Having fun with Legos on a larger scale

     Like most people, I used to play with Legos when I was younger, I wasn't the best at building things but I still had fun with them. My friends and I would make our own little forts, get a small army of Lego minifigures and try to destroy each other's fort. Legos have had such an impact on so many generations of kids and even adults. It's incredible how many different types of Lego themes there are; from space to racing, even from Star Wars to Batman. Legos have their own theme-parks, video games, and television show; so it was only a matter of time before Lego made it's own movie. The film was made by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who are known for their movie adaptations of Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street. Much like the toys it was based off of, the movie is a lot of fun for both kids and adults.

Plot Summary
     The Lego Movie is about a man (or minifigure) named Emmett (voiced by Chris Pratt). Emmett is an ordinary, regular, boring construction worker who lives in Bricksburg: a city that functions by its citizens following rigid instructions from their leader, President Business (voiced by Will Ferrell). One day after work, Emmett stumbles into a hole where he finds a strange artifact. After touching the artifact he blacks out, only to wake up and find that the artifact is stuck to his back. It's revealed that he is "the special" and the artifact is the only thing that can stop "The Kragle", another artifact President Business wants to use to destroy the world. President Business sends his army, led by Bad Cop/Good Cop (Liam Neeson) to capture Emmett and secure the artifact.

     Emmett teams up with the Master Builders; people who can take any objects and make anything they want. Among the master builders is Batman (Will Arnett), a wizard named Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), a 1980's-something spaceman named Benny (Charlie Day), a robotic pirate named Metal Beard (Nick Offerman), and a girl named Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks). With the help of the Master Builders, Emmett sets out to stop President Business and destroy the Kragle.

Analyze
     Phil Lord and Chris Miller have a pretty wide gap in what they're known for. On one hand they made Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, on the other hand, they made 21 Jump Street. These two movies are very different from each other both in style and family friendliness. Lego Movie is closer to CWCM since it's a family movie. I like that Lord and Miller are capable of writing for a large range of age groups and I also like that they try different types of styles. I hope they continue to come out with impressive films.


Interpretation
     This movie is for both the kids and the adults. I say it's for the adults because the movie shows more of the classic Lego figures and sets that adults today grew up with. The movie has a lot of parts in it that some kids might not understand, for example: Emmett's hometown is extremely distopian, but in a way that kids might not understand. In the movie, everyone in Emmett's town must follow the instructions that President Business makes for them, this makes it so everyone seems to be walking in formation all the time and are extremely happy living extremely unremarkable lives.

     This movie was actually fairly tame. There was no swearing anywhere in the movie (unless you consider gosh and heck to be a swear). the only thing I can think of that might be considered a little more mature is at one point President Business references torturing people. However, this is a one time thing he said in passing.

Evaluation
     I'd say this movie's greatest strength is it's animation. It's computer animated but it's intentionally made using a lower frame-rate, making it look like a home-made stop-motion film (albeit with a higher budget). I liked this movie a lot, it had a good story with a lot of heart and good characters. I think that since it's so different it will be remembered. It's Lego's first movie so that helps it become memorable, but I think kids will remember it, along with adults for the story and even some film students would like it for the animation. Professional critics have been eating this movie up. as I'm writing this, The Lego Movie has an 8.4/10 on IMDb and a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.


Conclusion
    As I've stated many times already I really enjoyed this movie. I recommend it to anyone who likes Legos, computer animation or just need a nice family-friendly film to watch. I've seen it twice in theaters now (once with a friend, once with my five-year old cousin) and I enjoyed it equally both times. I'm not sure if I would see a sequel as I think this film did a good job of wrapping things up and I don't think there's really much more to do with the story. Long story short: If you haven't seen this movie yet and are at least remotely curious about it, go see it.

Even Zombies Can Be Dandy

Space Dandy and his brave space crew (Left to right: Meow, Dandy, and QT)

Space Dandy

Season 1 Episode 4: "Sometimes You Can't Live With Dying, Baby."

Original Broadcast: 1/26/2014 at 10:30pm on Adult Swim

Science-Fiction, Comedy, Parody

Show Summary

     Space Dandy is still fairly new, it started January 4, 2014 and I've been watching it since the beginning. At first I just thought it was an alright show, but with each episode I get more and more excited for the next episode. As I'm writing this, there are 5 episodes with new episodes premiering every Saturday. This post is mostly going to be talking about the fourth episode which was the most recent when I started writing this and is currently my favorite episode so far. So far, critics have been fairly mixed about their opinion of Space Dandy, they seem to either love it or hate it. Some don't like the more "episodic" storytelling and would prefer a more linear story-line rather than each episode containing its own unique story. Others love the characters and consider the setting to be amazing. The show is made by Shinichiro Watanabe who's famous for his other series Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop (often thought to be one of the best written and most famous animes of all time). For Space Dandy, Watanabe has said he wanted to get away from the serious storytelling he's known for and focus on having more fun with his stories.
     Space Dandy is an animated show that parodies classic science-fiction. The show was licensed in America but created in Japan. Unlike most shows in Japan, which air in Japan weeks, months, and sometimes even years before they're released internationally, Space Dandy actually premiered in America first. It's about an alien hunter named Dandy (real name). Dandy loves money, adventure, women, and most importantly, himself. The show takes a lot from classic science-fiction from Buck Rogers to Star Trek. There are also some hints of 80's sci-fi and action movies. The soundtrack is a mixture between upbeat jazz music, relaxed ukulele music, and 80's synthesizer.

     One of the show's strongest points is its visual effects. Each scene looks amazing and just bursting with color. Outer space looks amazing as you can see the detail the artists put into each star, planet, and galaxy in the distance. The aliens are probably the best example of how great the animation is, Almost no two aliens are alike. Each alien in the show was actually created by a different artist, ensuring the feeling that every alien is different. 

     The main character's weapons, equipment, and space suit look like something from a 50's sci-fi movie (as seen in the picture above). He also takes on the appearance of a Greaser from the 50's; Dandy is also obviously interested in Hawaiian culture as his ship is decorated with a Hawaiian theme with palm trees, neon signs, tropical flowers, and even the ship itself is named the Aloha Oe. He even has a giant fighting robot he can operate and it's wearing a Hawaiian shirt. You could say Dandy is an Otaku for Hawaiian Culture

Dandy's room in The Aloha Oe. 

Plot wise, I'll let the show's intro explain

Commercials

• Cheetos
• Google Play
• H&R Block
• Outback Steackhouse
• Southern New Hampshire University
• Dunkin' Donuts
• Auto Trader.com
• M&M's
• Xenadrine
• Taco Bell
• 5-hour Energy
• Twix

     Space Dandy slightly differs with advertising than other shows. In most shows the format is: Intro/opening credits-> Commercial-> First Act-> Commercial-> Second Act-> Commercial-> Ending/resolution. However, in Space Dandy the format is: Intro/opening credits-> First Act-> Commercial-> Second Act-> Ending/resolution. This means that instead of about two or three commercial breaks like most shows, Space Dandy only has one. The commercials seem to be mostly aimed towards college students and men under 30  Which does cater towards Space Dandy's demographic. There was an add for Xenadrine, a weight-loss supplement that felt out of place. None of these ads were anything new, I had seen them before. None of them seemed to include any major stereotypes outside of "Man under 30."
     The main strength I think these ads have are that they do accurately portray the demographic. People who watch Space Dandy are most likely looking for a car (Auto Trader.com) or a university to attend (Southern New Hampshire University). The main weakness I think is the time these air. A lot of people might not want to go buy insurance or a car at 11:30 at night. Taco Bell might be the exception since I know a lot of people who go there at really weird hours of the night. I don't usually think of commercials as being memorable and these were no exception. As I'm writing this I've already forgotten what happens in most of these commercials outside of what they're trying to sell.

Characters

Space Dandy (Voiced by Ian Sinclair)- A dandy guy, in space; Dandy is a laid-back alien hunter. As an alien hunter, his job is to go planet to planet in his spaceship, the Aloha Oe, and find rare and unknown creatures and register them for money. When he's not hunting aliens he can usually be found at Boobies (a restaurant chain that's an obvious parody of Hooters).While he can be kind and generous to others and his crew, he is better known for being perverted, vain, and selfish; he is not above sacrificing his crew members for his own life.  Put simply, Space Dandy is what you would get if you combined Buck Rogers and Johnny Bravo.

Meow (Voiced by Joel McDonald)- Dandy's newest crew member. His real name is practically unpronounceable, so due to his cat-like appearance, Dandy just refers to him as Meow. Meow's job is the ship's navigator, he also helps Dandy find new aliens to register (these adventures don't usually end well)

QT (Voiced by Alison Viktorin)- Dandy's robot that helps him identify aliens. QT shows more intelligence and common sense than the other two crew members but is usually given menial chores by Dandy (usually cleaning the ship). QT is actually obsolete and uses outdated software, which usually means it suffers from memory-shortage and battery outages.

Episode Summary

     The episode starts with Dandy and crew examining a captured alien to see if they can turn it in for a reward. The alien looks like an already well-known species, the Stilltonian but it has characteristics the Stilltonians don't have, such as slow reactions, a sickly appearance, and at one point it even bites Meow while Stilltonians are known for being very docile. This causes the crew to believe that they've captured an unknown alien. On their way to the registration center, Meow starts to act strange: he acts really slow and starts to look very sick, similar to the alien they captured. Dandy and QT decide to take Meow to a hospital. The doctor makes an interesting discovery: Meow has no pulse. In fact, none of his vital signs are showing any reaction. Technically, Meow is dead. Wanting to study what might be wrong with him, the doctor has Meow stay at the hospital. Dandy and QT decide to come back and check up on him the next day (QT because she wants to see how Meow is doing, Dandy because he wants to ogle the nurses.)

     The next day, they find the hospital has been overrun by zombies overnight. Dandy and QT try to get Meow and escape the planet. They quickly deduce that the alien they captured was in fact a Stilltonian that also happened to be a zombie. When it bit Meow, he became a zombie too and became the source of the outbreak in the hospital. Humorously, despite being a robot, QT actually becomes a zombie too from exposure from Dandy using her to bludgeon zombies. The scene actually ends with Dandy being bitten and becoming a zombie himself.

     The rest of the episode is actually about Dandy, Meow, and QT living their normal lives as zombies, with their dialogue (only consisting of groans) being translated by the show's narrator.

They talk to the alien they captured in the beginning of the episode who becomes their zombie guru and teaches them how to become better zombies. One of the things it teaches them is how to kick their craving of raw meat for something much more healthy (which happens to be yogurt). The narrator explains that because of their slow movements, Dandy and crew actually can't function as alien hunters and are running low on money; however, Dandy gets a great idea: they decide to collect their own life insurance policies. Soon other zombies, which have been spreading since the outbreak at the hospital, start to follow Dandy's ideas of eating yogurt and collecting life insurance.
     The insurance companies, suffering from all the zombies' life insurance policies, soon hire zombie hunters to find and kill any zombie living off of their own life insurance by shooting them in the head (according to the narrator, this is referred to as "Putting a cap in the benefits") it's heartless, but it's technically not illegal to kill something that's already dead. However, the zombie hunters and the Insurance CEO's soon become zombies themselves. With the threat of the insurance companies gone, zombies are able to live peacefully side-by-side with the other aliens of the universe. The episode ends with every single living being and robot in the universe (and even the narrator himself) becoming zombies. There is no sickness and no war, just zombies. The final scene is Dandy and crew watching a drive-in movie in the Aloha Oe; the movie is directed by George A. Romero.

     

Space Dandy's Adult Swim website 

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