these half-formed theories are much sadder than the idea I just entertained. You've been warned.

-Option 1. After having Finn, Dad and Mom's lives got really busy. In the process of raising a toddler, Dad grew hardened toward his childhood toys and grew more preoccupied with work (i.e "Business"). Along the way (by my guess 5-6 years after having Finn) he and his wife had a baby girl (this fact is explicitly stated at the end of the movie when Duplo blocks show up). Now preoccupied with a combination of the new baby/young toddler, Dad forgets about his toys in the basement and forgets that Finn is old enough to play with them. Finn gets down there anyway and plays with them leading to the heartwarming ending of the movie.

Though pretty possible, this explanation leaves several things unexplained, namely why Lord Business/Dad has tons of Krazy Glue down there to start hardening the LEGOs together. The next explanation is sadder still, but it solves this problem.

-Option 2. Mom and Dad have Finn and life is really great. Finn grows up for a few years and the family is really happy. When he's 4-5ish, they decide to have another kid. Finn isn't a toddler anymore and the parents likely have stable jobs. They have a baby girl, but then, tragedy strikes. Mom dies, either in childbirth or shortly thereafter, leaving Dad to raise Finn and his sister on his own.  He weathers the first couple years without her reasonably well, but then falls on hard times. In order to keep the family afloat, he has to sell his expansive collection of LEGOs to a museum. He systematically goes downstairs gluing LEGOs. This could have been going on a long time. Remember, we only see basement one time. It's possible he had even more LEGOs at one point. Wild Style does talk of worlds we don't see. The ending is a reconciliation with Finn, but also Dad moving on from the loss of his wife.

Now I understand this is a stretch, but in my mind, it is a possible or even probable explanation that allows the opening minutes to be acted out by Dad and the rest of the movie by Finn. Otherwise we have a Dad that has a RIDICULOUS NUMBER OF LEGOs he never uses, but locks them away from his son for no reason for years. This explanation at least explains why he wont let Finn play with the LEGOs; why he is hesitant to play with them himself; why he is gluing them together even though he once cared enough to own THAT many LEGOs; why the opening of sequence of Lord Business taking the Kragle works with the rest of the movie wherein he is using the Kragle.

As a quick point it's impossible for the Dad's collection to have been locked up, untouched, for this simple reason. In the middle of the movie, while in Cloud Cuckoo Land, we see a Milhouse figure. The Simpsons LEGO set was released shortly before the LEGO movie, so it's impossible for that figure to be in the basement unless the collection has been changed recently. It is possible that Finn carried it down there sometime, but I think it far more likely that Dad continues adding to the collection, even in small ways, because he REALLY loves LEGOs.

To summarize, Dad acts out the opening two minutes of the LEGO Movie. Around that same time he and his wife have Finn, causing him to lock the basement and keep it from Finn. 5-6 years later they have a daughter. Shortly after that Mom dies leaving Dad alone to raise two kids. This forces him to sell some of his prized LEGO worlds for money in order to provide for his family. The ending is both about reconciliation and moving on from the loss of his wife.

This theory needs a little work, but I think it's pretty solid. No matter what moviegoers have to deal with the discrepancy between the Dad acting out the first two minutes and Finn acting the rest of the movie. If you can think of another way to allow the Dad to be relatively heroic at the beginning and a villain later on, let me know. It is important to remember, he has an absurd amount of LEGOs that are clearly a huge part of his life. It has to take something drastic to cause him to glue them all down. This theory does change the meaning of the movie slightly, but if anything, it makes it all the more rich and satisfying.