Three movies and shows that need the LEGO treatment
By Ryan Wrenn
The announcement of a new LEGO videogame adaptation reminds us how much more the iconic blocks could be doing for our favorite movies and TV shows.
Fans of both Star Wars and LEGO received some great news on Tuesday with the reveal of LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games, the Lego Group and Lucasfilm collaborated on the video game adaptation of this winter’s hit sequel. It is due out in the summer.
The game is the fourth in a series of LEGO-inspired re-imaginings of the original Star Wars trilogy, the prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars television show. They combine a winking parody of the Star Wars series with simple, fun gameplay.
Star Wars hasn’t been the only series that’s been LEGO-ified over the years. The DC Comics and Marvel universes have also had their characters and storylines adapted, as have The Lord of the Rings, The Pirates of the Caribbean, and Jurassic World.
What other movies or television shows would benefit from a LEGO adaptation? Here are three suggestions:
Game of Thrones
The criticism here is obvious: Game of Thrones is decidedly a show for adults. It’s on HBO and everything. There’s a lot of death, a lot of nudity, and a lot of cursing. These are not three ingredients that typically make for a good children’s video game.
Think about it, though: most of the people excited about this game—and indeed, most of the people taking time to read this article right now—are adults who have either enthusiastically played these LEGO games before or would if the powers that be were brave enough to handle more mature shows like Game of Thrones.
Will that happen? Absolutely not. Is it fun to imagine reenacting the Battle of the Blackwater, the Red Wedding, or the attack on the Wall but with LEGO? Absolutely yes.
James Bond
The Bond movies seem tailor-made for a LEGO reboot. They are already just a little bit goofy. The most recent installment, Spectre, felt like a cartoon at times, in the best way possible. The action is simultaneously way over the top and just sanitized enough for kids. And there’s literally fifty years worth of stories to pull from.
Consider the example of Goldeneye, for the Nintendo 64. That adaptation of the Bond movie of the same name is considered an all-time classic, a landmark event in the format even, so much so that its appeal transcends generations. Even Bond purists must admit that if that could be executed as well as it was, a LEGO game could be just as good.
Sure, maybe you’d have to cut out some of Bond’s attempts at seduction—just as Rare did when it made Goldeneye—but a LEGO game would be a great way to hook in the next generation of Bond fans.
The Walking Dead
At first glance, this seems impossible for the same reasons that LEGO Game of Thrones would be impossible. This is simply too adult and too gruesome a show to be effectively converted to LEGO, right?
Kind of. While The Walking Dead is certainly gory and violent, it’s also redeemable by the fact that most of that gore and violence is directed toward occasionally comic and unsympathetic zombies. What’s the difference between them and, say, the stormtroopers who are killed aplenty in the LEGO Star Wars games?
Answer: not that much. Maybe a few liberties would have to be taken with some of the human versus human aspects of the show, but this is an entirely doable idea. Any game could easily just skip the pathos and drama of the series and go straight for the LEGO Zombie Mode.