Ninjago Movie

[danzibr]

Anyone see this? Thoughts?

I went to it with my kids and wife yesterday. I didn't like a few changes (Lord Garmadon's personality change, the ninja relying solely on their mechs in the beginning, the BBEG), but overall I liked it.

[Keltest]

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm getting the impression that this one is taking itself a little bit more seriously than it should. That worries me, the other lego movies worked specifically because of how irreverent they were.

[Nerd-o-rama]

After having already seen the Lego Movie and the Lego Batman movie, this one felt a lot more...paint by numbers? Like it doesn't do anything those two didn't do better.

Still pretty though.

[brionl]

I loved TLM, and LBM. But I've watched a few episodes of the TV show and it didn't click for me, so I'm going to give this one a miss.

I did like the bit in the trailer though, when they come back to the mecha garage, and kick back in the giant mecha La-Z-Boy.

[Delicious Taffy]

I've seen most of the TV series and really enjoyed it, so when I found out they were doing a movie, I got interested. And then I saw the trailer, which makes it look exactly like the last two LEGO movies, and I stopped being interested in seeing it.

From someone who's seen the movie, is it even worth a look? I'll probably wind up renting it in a few months, if it's not too bad.

[Algeh]

I'm basically the opposite of Delicious Taffy. I've seen the Lego Movie and the Lego Batman Movie, but have not followed any of the Ninjago stuff, either the tv show or the minifigs/product line (I tend to buy City Lego, personally, and mostly just the advent calendars this past decade).

Also, I'm an adult with no kids and would probably be watching this with my 60-something father since he's the one I saw the first two with. (I think we started watching these in the first place because The Lego Movie was up for a Hugo a few years back and I was a Hugo voter that year so I wanted to marathon the entire set of nominees. Dad reflexively buys SF/geek movies on BluRay the week they come out, so I asked him which of the nominees he'd already bought and he decided to buy The Lego Movie to round out the set since he already had the rest of the nominees that year.)

So, is this one worth seeing for adults who weren't already fans of the characters? I liked The Lego Movie, and The Lego Batman Movie was ok but not great.

[danzibr]

Well, I can't compare it to TLM or LBM as I haven't seen them, but I can compare it to the show.

It's just... different. It's not like a worse version, they have different aims. The show take itself more seriously, the movie is more like 100 minutes of silly fun. Mostly.

They took the characters and setting from the show, but everything's quite different. The only comparison that comes to mind is reskinning whatever platformer to make Mario 2. Rather, Zelda 2. Superficially they're similar, but not really.

But I did enjoy it.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I think the reason I didn't enjoy it as much as the other two comes down to this: I came in looking for satire and got a simple if still heartfelt comedy.

The Lego Movie is a generic but still apt satire about consumer and corporate culture (which takes some balls coming from a Lego-branded property) and the struggle between business and art, adults and kids, and the Hollywood moviemaking process. It's also a direct pastiche of The Matrix, which is a movie that still holds up well structurally if you ignore the sequels.

The Lego Batman Movie is a direct and highly specific satire of Batman in film for the last 30 years and the kind of mindset that goes into making the kind of Batman film we've gotten for the last 30 years. It really tears into the toxic mindset that doesn't let men (specifically, Batman) have meaningful relationships as well as being a direct commentary on the divergence of how this absolutely iconic American character is presented between his film incarnations and literally every other version of the character.

The Lego Ninjago movie is...a general kids' story about overcoming bullying and a bad family situation with empathy and forgiveness. It's good, but there's nothing to really satirize or larger themes to address than Lloyd's personal struggle. Anyone who cares enough about Ninjago to see it based on that probably doesn't find the movie's analysis of the story compelling like I did LBM's breakdown of Batman, and anyone who wants to see it as a feel-good father-son comedy has seen it a million times before, albeit with maybe not as good jokes.

Basically I'm glad I took my son to go see it, but outside of that bonding experience, meh.