The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (a movie review post)

I'm just going to get it out of the way that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are not some of my favorite movie people, as I talked about in this post. That doesn't mean they're not good at what they're good at, though, and, evidently, what they're good at is writing comedies. [Come on, Disney, what made you think these guys were capable of helming a Star Wars movie? Maybe a Lego Star Wars movie (why aren't you doing that?), but not a franchise film.] All of which is to say that The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is almost as good as the first one.
Almost.

There may be some spoilers in here. Okay, I lied. There will be some spoilers in here.
You've been warned.

The first issue with the movie is that it jumps ahead five years. On the surface, this isn't an issue; however, when you look at the movie in the context of the outside world it's set in -- and you have to, because this one breaks that barrier much more heavily than the first -- you have to reconcile the idea that the brother and sister have been having this conflict over Lego and sharing and playing together for the entire five years and the mother is only just now at her breaking point? Do Lord and Miller even have kids? [No, I don't care enough to look that up.] This idea is dumb.

So is the idea that Finn (the boy) has being playing at Apocalypseberg for five years. And maybe he hasn't been, but it's certainly implied.

And, again, do Lord and Miller even have kids? Because when Finn goes to Bianca's room and smashes her Lego construction [Her personal Lego in her room! Because let's get this straight, the Lego that Finn plays with are his dad's! It was his dad's stuff that he was allowed to play with but, evidently, despite the message that Bianca was going to get to share in that endeavor, she's been isolated to only playing with her personal stuff in her own room for the past five years AND NO ONE HAS DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THE FACT THAT FINN IS A DICK!], she is punished right along with Finn. As a parent, I'm appalled by this, the fact that Finn got off Scott-free for smashing her stuff.

The other story issue with the film is the increasing frequency that the Minifigures are able to see into the human world. I believe that happens once in the first movie? During the climax, Emmet sees into the real world briefly and sees the father/son conflict. Something like that. I haven't seen it again since it seeing it in the theater and don't quite remember. However, in this one, any time the story is at a sticking point, there's a glimpse into the real world to push it along. And not just from Emmet, which I find problematic since that was supposed to be his special ability. Now it's just a plot device.

All of that said, when they stick to what's going on in the Lego world, everything works fine. The humor is good, and it's an enjoyable film. Probably, these things that bother me aren't going to bother anyone else. Or even be noticed by most other people.

The voice acting was fine. I suppose Chris Pratt deserves a special shout out for doing two characters and having the non-Emmet character not sound totally like Chris Pratt. Of course, I don't actually know if that was due to voice acting or if it was due to sound engineering. But, if it was him, he did a good job.

And I didn't even realize that Unikitty had an actual voice actor but, then, I wasn't really aware of Alison Brie five years ago. Okay, that's not true, because we watched Mad Men, but she didn't impress me in that. Since then, though, I've been very impressed, and her Unikitty voice skillz are pretty mad.

So, yeah, if you want a fun movie that won't require a lot of thought and will deliver on the laughs, Lego Movie 2 is a good choice.
Damn you, Lord and Miller!

"Creative Differences" or White Male Privilege at Work

If you follow any Star Wars news at all, which I do...
Okay, that's not exactly true, as such. I don't actually follow Star Wars news or do any searching out of Star Wars news or follow any Star Wars sites. This is much different from my younger years when I did all of that stuff but, mostly, these days, I don't want to know anything ahead of time about the movies or what's going on, so I don't keep up on that stuff. Or any of the Marvel stuff, either. However, when there's news that makes the mainstream media cut, I notice it and, depending on what it is, I might go read it. Never, though, if it's talking about plot stuff or leaked stuff or anything stuff that has to do with the content of any project still in development.

So...

If you notice Star Wars news at all, which I do, you might have noticed recently that a couple of projects that are in development have lost their directors. The first was Episode IX director Colin Trevorrow and the second was the directing duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller who were set to direct the upcoming solo Han film. [no, I'm not apologizing] The reason given in both circumstances was "creative differences."

But what does that even mean?

Or, you know, what does it mean in this particular circumstance? Because, based on things said, especially by Lord and Miller, I can tell you. It means that the directors believed, based on the fact that they were hired at all, that they should be allowed to do whatever the fuck they wanted to do with the movies without any regard to what Disney hired them to do. It was white privilege at work (because the guys who do this kind of shit are always white dudes who start whining about how they're not being allowed their creative freedom).

Now, I'm not going to get into the minutia of how Disney catalyzed the problem by trying to hire hot, new directors and offering them some amount of creative control (like allowing them to take part in the writing process (something that has had two non-successes so far)), because this is about doing the job you're hired to do.

So let's start with Lord and Miller, the guys behind The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, and a bunch of other comedic offerings. Yeah, in hindsight, maybe not the best fit for a Star Wars film, but Disney wanted the Han Solo film to be a bit heavier on the humor than previous Star Wars movies, so they hired some guys who had shown themselves capable. And Lord and Miller were riding a popularity wave after the Lego thing.

Here's your analogy:
Disney hired Lord and Miller to paint their Han Solo room. They told Lord and Miller they could paint the room however they wanted to do it as long as they stayed within the provided color palette and didn't include any clowns. And, so, Lord and Miller start painting neon green (not an acceptable color) clowns everywhere. When confronted about it, they do the classic, "Let us do what we want or we're gonna quit!" Disney showed them the door.

And Trevorrow? His claim to fame is that he wrote and directed one of last summer's biggest movies, Jurassic World. Of course, he "wrote" it by re-making Jurassic Park. Yes, they are basically the same movie. Who knows what he wanted to do with Episode IX, but it wasn't what Disney told him they wanted, but he figured he was a big enough hot shot to not have to listen to Disney, so they let him walk, too.

And I get that some of you might think I'm reaching when I say this is white privilege at work, but you don't get this kind of attitude from little nobody people unless they're white dudes. Seriously, Trevorrow? I'm still trying to figure out why they thought he was a good idea in the first place. The guy's a hack with almost no experience. And, while Lord and Miller have been around awhile and made some movies that have been noticed, they're not exactly household names. All of them were hired to do fucking Star Wars, and they couldn't get their heads out of their own asses long enough to realize what was going on.

Probably some of you are going, "But millennials...," right about now, but none of these guys are millennials. They're all gen-x white dudes. Really, it's not millennials who think they're all special; it's mostly just white dudes. Of all kinds of ages.

I mean, seriously, you have to think pretty fucking highly of yourself to try to hi-jack a Star Wars movie to make a name for yourself. Outside of the fact that if you're hired to do a job, a specific job, you DO THE FUCKING JOB you were hired to do. You don't get to do some other job that you'd rather be doing. And when it's Disney and Star Wars... Did someone hit these guys in the heads with a hammer?

But, then, that's the kind of culture we've put in place, a culture where white cops get to shoot people of color and walk away from it. A culture where a white man brags of sexually assaulting women and white men vote for him to be president.

White dudes are always going on about millennials and how they think they're all "special snowflakes," but the only ones I see out there acting as if they're special is white dudes, which just makes me sad to be a white dude. And when you're such a white dude that you can't manage to collaborate on a Star Wars project... Well, there really aren't any words for that kind of assholery.