Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s The Lego Movie (Lord, Miller, 2014) and Tony Leondis’ The Emoji Movie (Leondis, 2017) share parallels further than their formulaic titles. Released 3 years apart, both films resemble each other so closely mostly due to the way in which commercialism and corporate greed fuelled the creation of both projects, as well as the way in which both films act as advertisements for external properties.

The Exhibitors’ alliance argued that: “Advertising on the screen is a very serious problem. The exhibitor must, above all things, consider the rights of his patrons. (Segrave, 2014)

Although both films are, in a sense, feature length advertisements The Lego Movie and The Emoji Movie differ due to the way in which both films go about presenting and incorporating the products that they are attempting to sell you in the films. Because of this, as well as the film’s stronger premise, writing, directing and voice acting, I believe The Lego Movie is a much stronger film than The Emoji Movie and in this essay I will explore more closely into the reasons why I think this is the case.

One obvious similarity between The Emoji Movie and The Lego Movie is the fact that both films heavily rely on brand recognition in order to intrigue audiences and shape a coherent narrative in the films’ story. The Lego Movie uses, as the film’s title suggests, Lego as a recognisable property that has the ability of attracting as many viewers as possible. And it was successful in doing so as; most likely due to the popularity and identifiable nature of Lego, the film grossed over $460 million worldwide (Box Office Mojo, 2018). The Emoji Movie however, uses Emojis as well as a plethora of other popular, modern day social media games and networking applications in order to reel in audiences. Brands such as Spotify, Candy Crush, Just Dance and Twitter are all worn as badges of honour by the film, in attempt to widen the films appeal as much as possible. Although The Emoji Movie was successful at the box office, grossing $217 million worldwide (Box Office Mojo, 2018), The Emoji Movie failed in its identification of reliable brands in a way that The Lego Movie did not.

This is made evident by reviews describing The Lego Movie as: “bursting out of its box with enthusiasm and excitement for the possibilities of a little pile of nubby plastic.” (Richards, 2014)

And reviews that describe The Emoji Movie as: “A film as mindless and disposable as most smartphone apps – nowhere near as addictive – Sony’s animated The Emoji Movie is a calamitous comedy that inadvertently shows how difficult it is to pull off the witty, imaginative world-building that Pixar makes seem so breezy.” (Grierson, 2017)

Now clearly, The Lego Movie found more success with its choice of popular brand than The Emoji Movie, but why? Is having a film about talking Emojis and a world of mobile applications and games such an awful idea? Had the idea been doomed from the start? I’m not so sure. I believe the main mistake that Sony Pictures Animation has made, in an effort to create their own version of The Lego Movie, is confusing popular culture with beloved culture. When making a film that is adapting a property like Lego or Emojis, they don’t come with the advantage of having a pre-written narrative or establish characters, like you get when you are adapting a book or a play etc. So that means it is extremely important that the film is adapting a brand that everybody likes. Like Lego for example; Lego is a brand loved and appreciated by all. Children love it because its fun to be creative and play with them, and adults love it as it is a perfect reflection of simpler times – before society’s unhealthy obsession with technology had developed to the stage it is at now.

“Our ultimate purpose is to inspire and develop children to think creatively, reason systematically and release their potential to shape their own future – experiencing the endless human possibility.” (Lego Mission Statement, 2012)

And while sites like Twitter and Facebook, and phone applications such as Just Dance and Candy Crush are certainly popular, they are far from beloved. If anything, the majority of people can agree that social media and smart phones do more harm than good in modern society. And because of this, The Emoji Movie is instantly unlikable as it reflects all the worst things about society nowadays. As shown further by The Emoji Movie’s shocking 3.2 star rating out of 10 on IMDb, making it the 37^th lowest rating film on the entire website. (IMDb, 2018)

Seemingly, the reason both The Lego Movie and The Emoji Movie were made in the first place was in order to increase sales on products featured in the films. However, although both films undeniably attempt to convince audiences to buy products, The Lego Movie is able to make the blatant promotion of Lego less important and thus, less noticeable to the viewer – due to the smart way in which Lord and Miller incorporate and represent Lego in the film. Whereas, The Emoji Movie hides no shame in spending 90 minutes rubbing brand after brand in your face, with no subtlety or meaning for the products in the context of the film.

As Jordan Hoffman of New York Daily News makes clear in his review for The Emoji Movie, when he says: “The only thing worse than the dialogue is the absurd product placement” (Hoffman, 2017)

Now personally, I find there to be no problem with using product placement in films. Some of the best films of all time, and most films nowadays, feature product placement. If you’re a struggling filmmaker and you’re approached by a company who will help fund your film if you feature their product, I say go right ahead. However, the problem arises when a film is simply made just to sell ads. And although both films are guilty of extreme product placement, it is clear that when creating The Lego Movie, Lord and Miller had a story to tell – as made apparent by the way in which Lego is used in their film. Instead of simply just featuring Lego as a product, Lego is used in order to convey the themes of the film such as creativity, individualism and freedom. The story of The Lego Movie is about the importance of creativity and individual thought as in the film, through the characters’ ability to be creative, they are able to save the day. Because it is incorporated in such a natural and digestible way, the audience doesn’t notice it as much. And when noticing the huge amount of advertising for Lego, you don’t care; because the film wasn’t just made for the purpose of selling advertisements, it’s enjoyable whether you’re aware of the film’s advertising or not. As one of the film’s directors Chris Miller stated in an interview with The Guardian:”“We made something that uses Lego as a medium to tell a story, rather than a story to sell Lego. We saw it as a way to talk about creativity.” (Barnes, 2014)

However, instead of using the products it is selling in inventive ways within the film’s narrative, The Emoji Movie stops in its tracks to sell you things. There are many moments throughout the film where Leondis forces the products The Emoji Movie has been paid to sell into awkward situations in order to seem like it is a necessary plot device, however it just comes across as lazy advertising. For example in one scene, Gene – the film’s protagonist, is stuck in a game of Candy Crush. And in order to get him out, Jailbreak and High-Five just play a game of Candy Crush. Nothing more interesting or creative, they simply use the product they have obviously been paid to sell.

Similarly, there is later a scene where in order to progress in their journey, Gene and Jailbreak must do a dance to get past the Just Dance app. And in an almost 3-minute long scene, we are forced to sit through Gene and Jailbreak dance the ‘Emoji-Pop’, which was a featured dance on the Just Dance app at the time of the films release.

Because of the film’s lack of creativity and subtlety when advertising, the story comes to a grinding halt anytime a recognisable brand is featured; which believe me, happens a lot.

Both The Lego Movie and The Emoji Movie were made with similar budgets. The Emoji Movie was made with a $50 million budget and The Lego Movie is said to have a slightly higher production budget of around $60 million (Box Office Mojo, 2018) Although both films were made for a very similar amount, the production quality of The Lego Movie runs circles on that of The Emoji Movie in almost every regard.

Firstly, the directors/writers of The Lego Movie, Phil Lord and Chris Miller are experienced filmmakers and are well known for their extremely fast pace and fun comedic films. Lord and Miller are the creative force behind films such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Lord, Miller, 2009), 21 Jump Street (Lord, Miller, 2012) and 22 Jump Street (Lord, Miller, 2014) and recently worked as writers and producers on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Perichetti, Ramsey, Rothman, 2018) which went on to win a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature. Their films seem to have the ability to all perform well financially and with critics.

Ben Nicholson of CineVue, when reviewing 22 Jump Street said: “22 Jump Street is hugely successful in retaining – and in many instances, improving upon – the qualities of its predecessor and pitching some jokes that will still have people chuckling for days afterwards.”

However Tony Leondis, director of The Emoji Movie has very little experience in film direction, and has only directed one other feature length film prior to directing The Emoji Movie. Igor (Leondis, 2008) is Leondis’ only other feature film where he is credited as director and it was received with a slew of bad reviews and performed poorly at the box office, making only $5 million more than its $25 million budget (Box Office Mojo, 2018).

Justin Chang, of Variety Magazine was one of many critics who did not enjoy Igor, writing: “With its belabored gags, misfired pop-culture references and garish visuals crammed together like so man disjointed body parts, this manic kidpic cranks up the annoy-o-meter early on and rarely lets up.”

When comparing The Emoji Movie and The Lego Movie, and taking their remarkably similar production budgets into account, it is stunning how much better the animation is in The Lego Movie than The Emoji Movie. It is evident from the look of the animation in The Lego Movie that a lot of time, money and effort went into making the most visually striking, realistic and fun film that they possibly could.

The amount of detail in the animation is nothing short of incredible. Every character in the film has scratches and markings on their faces, just like a real Lego mini-figure.

Every building, weapon and prop is made with the idea that it can be made with Lego in real life.

Every movement of every character has been thought out so that it could be achieved by a real Lego mini-figure. There are no bending elbows or knees, no flowing hair or jointed fingers.

In an interview with the Australian Production Design Guild, Grant Freckelton, one of The Lego Movie’s production designers mentioned the tireless effort that went into designing the characters. Freckelton says: “Rarely did Lord and Miller give a prescriptive brief, they preferred to use the design process to explore and experiment and try new ideas. This resulted in some characters having 200 plus iterations before we nailed the design.” (Australian Production Design Guild, 2015)

When looking at the animation in The Emoji Movie, although it is not terrible looking and no doubt had a large team of people working hard on it, it just looks more visually dreary and uninspired. It looks like the director pressed the ‘make cartoon’ button on his keyboard.

To conclude, although both films discussed share a similar resemblance, The Lego Movie is all around a better film than The Emoji Movie. The advertising and product placement in The Lego Movie become irrelevant after becoming invested in the film’s wonderful story, beautiful animation as well as incredible direction and vocal performances. It is clear that a lot of care went into making the best film possible, and Lego was simply a medium to tell the story in as it allowed them to be creative and try new, unexplored forms of film animation. However, The Emoji Movie fails miserably in its attempt to capture the magic that The Lego Movie expresses. It is cursed with a boring; weak script that is only becomes more insufferable due to the mediocre voice acting from the film’s cast, who clearly did not want to be there. It is obvious from the film’s obsession with blatant advertising that the film had no real story to tell when the film went into production. And as a result, The Emoji Movie feels more like a product than a film.

Gabriel Baxter s5105504

Works Sited

Australian Production Design Guild, 2015. Interviews – The Lego Movie. APDG Website, Available from: https://apdg.org.au/2014/06/interviews-the-lego-movie [Accessed 12 January 2019].

Barnes, H., 2014. The Lego Movie writer/directors: ‘We wanted to make an anti-totalitarian movie for kids’. The Guardian, 12 December 2014, Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/12/lego-movie-writers-phil-lord-christopher-miller-interivew [Accessed 12 January 2019].

Box Office Mojo, 2008. Igor Box Office. Box Office Mojo, Available from: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=igor.htm [Accessed 12 January 2019].

Box Office Mojo, 2017. The Emoji Movie Box Office. Box Office Mojo, Available from: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=theemojimovie.htm [Accessed 12 January 2019].

Box Office Mojo, 2014. The Lego Movie Box Office. Box Office Mojo, Available from: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lego.htm [Accessed 12 January 2019].

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 2009. Film. Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. USA: Sony Pictures Animation.

Grierson, T., 2017. ‘The Emoji Movie’: Review. Screen International, 27 July 2017, Available from: https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-emoji-movie-review/5120358.article [Accessed 10 January 2019].

Hoffman, J., 2017. Emoji Movie Review. New York Daily News, 27 July 2017, Available from: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-emoji-movie/critic-reviews [Accessed 10 January 2019].

Igor, 2008. Film. Directed by Tony Leondis. USA: Exodus Film Group

21 Jump Street, 2012. Film. Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. USA: Columbia Pictures Corporation.

22 Jump Street, 2014. Film. Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. USA: Columbia Pictures Corporation.

Nicholson, B., 2014. Film Review: ’22 Jump Street’. CineVue, Available from: https://cine-vue.com/2014/06/film-review-22-jump-street.html [Accessed 10 January 2019].

Richards, O., 2014. The Lego Movie Review. Empire Magazine, 14 Feb 2014, Available from: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/lego-movie/review/ [Accessed 10 January 2019].

Segrave, K., 2014. Product Placement in Hollywood Films: A History. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.. Available from: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Kw1vZcK73sIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=product+placement+in+film&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-hZmpwu3fAhXUSBUIHSX3BhYQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=product%20placement%20in%20film&f=false [Accessed 10 January 2019].

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2018. Film. Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman. USA: Sony Pictures Animation.

The Emoji Movie, 2017. Film. Directed by Tony Leondis. USA: Sony Pictures Animation.

The Lego Group, 2012. Mission and Vision. Lego Website, Available from: https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/lego-group/mission-and-vision [Accessed 12 January 2019].

The Lego Movie, 2014. Film. Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. USA: Warner Bros.