Believe it or not, Legos have actually existed since 1949. As early as the 1960s, there were Lego sets: knights, pirates, vikings, dinosaurs – that sort of thing. In the 1990s: Lego opened up the licensing game and since then we’ve had Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter and even Avatar:the Last Airbender in Lego form. There have been fifty Lego video games, again from originals like Lego Island (which every 90’s kid owned) to licensed products like Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. Fifty games… and that’s not counting the Lego board games that also exist. There have also been Lego TV movies, Lego books, Lego clothing… Legoland. In short: since 1949 Lego has done everything possible with their product except a theatrical motion picture… until now.
2014 sees the release of the LEGO Movie. As stated before: this is the company’s first foray into theatrical pictures. Very likely it will not be the last. Before I go any further I want to stress that I still have not seen the LEGO Movie. I will in fact be seeing it later today but that is besides the point. This is not a review of the film but rather a critique in how they advertised it. For starters, the teaser trailer below:
Notice anything right away? Lego is pretty proud of the licensed characters they have. That and the movie looks… okay? It’s hard to tell, only a teaser after all. Let’s look at the trailer:
Wow they really want the audience to know that Batman is in this. He is the first character we are introduced to in the trailer. This raises warning signs. Primarily: licensing is more important than plot. In all honesty, this trailer did little to entice me into viewing the LEGO Movie as anything more than a quick cash-in aimed at the kids. Sure I (like most people alive) grew up with Lego, but I don’t see any of the Legos I grew up with in the trailer.
Seriously, where are these guys?
Instead I was easily able to guess which DC superhero had been the most profitable in the last ten years. Every scene in the trailer that focused on the “movie” part of the LEGO Movie also came off as either a quick joke (in most cases not a very funny one) or a very generic piece of the family movie experience pie: i.e. the love interest, the “believe-in-yourself” inspiration. The trailer ended with the expected voice cast celebrity highlights as well.
Remember when this guy played God and people thought it was funny? The LEGO Movie remembers…
Needless to say: I personally was not expecting much from the LEGO Movie. Consider this a pleasant surprise. Not only is the LEGO Movie supposed to be good: it’s supposed to be very good. Ty Burr, of the Boston Globe, echoed my surprise: “My fingers rebel, but type it I must: “The LEGO Movie” is the first great cinematic experience of 2014“. That’s pretty high praise and again: he’s not the only one saying it. This appears to be a rare occurrence where the previews do not do the final product justice.
Lego should be mighty pleased with the film they put out… but they may want to have a word with their advertising team. Kids: yes, the trailers appealed to kids – but they were going to see it anyway. It should not be a surprise (albeit a welcome one) that this film can appeal to Lego fans of any age. After all: who at this point, did not grow up with Lego?
On a side note: who was the Lego Super Star Destroyer made for? No one who could actually assemble it could likely be publicly proud that they did so.
If you’re from the eighties or nineties, odds are that you’ve seen the Back to the Future trilogy. They’re awesome films filled with memorable characters and quotable lines. The first of the trilogy, the original Back to the Future, was released in (you guessed it) 1985 with the two sequels coming in 1989 and 1990 respectively. Wow, those sequels sure got pumped out quickly. There’s a simple explanation for that: they were shot back-to-back. This is not the only time such a technique has been done. Other examples include the Pirates of the Caribbean films (two and three were shot back-to-back, we’ll talk about those another time) and The Matrix (two and three shot back-to-back). The most famous example is obviously The Lord of the Rings where all three films were shot one at the same time. Anyway, let’s talk a bit more about theses Back to the Future sequels.
They were not made for the story. Director Robert Zemeckis is on record as saying that the original film was not envisioned with sequels in mind. Pretty obvious really, despite the film’s classic cliffhanger ending. Back to the Future is a quirky family comedy built around the mechanic of time travel and what it would be like to see your parents in their teen years (turns out it’s really disturbing). That’s great material for a single movie but doesn’t work so well stretched into three. Good thing they didn’t do that. The sequels have their own moral lesson that is spread over the two films and that is: a person chooses their own future. A lesser moral lesson is don’t mess with time travel.
Yet whenever there are unplanned sequels (that happen due to a studios financial desires over a director’s creative ones), the writing always takes a hit. Characters get deeper, they have more emotional traits than we’ve seen before (and not always for the better). Plots can get needlessly convoluted and interesting aspects of the original run the risk of feeling tired after three movies. Casting problems can also drastically effect shooting (for better or for worse). The Back to the Future trilogy suffers from all four of these afflictions.
When this baby gets two sequels, you’re going to see some serious shit.
Let’s start with Marty. As my title implies, he develops a pretty serious character flaw. Mainly, calling him chicken is the key to getting him to do literally anything. From fighting to drag racing, there is nothing Marty McFly won’t do if someone (doesn’t really seem to matter who) calls him chicken. The problem: Marty looks really stupid. Seriously, the person didn’t even swear at him and he flies off into a completely unrealistic and cartoonish reaction. This is a strong departure from the Marty McFly of the first film who essentially played the straight man (comedy term) in a world that’s gone topsy-turvy. That Marty was identifiable and likeable.
In the sequels, the audience is expected to still feel those emotions for Marty, who in the future is a ruined wreck of former ambitions. What happened to screw his life up? Somebody called him chicken… so Marty recklessly raced him and got into a major car accident. It’s like asking someone to feel sorry for Aaron Hernandez right now. Yeah something bad happened, but the character totally deserved it. (I do not mean to accuse Marty McFly of something as serious as murder, he may be an idiot but at least he’s not a psycho) There is no sign of this trait in the first movie. Granted, no one calls him “chicken” but to have such a complex would warrant additional bizarre behavior. Like I said before: Marty is the normal guy in Back to the Future.
The sequels needed to artificially create a flaw in Marty that could be solved at the end.
So that didn’t work out so great for the sequels. Another problem (and on this one the movies themselves agree with me): don’t mess with time travel. Any writer will tell you this. Unless every aspect of plot has been painstakingly thought out, there will be problems. Even in the first film – not everything makes sense. It’s okay then because the plot is never grievously affected. Let’s look at Back to the Future Part II.
Old Biff and the time machine. He takes it, that’s fine. How Doc and Marty get it back? Biff returns to the current future timeline (the one that Doc and Marty are in) despite the fact he has just radically altered past events. I know: it’s a movie. But this movie draws attention to the concept of its timeline in a later scene.
Doc forgot to add variable “X” for plot holes.
Right there, Doc is saying that old Biff created a new timeline in the past. So how was he able to return to the old one? Come to think of it, the plot in Back to the Future Part II feels the weakest of the three movies. Sure there’s the cool future scenes but those are sadly over and done with in about twenty minutes. Then there’s a brief stint in a hellish nightmare version of 1985 (also interesting) before the finale returns to (at this point worn out) 1955. That’s two movies about time travel that center the bulk of their story in the same year. The audience saw 1955 in the first movie, they didn’t need to see it again.
There is an explanation for this. Really simple one too:
Crispin Glover did not return to reprise the role of George McFly. They wanted him to – it wasn’t a writing choice. It was a financial one. When Glover could not return, Back to the Future Part II was rewritten to largely remove his character. So, because of the casting department, no one out there will ever know what the original plan for the sequel would have been. It’s really too bad as Glover is such a presence in the first film and is missed in the other two. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd are great, don’t get me wrong, but Glover is arguably the third best actor in the first movie. He is missed in the two sequels. Also missing:
This was a problem of a different sort. The original Jennifer (Claudia Wells) could not return to the sequels for personal reasons. The role was recast with Elisabeth Shue filling her shoes. The problem: Shue is not a great actor. She doesn’t have a lot of presence or comedic timing. Really, one can’t be sure if Wells would have been better but Jennifer was a much smaller role in the first movie. As they had to recast anyway, don’t you wish they could have gotten someone a little better?
Oh, and not to leave Back to the Future Part III free of criticism. The sole reason the old west was chosen for the setting was because Michael J. Fox thought it would be cool. Turns out he was right. That’s not the criticism, this is:
Remember that whole moral lesson that time travel was bad? Doc was the one preaching it. Frequently in the two sequels, Doc outlines his plan to fix things and destroy the time machine. Yet at the end of the trilogy, what does he do? He builds another time machine. Don’t worry, this time it’s a flying train so it’s so much less conspicuous than a delorean. This action completely flies in the face of the Doc character that the sequels have been establishing. It creates a confusing ending that only makes sense if…
Yeah, they were leaving the door open for Back to the Future Part IV. It never happened. Still, this is what happens when things are done solely for dollars. Everything else is sacrificed to produce cash revenue. For the record: I really like the Back to the Future trilogy. I grew up with it and, despite the plot holes and other logic gaps, I find them to be funny and entertaining movies. That’s the most important thing. They still work. It’s just sad they were made for the dollar first.
On the plus side, we did get to see Michael J. Fox in drag.
Thoughts? Comments? Am I full of it or onto something? Let me know now in the feedback section of this article.
When I was in high school (back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth), I remember one show achieving an incredible cult status. Family Guy was a short-lived comedy series which had aired a couple years before and been subsequently cancelled. This was before the days of the Netflix instant queue so whoever had the DVD sets of the three seasons (Family Guy‘s initial run) was Johnny Cool. There were fifty-one episodes of exceptional quality. The show was like a newer version of The Simpsons in terms of a family-oriented comedy but with a splash of (at the time) refreshing randomness in the humor. It had characters you could care about, stories that were interesting and jokes that made you laugh. In short, everything needed to be a great comedy. And there were 51 episodes so it hardly pulled a Firefly (only 13) before being cancelled.
The holy grail of television comedy between 1999-2004.
Still, what if it came back? That was the hope on everyone’s mind. The first three seasons had been so good, imagine if there was more? Thanks to tremendous DVD sales (very similar to Austin Powers) Fox granted our request and, in 2005, Family Guy returned to television. Since then one hundred and fifty new episodes have appeared and Family Guy is still going strong, ready to begin its twelfth season this fall. But is it any good?
Short answer: no. Blunt answer: it really sucks. Commercial success is no guarantee of quality, simply look at The Simpsons‘ current twenty-four season run to validate that statement. So the question then becomes: what (in my opinion) went wrong? I was a big fan of Family Guy‘s original run, why do I hate the new episodes so much? Happy to elaborate.
In general, this sums up a good portion of my criticism.
Let’s start with the characters. As highlighted above, they did not return to television as they left it. Stewie in particular underwent a drastic change in the style of his humor. Gone were all his inventions, all his over-the-top, nowhere-near-remotely-plausible plans to take over the world. Instead of those jokes, we got gay jokes… which was great since there was no other source of homosexual humor present in Family Guy (besides Jasper, Bruce, Rupert, Herbert, Mr. Weed, etc). Point being, a unique source of jokes was substituted for cruder humor. None of these characters really portray any sophistication either, pretty much every one of them revolves around the concept of “ha ha ha, he likes guys – and he is a guy! That’s so gay and funny!” So why did Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy‘s creator) decide that we needed yet another character dedicated to that style of humor, who knows? Maybe he was too busy with things like American Dad!, The Cleveland Show, and Ted to care.
This persona inspired nearly all the quotes that made Stewie Griffin a famous persona among teenagers. Still it was quickly changed when Family Guy returned.
But more about MacFarlane’s role (or lack thereof) in a moment. Remember those side characters I named. Just a list of five names, did you know all of them? I believe side characters to be an essential tool to increase longevity, especially in the case of comedies. When solid side characters (with depth and personality) are developed, it allows for a few episodes to shift their focus away from the main family, thus helping to prolong the freshness of the main cast. Let me use shows like the Simpsons and South Park for examples. Both developed their town ensembles ridiculously well. In this way, say South Park can devote an entire episode to Mr. Garrison while giving the boys only a cameo appearance. The episode is still funny since Mr. Garrison is more than a cut-out character.
This episode from The Simpsons, entitled “The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase”, made fun of the idea of spin-offs while at the same time devoting an entire episode to some of their stronger side characters.
In my opinion, Family Guy never had the wealth of side comedy enjoyed by the other two shows. Aside from Peter’s immediate neighbors and in-laws, there isn’t much personality to be found in the town of Quahog. And when there is enough personality to salvage maybe an episode or two away from the Griffins, MacFarlane and company decided to take this route instead:
The Cleveland Show (2009-2013) was a poor decision on the part of Fox to further divide MacFarlane’s jokes and comical talent. These characters should migrate back into Family Guy.
When side character strength is a problem, don’t move the stronger ones out of town. This ties into another point: MacFarlane is a funny guy. Love him or hate him, it’s hard to argue with the amount of success he’s had… or didn’t have then suddenly had. Thanks to Family Guy‘s cult success in the DVD market, Seth MacFarlane went from obscurity to household name in a very short time. However I don’t think this success has been properly employed. Rather than simply putting Family Guy back on the air, Fox decided to do that in addition to giving another previously failed MacFarlane pilot the green light: American Dad!. Let the record show that, of the current MacFarlane comedy creations, American Dad! is my favorite. However, it’s creation would further the decay of Family Guy by removing writing talent from its staff. Watch American Dad! and Family Guy close together while remembering that formula I talked about back at the beginning of this article. Characters + story + random jokes = good Family Guy. American Dad! now has the stronger characters and story, leaving Family Guy to survive solely from its bouts of randomness.
Matt Weitzman and Mike Barker were two of Family Guy‘s more prominent creative staff who left to work on American Dad!. Their absence was quickly felt.
But here is the real question: given how lucky Seth MacFarlane’s success was, did he really deserve so many venues for his comedy? Family Guy was not successful the first time it aired, the only reason the series survived to rebirth was because of the DVD sales. That isn’t roaring success by a long shot. Yet Fox was willing to give him multiple shows. Sure, you could argue and say that Fox did the same thing with Matt Groening (The Simpsons‘ creator) by giving him Futurama (we’ll talk more about this show later) but Futurama aired in 1999, the same year as season 11 of The Simpsons: the point where many people feel that The Simpsons began to drop dramatically in quality. Coincidence, I think not.
Imagine a show that combined all these characters and all these stories into one setting. That would be a dynamite comedy on the level of the original Family Guy.
With Seth MacFarlane’s success now branching off into movies (I personally wasn’t a huge fan of Ted – thought it was okay), it is a real question as to how involved he still is with the show that made him famous. Sure, he may voice half the cast but that isn’t the same level of commitment as writing or helping to create characters. I don’t think his heart is in it anymore. But hey, don’t take my words for it – here’s his: “Part of me thinks that Family Guy should have already ended. I think seven seasons is about the right lifespan for a TV series. I talk to the fans and in a way I’m kind of secretly hoping for them to say we’re done with it. There are plenty of people who say the show is kind of over the hill … but still the vast majority go pale in the face when I mention the possibility.”
So there you have it, Family Guy was a short-lived gem that was resurrected into a bloated brand name used to sell evenings on Fox. I don’t think the show has many years left. It will always be remembered as the show that made Seth MacFarlane famous and (for me personally) a highlight during high school in the early 2000s. Yet this was clearly one case where everyone should have left well enough alone and Family Guy should have simply been allowed to rest in peace. Oh well, at least American Dad! is still okay.
Thoughts? Comments? Am I full of it or onto something? Let me know now in the feedback section of this article.
Colin McMahon 