The LEGO NINJAGO Movie team share secrets

The stars of The LEGO NINJAGO Movie took to the stage at San Diego Comic Con to talk about the next LEGO animated feature.

 

In an exclusive interview discussing The LEGO Batman Movie with Brick Fanatics back in February, Producer Dan Lin explained what makes The LEGO NINJAGO Movie unique.

‘We’re taking that to the next level in NINJAGO because that movie, in our mind, is taking place in a kid’s backyard,’ Lin said. ‘You’re going to see real sand, real dirt, real trees and real bamboo juxtaposed in a LEGO brick world. So I think the look is going to be on the next level.’

The outdoor nature of the setting is likely to be discussed during the Comic Con panel, when The LEGO NINJAGO Movie will share the first expanded look at the movie. Creating a unique, colourful setting – as seen in 70620 NINJAGO City – was important to the creatives behind the film. ‘NINJAGO is also a very colourful world, Batman’s a darker world because of Gotham. NINJAGO is a pan-Asian world, think Hong Kong or Shang Hai.’

Each LEGO movie is designed to represent a different genre, with The LEGO NINJAGO Movie intended as animated martial arts movie. ‘Batman is a LEGO version of a super hero movie. The LEGO Movie was a LEGO version of a call to adventure movie. We’re putting our own spin on these genres, meaning each movie has irreverent humour, there’s some real joy to it and it has a really unique visual style. So I’m excited about Jackie Chan being one of the leads, he plays Master Wu.’

To give the film an extra level of authenticity, Lin and his team went to the best in the business. ‘We’ve hired the JC stunt team to do the martial arts in the movie so it’s actually Jackie Chan Martial Arts told in a LEGO way. His stunt team is doing all of the hand-to-hand martial arts action, then our animation team looks at that action that we’ve filmed, then translates it into LEGO style.’