THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART

Emmet, Lucy, Batman and co return in The Lego Movie 2, which sees the minifigures navigating a post-apocalyptic wasteland and outer space. Director Mike Mitchell takes Total Film through the construction process on the sequel’s new faces, places and pop-c

Everything is even more awesome in the brickbusting sequel.

Words MaTT MayTuM

“I’ve been working on this film for so long that my real life is turning to Lego: I’m almost traumatised with seeing bricks everywhere!” laughs Mike Mitchell, director of The Lego Movie 2. Still in the midst of animating and mixing the upcoming sequel, Mitchell takes a break ahead of a small test screening to talk to Total Film about ‘The Second Part’ of the franchise that has spawned two off-shoots (Batman and Ninjago) and banked $900m at the box office.

The 2014 original proved it was more than just a lucrative product placement opportunity, and boasted an inventive, stop-motion animation style based entirely on real Lego bricks. Mitchell – who has previously directed Shrek Forever After and Trolls – inherits helming duties from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. “In my opinion, it’s way more difficult [than traditional animation], because there are limitations, but those limitations equal way more creativity,” says Mitchell of working in the medium of Lego. “There is a limited amount of Lego shapes that we’re allowed to use, and it’s fascinating when the restriction soon becomes something super-creative that the animators can use.”

Picking up where the first film left off five years ago, The Lego Movie 2 reunites Emmet (Chris Pratt) and Lucy/Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), but finds them in a very different world to where we left them. In a third-act twist, the previous film revealed that Bricksburg and its inhabitants were the playthings of a fussy dad (Will Ferrell) and his disgruntled son. With that meta-layer common knowledge now, Mitchell and his team were about to push the idea even further. “In the first movie, Emmet was the only one who ever saw these giants that control the world,” explains Mitchell. “For the first time ever, Lucy gets an opportunity to see the other side. And what’s also interesting is we get to see more of the family. We introduce the little sister, and we also get to introduce a mum. It really does evolve and become something different and new.”

Maintaining the original film’s irreverent tone and continuing to take advantage of Lego’s far-reaching product licences, The Lego Movie 2 takes the characters into new worlds, including a post-apocalyptic wasteland and outer space. “It’s a challenge, but I feel that we’ve reminded everyone of how amazing the first movie is, and we’ve evolved it into a whole new thing,” says Mitchell. Here he takes TF on a tour through the sequel’s new characters and environments…

sibLing rivaLry

“If you remember [the end of the first film], Will Ferrell’s talking to his son, who’s maybe six years old, and he says his sister’s going to have to come down here to play. And the little sister comes down with her Duplo and says, ‘We’re here to destroy you.’ That’s exactly where this film picks up, where the Duplo are destroying Bricksburg. After a brief opening, we move forward four years. So now we get to see where those Lego are four years later, and what’s happened.

“So the brother is older, and the sister is older as well. What’s cool is, we do get to go into the live-action world, just like we do on Lego 1.

One of the cool things is, the boy that plays the boy in Lego 2 is the same actor. It’s like that Richard Linklater film, Boyhood, where you actually see the actor grow up. You see this kid become a bitter teen.”

The dark knighT and friends reTurn

“All of the actors in this, they really write a lot of their own stuff. They really know their character, and they’re really invested in their character. Alison Brie knows Unikitty better than the people who created Unikitty.

“Practically every Batman line is created by Will Arnett. It makes my job easy. These guys are so invested, and they’re so funny. In this movie, it’s not just Batman – it’s every DC character you can think of, and we’re having fun with Harry Potter. It’s a super-irreverent tone. And it’s really been freeing for me, too, where you’re almost allowed to let the audience know, as a filmmaker, that you know that this is a trope that we see many times in a movie.

“We just recorded Jason Momoa, who plays Aquaman. He was so funny, and he couldn’t wait to do the fun comedic version of his character. We got the real actors who played these characters to come in and play themselves, essentially, and they seem really free to want to be irreverent and strange.

So it’s been great. There are no restrictions.”

WyLdsTyLe iT ouT

“Emmet doesn’t change so much [in the sequel]. He’s still got a big adventure to go through, but he stays the same. Whereas this movie spends a lot of time with Lucy [aka Wyldstyle], and she does evolve. She learns a lot more about the other side in this movie. It’s really up to her, at one point, to save the day. So Lucy has more of an evolution in the film than Emmet does, which I think is really interesting for a sequel. Who wouldn’t want to see Lucy save the day?”

brick by brick

“It’s a really interesting thing that [writer/directors] Chris Miller and Phil Lord created with the first movie, and it’s an aesthetic that we had to carry through into this movie. The action scenes look really badass, but at the same time, they are really funny. So it’s such a strange balance and an odd combination. That’s been a challenge.

“And not to mention that the whole world is a wasteland filled with dust. So when all these trucks are whirring around, we have to create all the dust with Lego. That’s been amazing for me, because you can’t see through Lego. It doesn’t behave like dust. But our artists really went crazy, and created a whole bunch of Lego dust that really looks like the desert is being churned up.

“The design has really been helped by co-director, Trisha Gum, who worked on Lego Batman, and she really brought a cool look to all these worlds. She’s got an amazing insight, as an artist, for these things.”