The idea that a legitimately great movie can't be based on a product doesn't make any sense to me. My reigning, hardly ever challenged, favorite movie of all time was based on a line of toys, and could have been called an advertisement. But if so it was an ad with a huge all-star cast, one of the greatest wall-to-wall soundtracks ever arranged, action unrelenting in its cadence, an epic reveal, and a great script with dozens of memorable one-liners. The fact that it was part of a larger mini-storm of culture that included selling toys... means what? Now I have to find room somewhere in my top 5 for The Lego Movie, because it was that good. What do I care that it was about a well-known toy? Why would I care whether it was good or bad for the line of toys? Why would I care whether the toy company influenced the script at all, when the script is that good?
You might not care, but many think it is a fascinating topic. It blends elememts of social science, economics, business strategy, and psychology in interesting ways. Marketing is very powerful, in ways we don't even fully understand.
I don't think The Lego Movie is 100% pure marketing, but it sure isn't 0%. They did a fantastic job with it however. It is the only branding effort I know of that has reached this level (which is a hard level to even describe, hence the struggle encountered by the author of the article). Has anyone heard of other high quality movies produced by product companies?
Awesome! I won't lie, it's my favorite movie too (perhaps there is a support group for us somewhere?). I also got a kick out of transformers prime. The megatron-starscream interactions were always hilarious.
SPOILER BELOW
And as someone who recently built a 4x8 table with a full sheet of plywood to build legos with my 4 year old son, I got a huge kick out of the end of the lego movie. It had some surprisingly dark scenes, but I didn't notice the product placement - but then again, legos were/are my favorite toy.
