On Sunday 31st December, Channel 5 aired a documentary called 'The Lego Story: Brick by Brick'. As you can probably guess, it was a documentary that went through the history of Lego, it's highs, it's lows, and why it is such a well known success.
When watching the introduction, I was very surprised as to how good it seemed. The music was great as it was fun, bouncy, and creative; the adults, whether they be film critics, structural engineers, or financial experts, all seemed very passionate when talking; and most importantly, it didn't give too much away. For me, the introduction seemed almost perfect, the only thing that could have made it better was if they featured more shots of Lego models.
The documentary interviewed an interesting and wide range of people. They interviewed Craig Stevens (Film Critic), Tyger Drew-Honey (Actor), Russel Grant (Astrologer), Simon Hugo (Lego Author), Anna Williamson (TV Presenter), Jordan and Perry (Dancers/Diversity members), Roma Agrawal (Structural Engineer), Andrew Collins (Writer), Mark Dolan (Comedian), Dr Shini Somara (Mechanical Engineer), Sarah Herman (Author, A Million Little Bricks), Dominic Frisby (Financial Expert), Jon Tickle (TV Presenter), Simon Pickard (Lego Fan Builder), Deborah Jaffe (Author, The History of Toys), Tom Poulsom (Lego Fan Builder), and Tom Craine (Comedian). I find it amazing that they interviewed eighteen different people for a documentary on the history of Lego and it's even more amazing how different their professions are. This offers the documentary a wide range of opinions and perspectives which are effectively used.
I found that the documentary used a good blend of interviewing, saying facts, and showing old footage of adverts and potential news reports. The facts were really interesting as they really show just how big Lego has become as a company. Examples include Lego being the worlds largest tyre manufacturer, Lego bypassed Ferrari as the world's most powerful brand, and there are 100 pieces of Lego for everyone on Earth. I was surprised with how many facts they included that I didn't already know.
An extremely unexpected thing which the documentary did was include very old footage of LEGOLAND Billund being built and old Lego TV adverts. It even showed a clip from a different documentary which showed the Lego HQ being put into lockdown because there was a camera crew trying to look through the windows. That particular segment made it seem very bizarre how secretive Lego are.
Another detail I was impressed with are the topics covered. They talked about the history without sparing a detail, they showed how Lego was used as a family and for education, they showed old footage of adverts, they showed military practicality as well as mentioning how it is used in other professions, they talked about the main UK Lego convention 'Brick Live', they talked about the Lego movie and even about the Lego batman movie. They barely left any stone unturned which is very impressive. The only criticisms I have are that they didn't mention Lego branching out onto consoles or TV. They briefly showed vague clips of things to do with the Lego Ninjago movie, however this was not explored in detail. However, the documentary did make up for this by mentioning Lego sales are down again, that they nearly went bankrupt, and went into how they recovered.
In conclusion, I think that this documentary is worth watching whether you love Lego, are interested in it's history, or just want to understand why everyone is so obsessed over it. As I said earlier, the documentary isn't perfect, however it makes up for that in so many ways.
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