Who hasn’t spent hours playing legos? I think it would be safe to say everyone in this country has owned a set of legos at one point in time. The company’s billion dollar annual revenue is a force in and of itself, but when Hollywood writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller decided to use the iconic toy company as their subject matter, no one expected the film to be so popular. Critics and fans loved it. They were instantly catapulted into the spotlight and heralded as heroes for their the brilliancy of their creative story line. During an interview with the Los Angeles Times they were very candid about their intentions, saying:
“We set out to use a big commercial studio film as a Trojan horse to relay a message about the power and necessity of grass-roots creativity”.[1]
This movie was certainly a Trojan horse that relayed a deeper cynical message that was extremely anti-christian. Consider the similarities to Christianity: The Lego Movie has a parallel universe just as there is a greater existence beyond our planet earth. The movie centers around a hero named Emmet just as Christianity centers around a savior named Jesus. According to the Strong’s Concordance, Emmet is the Jewish word for “truth”.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6
There is no doubt this was intentional. In a twitter conversation with the writers, Jeffery Weiss with Religion News Service asked Phil Lord and Chris Miller if it was done on purpose, their reply?
“truth – was Greg Silverman’s idea at WB and we embraced it.”
Who is Greg Silverman? He is the President of Creative Development and Worldwide Production for Warner Bros. His past gnostic and successful projects include: 300, Batman Begins, and The Matrix. Gnosticism is a retelling of the Biblical account by flipping the characters upside down. For example, God is evil and the devil is good. Judas was the good disciple and the other 11 were bad. The snake in the garden of Eden was a good thing. The Lego Movie follows this same pattern.
All throughout the movie there are references to the “man upstairs”… played by Will Ferrells character. This is not only a figurative reference to God, but it is a direct reference to the god of the Lego people, because “the man upstairs” is the one who builds them. Will stated in an interview about his character that
“President Business is viewed as being a benevolent, supreme ruler of all the lego people and yet behind the scenes he’s really a control freak… who is evil.”
He is the one who created everything to be perfect. In the beginning of the film, everything is in order. There is a scene where Emmet is in his car on his way to work and a popular pop song comes on the radio called “Everything is Awesome”.
When God created the world He stated that everything was “good” or you could say “awesome”. Everything had order and the world was perfect. Man was created in God’s image and delighted to follow God’s moral laws. The Lego Movie has this parallel in the beginning except they make it out as some sort of “slavery” to adhere to the rules that the “man upstairs” designed. There is a line where President Business is addressing the city and says
“Remember to follow all the instructions in the book… otherwise you will be put to sleep”.
Emmet is the unlikely savior of a rebellious bunch that have broken away from the “instruction book”, claiming to value “creativity” over following the rules. A blind prophet named Vitruvius gives Emmet a made up prophecy that he is the “one” or “special”. What’s interesting about this character is that he embodies an atheistic view. Hence the reason they made him a “blind prophet”. It’s not by chance that the actor Morgan Freeman plays this character. He is very outspoken about his atheism. There is a scene where the rebellious bunch are escaping cloud cuckoo land and Vitruvius tells Emmet:
“not to worry about what the others are doing… just focus on yourself and what’s special about YOU.”
This philosophy is totally opposite from what the Bible teaches. The whole ten commandments are about “others”. True love is constantly “others-focused”. Self is the very heart of the sin problem.
On their journey to save the legos from the tyrannical “man upstairs”, Emmet sacrifices himself to save the rest of the group. Everyone believes he is dead until the final moments of the film when he shows up. The comment “back from the dead?” implies that he was resurrected… a twisted version of Jesus Christ.
The movie ends with the “man upstairs” returning. He sees what the rebellious son has done to his world and begins to fix it by forcing his perfection upon the world in a kind of Armageddon. The method he uses to permanently fix the legos that don’t follow the instructions is by Krazy glueing them together. If you think about it… God is going to fix the sin problem by permanently bringing order back to universe post judgement day. There is nothing the rebellious son can do about it. He’s been defeated. The “man upstairs” wins. That is, until the rebellious son tells the “man upstairs”
“You don’t have to be the bad guy.”
Then the “man upstairs” recognizes value in chaos and rebellion and embraces it.
Remember that Emmet means truth? What is truth? The Bible says:
Thou art near, O LORD; and all thy commandments are truth. Truth cannot be separated from God. Psalms 119:151
If the commandments are truth, and truth is not separate from Jesus, then the commandments cannot be separate from Jesus. Jesus himself affirmed this when He said:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Matthew 5:17
This concept is evident in the language. These are the Hebrew characters for truth 
They are the first, middle, and last characters of the alphabet. If truth is equivalent with commandments in the Bible, what happens when we remove the letter 
, we are left with the Hebrew word for death 
. is the character is that most represents the oneness and glory of God. Remove God, you no longer have truth (the commandments), and you are left with death. [2]
Satan fell when he superseded the law of heaven by putting himself, his wants, desires, and aspirations before God. In a similar way The Lego Movie paints the story of a rebellion, the Bible tells us satan started a war and what the crux of the war was about.
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, Revelation 12:7
It tells us that satan violated the law of heaven when he put himself first.
For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. Romans 14:7
And who was the primary object of his wrath after choosing this course of action? It was those who keep the commandments of God.
And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 12:17
What is the lego movie teaching us? To get rid of the instruction book (the Bible)? Isn’t that the reason we are all in this mess in the first place… because Adam and Eve did not follow the instructions? It is interesting to note that Emet as taught by the Kabbalah is the power to realize one’s own deepest potential, which is in fact the power of the Jewish soul to bring about the ultimate realization of God’s potential. Isn’t this the same lie that the devil told Eve in the garden. To rebel against God and indulge your own potential? Is that what makes everything awesome?
The movie may give a very positive image about building self esteem, but it’s real evil is removing the foundation of Christianity… That God is love and He’s given us an instruction book for a good reason. We would be better off to follow it.
Will Ferrell states in an interview about the moral message of the movie,
“It really doesn’t matter if you are following the rules or not. I think families are going to really enjoy this”.
Any movie that heralds a rebellious savior who fights against the idea of “following the rules” is as anti-Christian as they come. [3]
references:
[1] http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-et-mn-en-writers-lego-movie-20141204-story.html
[2] http://finejudaica.com/pages/hebrew_names_m.htm
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsYfFZTVkrc
