Topic: Brickfilm of the Week: 2001: A LEGO Odyssey (June 19, 2015)
This week’s Brickfilm of the Week is 2001: A LEGO Odyssey by Marc Atkin.
2001: A LEGO Odyssey is both a homage to the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and to the LEGO building toy and spans several eras. It was made in 2001 by Marc Atkin. Marc Atkin was a member of the early LEGO fan site LUGNET, and his films were in the Brickfilms.com directory. His only other film is Jar Jar Binks and the French Revolution.
Watch 2001: A LEGO Odyssey on the Brickfilm Archive
SPOILERY DISCUSSION BELOW!
Before we dive into analyzing 2001: A LEGO Odyssey, let’s remember a few things. This film was made in 2000 (released in 2001), on a Powerbook without any stop-motion animation software. When viewing a film it is important to remember the context of when the film was made. There is a time and a place to critique a film’s frame rate or animation, and this is not that time.
With that said, let’s talk about 2001: A LEGO Odyssey’s great strength: its great editing. Like the Kubrick film it homages, this film features very clever editing that helps drive the story. Cuts are carefully chosen, like the flying brick fading to the rolling wheel at 1:05. Also observe how the story is told: man finds simple LEGO, he smiles. Woman finds more complex but still interesting LEGO, she smiles. Man finds the infamous dumbed-down LEGO of the 1990s. He frowns. This simple repetition tells us so much without a single word of snarky dialog. And again, in the end, we see a similar transition: from the monolith, to a Mindstorms RCX computer brick, to a simple 2x4 red brick.
What are your thoughts on 2001: A LEGO Odyssey? What did you like about it? What did you think of the editing, and how it helped tell the story? Did you have a favorite moment?
) You were right to say not to judge the film based on framerate. Once I began watching this film, my eyes adjusted to the framerate, and I could appreciate the film for what it was: a good brickfilm.
