#jc asks

[sa1808fi]

If you dig deeper into the mental aspect of being paralyzed and isolated for 5 years, do you think Rex struggled to process being able to move and just... existing outside of Undar when he just escaped it? What if he got too used to being stuck as just an immobile mind and being only capable of observing the outside world that being able to actually interact with the world feels too foreign to him? I personally headcanon that Rex had to spend a few months in the Upstairs realm relearning how to function normally AND getting used to how the relm works before he built the ship and get the raptors. And i hc that he bedrots too. Which makes me think abt the basic stuff like eating and sleeping. He's probably so out of touch with time and those concepts that he goes on days without them or just do them whenever. I also headcanon that he sometimes mess up his thoughts and what he actually wants to say outloud lol.

YES. god i love these asks Please excuse the rambling

Other than all the trauma Rex has gained after Undar, he definitely has some physical side effects from being stuck in a different reality for 5 years. (Along with the crash that got him there in the first place)

I headcanon that in the real world, physical limitations minifigures usually have in their lego reality don't affect them anymore. That means that things that happen to them in the real world that could hurt them don't really do anything.

Falling off a table just makes them panic for a second, but there are no resulting consequences from what might have been a fatal fall.

Having a massive fan right next to them - that probably would've been deafening in their reality- is really just a mild annoyance that they can just shrug off. It's not like they have ears right?

That switch in the laws of nature messes with them a lot.

So, depending on the amount of time they spend in the realm of the man upstairs, the way they are affected by certain parts of the 'real world' when they return to their original reality can differ.

In the 'real world', they're all just plastic toys, so along with not having to deal with fatal consequences, any bodily function they previously had kinda gets put on pause. And 5 years of lying there in that weird stasis definitely messed with Emmet in irreversible ways.

In the first movie, Emmet just spends a few minutes in the real world, so when he gets back to lego reality, he's up and ready to fight immediately; the same goes with Lucy in the second movie.

But for Rex, well... he spent 5 years paralyzed, lying on his side, unable to do anything but watch. He spent 5 years as a plastic toy trapped in his own mind; he couldn't starve, he couldn't sleep, he couldn't even age.

But he was able to hear the winds of undar howling around him, he could feel the dust filling his lungs, he could scream and cry and beg for help, he could feel the searing pain of the explosion that made him crash, he could feel the hot-cold temperatures of undar. He could suffer

And after being stuck in that frozen state for so long, he's bound to have gotten used to it. The guy didn't really have any other choice in that situation.

Of course, once he finally manages to get out of Undar, he could move around. This would (In my headcanons) be a result of him getting so used to the reality of the man upstairs, that he can now move around more easily than just flopping. The rage of betrayal also helped.

Adrenaline is one hell of a drug, and that's something I think did help fuel Rex into finally getting out of Undar. But now the problem is what happens after the adrenaline rush dies down.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that after he got out of Undar, everything he told Emmet he did was embellished to hide the actual way he struggled.

When he slips back into the lego reality after being stuck phasing between that and the 'real world', well...

He keeps collapsing from muscle weakness. He has partial hearing loss from the constant banging of the dryer above him. He can't breathe properly for more than a week because of the dust that filled his lungs.

Every single feeling is overwhelming after years of isolation.

Doing anything in his reality feels almost foreign after years of doing nothing.

And it's a whole other level of torture to deal with all that alone.

He has to relearn basic motor functions in the lego reality, because fully integrating back there releases him from the stasis that froze his body in time. And now the dull pain that was in the back of his mind flares up like he's exploding all over again.

His limbs feel weak and shaky, yet they haven't changed at all from the day he crashed (Save for that large burn across his left arm).

His clothes are tattered, and his hair is slightly messy, but he hasn't aged. Yet he still has to deal with the aftermath and pain of being paralyzed for 5 years.

I'll say this again. It has been. 5. YEARS

Time is weird after years of being stuck wide awake. Hours could pass by, and it feels like it's only been a minute. Seconds can pass, and it feels like it's been hours.

He hasn't slept, eaten or done anything in those years. He barely remembers what any of that feels like anymore. And so that results in him forgetting to eat or sleep once he gets back on his feet.

And I don't mean that in a 'oh he just ignores the hunger eating away at him', no, I mean that he just doesn't feel hungry anymore. He completely forgets that food is something that he needs to put in his body. A whole week can go by, and it isn't until he checks the date that he realizes it.

He stays awake for 8 days without even a bit of sleep, and it's only until he wakes up on the floor that he realizes he passed out from exhaustion. Compared to the hunger, he still feels physical exhaustion to an extent, but it's just a lot fainter. Its the emotional exhaustion that hits harder.

So yeah, he spends a good few months phasing in and out of his reality and the 'real world', re-learning how to do normal people things again.

This is one of his lowest points because he's so consumed by pain, anger, and vengeance.

When he's finally physically 'stable' enough to actually build the rexcelsior and get the raptors, that's when his emotional state stabilizes a bit more.

Because now he has these prehistoric lizards noticing the lack of sleeping and eating. Their existence does help him to reluctantly develop somewhat more normal eating and sleeping habits.

But he will still get so consumed with his thoughts that thinking about any of these basic necessities gets put on the back burner.

And then there are the times where he gets flashbacks, and those days are always the worst. He feels weak, he feels pain, he feels a gnawing emptiness in his chest. So then he just lies there, blanking out. Disconnected from both realities.

He comes back to himself, thoughts fuzzy, to a heavy weight on his chest and surrounding him. He sees two bright yellow eyes staring right at him, a hint of concern in those intelligent reptillian eyes. And maybe, maybe that helps. Even just a bit.

[mbakuetshurisprincess]

If I were to make a taglist for all of my works who would want to be on it? 

I’ve been meaning to make just like a general taglist for a minute so comment below if you wanna be tagged when I post new fics

comment down below with the @ you want to use and that’s the one i’ll tag!

[sa1808fi]

Emmet being paralyzed in Undar is also something really interesting to look into. Because he wasnt just isolated - he was paralyzed. And for FIVE years. In a realm that works terrifyingly different from his own. I think being stuck lying in one spot in a dark place with absolutely NO ONE else being around or aware of you is something scary enough to imagine happening to you in 1 hour or 1 days, let alone being like that for 1825+ days more. 10 minutes feels like 30 JUST by feeling bored. Now imagine being PARALYZED and ISOLATED for 5 years. And the isolation in Undar definitely hits harder than any other point in his life. In bricksburg he gave himself the illusion of having friends, because there's actually people around him that he can interact with. And in Apocalypseburg, he still has his actual friends around him despite them changing to be tougher, so it gave him a sense of assurance that maintained his optimism. But Undar? The isolation was RUBBED onto his face. No one to talk to, no one anywhere NEAR him except for the people upstairs. There isnt even a way for him to just pretend and give himself that sweet illusion again. He can still see them, but there's no way for him to make himself feel like he's actually among them anymore, because he isnt even standing next to them anymore. He's only allowed to watch as they move on from him. And I know someone said it before but it's kind of INSANE how Emmet remained optimistic for at least 2 years in there. A normal person would lose it at 3 months max. And given the fact that Emmet had to endure some insane existential dread as well. (Tbh, long lasting isolation in fiction often feels too watered down to me because there's NO way it would turn out that simple lol.)

Undar is such a complicated topic by itself, it's this weird little thing in between realities. You're either stuck with the real world version, or the lego world one.

And unfortunately for Emmets sanity, he gets to experience it in both.

I love my boy a lot, it's why I torture him. But he can be just a bit delusional sometimes... Or a lot.

I think Bricksburg has messed with his perception of what is considered 'normal'. Being by himself for so long with nothing more than instructions and basic interactions has to have messed with what he thinks relationships are like. Both platonic and romantic.

It was really only once he became 'special' that people really noticed/thought about him.

Years of conformity, thinking you're friends with people who never really noticed you, absolutely affected the way he thinks friendship works.

Him becoming friends with the gang was probably an amazing experience. It's the first time he's called someone a friend who reciprocated said sentiment. He finally got to see what people caring about him actually felt like. After a few bumps in the road, of course

I have said this many times, and I will say it again, but Emmet would do anything for his friends, he wholeheartedly believes they would do the same for him. And they would.

Just after a few hours of meeting these people, Emmet chucks himself to what he thinks is his own death to save them; Lucy might've acted like she didn't care about Emmet, but her running after him after throwing himself off a building shows how attached she got to the funky construction worker.

I know that I give the gang crap for the way they treated Emmet in Apocalypseburg, but I do love them a lot, and I really do believe that they care about him a lot. An alien invasion sure is one hell of a way to test the strength of said new friendships, but y'know. Plot.

Isolation with people around you, and isolation from everything you've ever known have very different effects.

I agree with the fact that Emmet being an outcast in Bricksburg was a lot easier for him to ignore, because he constantly had people around him. He still had the comforts of his favorite shows, music, and Planty to drown out that loneliness and realization that he doesn't really have any friends.

In Apocalypseburg, he's still an outcast, a little more aware of it now. But he has people to call his friends, who actually want to spend time with him. Sure, they can be busy with defending the city, or having their brooding sessions, but he's not so lonely anymore.

Undar on the other hand. Well... Undar strips away anything Emmet could use to distract himself from the reality of his situation. As you mentioned, there's really nothing there to maintain that 'illusion' of his friends caring about him.

All Emmet can see and hear is the world moving on from his disappearance. He can't see anything other than the people he called his friends getting all buddy-buddy with their enemy, forgetting him without a second thought.

The isolation in Undar inevitably shreds any hope he had of being rescued. And that breaks him. He spends the next 3 years stewing in bad memories, in rage, in betrayal. And all of those negative emotions drag up every bad memory he has, every single time he was deemed not special, not tough, not good enough.

That's all he can think of. Because what else is he supposed to think? It's been two years. Any rose-tinted glasses he's been looking through are just gone. Shattering along with his trust and belief in his friends.

What he doesn't see is the panic when his friends realized he was gone. He doesn't see the desperate attempts to look for him, however short-lived they were. He doesn't see how his friends grieved for his 'death'. He doesn't see how they're all consumed with guilt over the demands for him to change. He doesn't see how Lucy never moved on.

And I guess that's what makes it so tragic.

[sa1808fi]

sometimes when i think abt rex and his backstory, i realise that there's so much more to unpack abt undar than what we have in canon.

Rex is completely isolated and paralysed, which is bad enough. But he's also basically in a realm beyond mortal comprehension. For years. I'd at least expect his brain to be fried after allat.

Did he have to relearn how to be mobile again? To literally just be mudanely functional before actually training? And the hallucinations. you cannot convince me that that man doesnt still get horrific psychosis sometimes.

I've come to think of Undar as this weird part of the lego movie lore.

It presents itself as this hell that Rex had to go through for 5 years, isolated and alone. But then when Lucy comes to rescue Emmet, it gets all bright and colorful, changing from looking like the 'real world', into being built out of bright and colorful lego bricks.

That by itself is just weird, because on one hand you could say that it was practically impossible to rescue Rex when he was there, because he was in a different reality. But Lucy still managed to save Emmet. She came, and the whole aesthetic of Undar changed, switching over to lego reality.

So at this point, I think of Undar as this weird part of the universe for minifigures, where the barrier between the realm of the man upstairs and their own gets really wonky.

Maybe for normal minifigures, all they see is their reality. But Rex? Emmet? Maybe their connection with Finn and the realm of the man upstairs makes it so that they're stuck between that barrier, existing in both realities at the same time.

They get to enjoy cosmic horrors. Realizing the nature of their own reality. Just going through things beyond mortal comprehension, because unfortunately, they're the favorites. (And I mean Finn's favorites)

I've said before that usually minifigures are able to brush off most things in the real world that would hurt them, because they're just plastic at that point.

Buuuuuut, I also said the amount of time they spent there would affect just how much the realm of the man upstairs affects them. And the universe hath decided to fuck Emmet over even more.

So, while Rex was in undar, marinating in his rage and getting used to being in the 'real world' (y'know, coming to terms with the horrors). Reality was also getting used to the fact that he was there, fully aware of everything going on. And reality decided 'Welp, you get to feel everything from both worlds now' And that's how I'm justifying him choking on dust when I originally said that 'real world' things don't affect minifigures. For the angst.

The very first time Rex fully slipped back into his reality after being stuck in the 'real world' for 5 years... it ended with him flat on his face. Because 5 years of not using any of your limbs ends with you on the ground, shaking with muscle weakness.

And after him realizing that he has to deal with learning how to use his arms and legs again, he's also instantly slapped in the face with the fact that his burn injury from the explosion didn't actually start healing in Undar. He just got used to the searing pain, and now said pain is even more intense because he's back in his reality, and he spent 5 years laying on that injury.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

Because not only does he have to relearn how walking works, and the pain from the injuries that got him in undar in the first place. I've also decided that he has to deal with the ringing in his ears getting louder, the dust that's making him cough his lungs out, and the exhaustion from a violent adrenaline crash.

To summarize: Just the universe cranking the already horrendous pain up to 11.

Mind you, all of this is happening within a minute of him coming back to his reality. Rex hasn't built the ship, or changed his looks. He hasn't really done anything other than getting out of Undar.

So you can imagine the whiplash he was experiencing, going from being fuelled by rage and betrayal, and the elation of escaping- to feeling like he was going to kneel over and die right then and there.

Right out of undar, he is delirious with pain, every inch of him is exhausted, just sitting up requires a tremendous amount of effort. So any rage he has is still there, but now it's just simmering, because everything hurts, and he can't think of anything other than how his head feels like it's full of cotton.

I've said this many, many times, but that man is traumatized. The things he saw in undar will never just go away, he's stuck with knowledge of the universe that no one else will ever fully understand. And that's not even including the trauma of the explosion that made him crash there in the first place.

Do I think he gets hallucinations because of all that? Somewhat.

He's going to have bad days, where all he can feel is that loneliness eating him alive from the inside. Phantom pains flaring along his left side from the explosion. Weakness in his very bones making him struggle to take even one step.

He'll get flashbacks of everything he saw and felt in Undar, flashbacks of how people ignored him before that.

And in those flashbacks, he hears voices. Voices of the people who betrayed him, who told him to change, who said he wasn't good enough.

I think whenever he gets in that weird funk, he either gets really destructive, or just stuck in his own head. And in both scenarios, he spirals, and he spirals hard.

[sa1808fi]

what do you think of the original version of the lego movie which is called the piece of resistance? https://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/wp-content/uploads/screenplay/scripts/The-Lego-Movie.pdf

copy and paste the link

Oh yeah, I remember reading that a while ago. Like... two years ago?

This is a loaded question. And considering how much I love the movie, I might be biased. So, uh, keep that in mind.

The way they originally wrote some of the characters and their relationships definitely threw me for a loop. The fact that Emmet and Lucy were originally written to be exes was... a choice.

I wouldn't say it was a bad choice per se, but Emmet and Lucy being strangers from the get-go makes that trust she develops in him a lot more powerful from a storytelling perspective.

Her first impression of Emmet is a generic guy who she believes shouldn't be the special. She thinks that there is nothing about him that could help them against Business, nothing to set him apart from any other person in Bricksburg. And maybe there's a bit of jealousy there

But then, as they go through more and more together, running from gcbc, the destruction of Cloud Cuckoo Land, getting saved by Emmets double-decker couch (Proving the ideas he comes up with aren't the worst), and infiltrating Octan. She learns to trust him enough to tell him her real name. And that scene is when you really feel that shift in their relationship.

So, for them to have previously known each other enough to have dated? It could have worked in some ways, I suppose, but I think their being strangers makes the care Lucy develops for Emmet so much more impactful.

I do somewhat like the idea of Doris being a part of the movie, but maybe less as a main character. I think the way she was handled kind of watered down Emmets character development.

I like her. I like the idea of Emmet having a mom and a dad, even if he's implied to be dead. And the whole 'I need to save my mother from this evil person' is a stereotype among many that ended up being included in the movie.

But I think his mother is mentioned enough as the 'most powerful person in the universe' that it kinda dilutes Emmets purpose a bit. Vituvius ignores his asking for help until Lucy says who his mother is.

I guess the whole "your mother did this" "your mother did that" ends up making Emmet seem 'less important' somehow. She shows up in the script just enough that I would consider her as a co-main character.

Here's the thing about Emmet as a character.

Emmet is introduced as a guy who follows the instructions to the letter because he wants to fit in with everyone around him. And he follows the instructions without much effort. Which could be said that he's just really brainwashed like everyone else in Bricksburg, but I do think he likes the routine.

In a scene with Lucy, it's shown that he also really doesn't know anything else outside of the instructions and President Business. He lists off a bunch of things about Octan that he thinks are 'great', but are actually just things he's been brainwashed to believe in.

And when Lucy and Vitruvius enter his mind, this idea of him just being a random, uncreative, brainwashed guy is reinforced by the blankness of his mindscape.

In the original script, Emmet still follows instructions to fit in, but this time, it's his mother who reinforces these beliefs that not following the instructions is wrong. Instead of the things around him influencing him (Because he is lonely as hell), he has someone -his family- to constantly tell him that being creative is bad. Even if it's to protect him, you can admit it is a bit messed up if you think about it.

It's also shown in a few scenes that he gets these 'sparks' of creativity that lead to him being shunned by his classmates and arrested on his first day as a construction worker. This is a stark contrast to the unnoticeable genericness that makes up Emmet in the movie.

Script Emmet was written as a far more memorable person compared to the movie. Emmet is actively invited out for lunch with his new coworkers, while in the movie, they ignore or even forget about him.

And as much as it hurts me to say- Nothing about Emmet was particularly special. Compared to all the other characters that showed up throughout that whole beginning sequence, Emmet didn't have anything that made him stick out.

That's a big part of his character. He's written as a forgettable character that no one notices, which led to that painful interrogation sequence, but also the manhunt for him, since his face was too generic for any of Business's systems to find him.

So, for him to originally have more of a presence, and even need to be told to be normal, when in the movie it comes naturally to him, it is one of the biggest differences I noticed.

But something that hasn't changed in either version is his want to have friends and fit in. In both the script and movie, he does a lot to make himself as appealing as possible to his coworkers, so that he can hang out with them. (Again, lonely.)

It's his first day on the job in the script, so he wants to have a relationship with these people. The movie implies that he's been working with all the other construction workers enough that they should know him, and he thinks they do. But as we know, they don't. So that whole 'not special' thing starts there.

Actually, the movie revolves around the idea of people being special a lot more than the og script.

I have a few problems with the villain they originally wrote, and most of these problems are probably only because Business exists.

I think Business brought that more 'adult' element to the movie that gave it so much more depth. The Lego Movie did really well as a kids' movie, the jokes were on point, and there was a whimsical childishness that I really love, but Business gave so much to the movie with his role as a villain.

Black Falcon leans a lot more towards what a kid thinks a villain would be like. His name, the way he acts, the flare, the insults he uses, it's all written to appeal to children, to their imagination. I mean it's a kids movie what did you expect?

Business is also built on a child's imagination, but now it's a kid who's projecting his father onto this minifigure, making a strict president-businessman that sucks the fun out of life, and makes all of these dumb rules people follow. And this is basically what Finn thinks his father is doing whenever he says no to Finn playing with his 'orderly' lego worlds.

The Black Falcon and Business both want to freeze the world into what they think is perfect. But their motivations, and the people they represent in Finn's life are different.

Falcon is a reflection of Finn's Uncle, who is apparently going through a rough patch in life where his girlfriend left him, every job he takes makes him hate himself, and he has to babysit Finn while his mom goes partying.

Business is a reflection of Finn's father, and while we don't get a whole rant from him about what is wrong with his life, we can gauge that he's probably a businessman of some kind, and that he likes to maintain order and keep things where they're 'meant to be'.

They both don't want Finn to mess with their Lego worlds; that much is the same. Script uncle feels that that is the one thing in his life he has control over, his perfect world. Finn's father thinks of it as his space, one that Finn shouldn't touch or mess with, because everything will then be put in the wrong place.

Falcon and Business are opposites in some way. Falcon has a lot of chaotic qualities, while Business gives a corporate vibe. Falcon stays in the shadows, while Business is the president, who makes public appearances.

They're the same but different. Business I think, ends up being a character that adults think/relate to more. Movie for all ages everybody

Then we get to the scene where Emmet is thrown into the reality of the man upstairs ('The Makers' in the script), and that was a wild scene.

Script Emmet just walks towards a portal that brings him to the 'real world'. He does this because it is apparently 'calling to him', and then he just disappears in front of everyone. The only reaction from that is "Well that was weird"-and then he's in the 'real world', where he is apparently able to move easily and speak out loud. Cue a lego minifigure and a grown man screaming at each other.

The movie instead goes down the route where Emmet throws himself into this swirling vortex of doom to save all of the master builders. This one act makes it seem like he dies rather than just disappearing for a bit; it's also a lot more dramatic and gives a more solid reason for him to switch realities. This time, when he's in the 'real world', he can't move. He shouldn't be able to because he's a toy in the hands of Finn.

Emmet not moving makes more sense. He has a whole existential crisis, and watches this massive guy -who actually looks a lot like Business- kragle all of his friends. Then he has a chance to get a good look at Finn, to get that confidence with Finn's belief in him.

Wayyyyyy different than what the script had. The script had Emmet talk to script uncle, that was weird.

It's... Okay, a big reason I love The Lego Movie so much is because of the way you can find parallels in Finn's relationship with his dad, with the way Business and Emmet interact.

Business is redeemed by Emmet, because Finn's dad ends up accepting that maybe a bit of chaos is okay by talking with his son. Finn's script uncle is redeemed because Finn and Emmet talk to him, but Black Falcon stays the same.

Look, I have no idea if the script planned to have Black Falcon be a direct parallel to Finn's uncle in the way Business is to his dad. Most of this are the ramblings of a crazy person that likes legos.

That's interesting, because Black Falcon has the same wants as Finn's uncle, but the way he acts isn't a reflection of the man. From what I read in the script, Finn's uncle is actually pretty nice to his nephew, but even after Emmet goes back into the lego reality, Black Falcon is still an evil bastard. And then he gets chucked into a volcano and dies.

I hate that ending. Little too reminiscent of how they killed off Rex Which I will admit is only because I'm comparing it to the movie ending, but I still don't like it. It's just a "Oh yay he's dead now." kind of ending.

"If the construction guy... said something to President Business... What would he say?"

Finn's dad asks him that, and this question allows Finn to tell his father how he feels about his rules through the lego minifigures, through his imagination. But it also smoothly transitions from that scene to Emmet and Business. That speech Emmet gives to Business is a direct reflection of what Finn is probably saying to his dad.

"You don't have to be the bad guy." THIS QUOTE, I SWEAR TO GOD- IT DOES THINGS TO ME. I think this was one of the first times I ever saw a kids movie handle a villain like that, telling them they were special as well, that they could be like the hero of the story. It goes to show that even kids can understand topics that adults might claim are too 'complicated' for them.

The producers knew what they were doing when they planned that scene. Business losing the platform boots as Finn's dad crouches down. Both of these authoritative figures come down to Emmet/Finn's level. And then they hug? My Feelings.

And it's this ending that they wrote, which is what I think makes The Lego Movie such a good movie. The ending of the script doesn't even compare to that masterpiece.

Both the script and the movie have different messages being conveyed. And that is a direct influence by how exactly the story plays out.

The script is trying to say that change is a good thing, that building upon something can lead to amazing things. There's also a message somewhere in there about how letting your kids go and make mistakes is good for them or something.

The movie that we all know and love is all about how everybody is special, creative, capable of great things- even if no one else sees it at first. And if you really want to get into it, you can almost see the messages about corporations and capitalism and dictators and-

[sa1808fi]

what do you think of bad cop in the piece of resistance?

Bad Cop definitely got a lot more character development in the movie compared to the script.

His role in the og script is really just an evil lackey who chases after Emmet the whole time. In the entirety of the script, we don't see him do anything outside of that.

Honestly, I think that if that script ended up being the final product, people may or may not have ended up ignoring him in favor of other characters.

Or not, I've seen fandoms go crazy making up lore for characters that show up like- twice.

Gcbc is literally a personification of the stereotypical good cop, bad cop trope in movies and tv shows. The og script just labels him as 'bad cop', which is probably just a way to say that he's a 'bad' cop.

It's a kids movie. Makes sense.

But script Bad Cop is just a bad cop. That's basically the only thing going on with his character.

Movie Bad Cop is 'Bad' because he has a 'Good' side.

In the movie, Business wiped good cop away with a goddamn Q-tip, destroying that part of the 'good cop, bad cop' dynamic. Right after that, Bad Cop kragled his parents because he was ordered to.

Script Bad Cop doesn't have any of this. He doesn't have a 'good side'. He doesn't have parents. He doesn't have to face the consequences of blindly obeying everything the villain says.

At first, gcbc opposes Business' orders. But that opposition is mainly because Good Cop is the one who's now seeing that the kragle is a bad thing, and that causes the non-stop switching between the two of them, which results in Good Cop being wiped away for being too 'soft'.

That scene, where a part of a character essentially gets murdered, before they're forced to paralyze their parents, is one hell of a thing to be put in a kids movie. Honestly, I can respect the choice to put it there. Maybe it's just me, but I don't often see people talk about it.

Sure, people do talk about the angst of having this whole part of you removed without remorse, and freezing your parents in place forever, but I'm really thinking about the psychological horrors of having someone who's been with you your whole life, the closest thing you have to a brother, just erased. Bad Cop 100% does get trauma from this.

This is trauma that the script doesn't give him. This one scene gives him a lot more depth and complexity than just being Business' lackey.

After Emmet launched himself from the top of Octan tower, the masterbuilders escaped, and that's when Bad Cop helps them.

Where Good Cop had the realization before, Bad Cop has his now. Because now he's seeing whole worlds of innocent people being frozen in the name of Business' idea of 'perfection'.

Scribble Cop is one of the first things he 'makes'. An attempt to get back the piece of him that was taken away. And we can talk about the implications behind scribble cop another time. That's another thing I have many feelings about.

At that point, he's done with Business, he sees that the things he's been helping Business do is wrong, and now he wants to atone for all that he has done.

SCRIPT BAD COP DOESN'T DO THAT.

HE JUST BECOMES IRRELEVANT.

HE IS A BACKGROUND CHARACTER THAT IS JUST THERE AS A NUISANCE.

AT LEAST MOVIE GCBC HAS MORE TO THEM THAN THAT.

[sa1808fi]

Guhhh thoughts on Emmet himself saying in tlm2 that the reason he struggled with "getting tougher" was because he heavily struggles to cope with change.... and subsequently subcontiously misses the simplicity of living in Bricksburg despite having learned what it really was (totalitarian dystopia with the careful disguise of a utopia)....

You ever think about how much more tragic Rex becomes with that revelation...

I think that despite how aggressively Rex sticks to his new personality and lifestyle, there's always going to be something in him that misses what life was like before. That ignorance to the world around him and how people treated him was what kept him going, following the instructions.

Once Emmet learns about the existence of master builders, he has to deal with the fact that the ignorance he's lived in his whole life kept him blind to a lot of things. The system he obeyed and believed was actually repressing a lot of people, whole other worlds existed, and there was some kind of other realm that only he could see.

That's a lot of shit to throw at a guy in one day.

And yet Emmet manages to roll with all of the insane stuff happening to him pretty quickly. He comes up with a replacement for a broken wheel, saves them all from drowning with his double decker couch, comes up with a good plan to infiltrate Octan (That ended up being closer to winning than any other plan), and he even manages to talk down Business to stopping his evil plan!

Emmet is finally happy because he managed to find his sense of self between all that chaos. He's a master builder, The Special, and he has friends now!

Then Apocalypseburg comes along. Those instructions that his whole life revolved around don’t exist anymore (at least not as intensely), Lucy and everyone else got sucked into the tough-gritty mentality that everyone else took on.

Emmet never cared to change like that himself. Surfer Dave wanted to be Chainsaw Dave instead? Ok cool, Emmet's still gonna treat him the same as always.

Emmet is perfectly content with doing whatever he wants now, and he no longer feels the need to go along with everyone else because he has friends that care about him now. And something about the aggressiveness of the apocalypseburgian lifestyle isn't that appealing to him.

Now, everyone treats him as an outcast for not fitting in compared to the previous complaints of him being 'too normal'. Emmet ignores these comments because he's fine with his life. He still listen's to 'Everything Is Awesome', greets people on the street, and lives in his own little world, ignorant to the world around him.

Then his friends get kidnapped, he meets Rex, and he has to face his worldview being shattered again.

He finally starts acting tough because Emmet now believes if he doesn't, then he can't save anyone.

And then it turns out the guy he spent the whole time trusting is this future version of himself that got abandoned by everyone he was currently trying to save.

That HURTS man.

And that's not even going on how Rex is feeling. The man has to come face to face with a younger more naive version of himself that hasn't faced the horrors he had.

Rex has to deal with this version of himself that still talks about Apocalypseburg fondly, and thinks back to his friends without any hatred.

How Rex feels about his past homes will change depending on the timeline.

During the 5 years in Undar, Rex slowly came to the 'realization' that none of his friends actually wanted to come and find him. He's left there to just look back at all of his good memories as a way to pass the time.

However, once the knowledge of his 'uselessness' sinks in, those rose-tinted glasses are ripped away from him. All of the mistreatment he suffered in Bricksburg and Apocalypseburg is going to slap him in the face.

Right out of Undar and until the events of the second movie, he doesn't look back at Bricksburg, or even Apocalypseburg with bittersweetness. It's just rage. He does his best to just keep it out of his mind because he's trying to focus on his plans, but when it does engulf his thoughts?

All he can remember is the betrayal, the constant side comments, the attempts to make him change himself. All of that just fans the firey rage that's settled into his heart.

The second movie is the first time in years that he's had to actually face his past as Emmet. Until then it was just occasional outbursts at the thought of either place or people.

So here's Emmet, the him that hasn't been scarred by the unfairness of the world. The him that still lives in that blissful ignorance. The him that believes people care.

Rex changed himself until he was practically unrecognizable (Even to himself), because he was running under the logic that if he didn't, then he really was useless.

He took up an adventurous lifestyle, pulling off dangerous stunts to further distance himself from the safe way he used to live. The fucker decided to go to the past to get velociraptors because he thought it would be cool.

Still, some tiny part of him longs for the days when he lived in naivety, when the knowledge of how the world actually works didn't weigh down on him, when he didn't have to grapple with the fact that people didn't like him.

But alas, He's seen too much at this point.

‘ignorance is bliss’ and all that jazz.

[sa1808fi]

I sent it in tags already but I also wanna send it as an ask:

5 years is honestly a crazy amount of time if you pull in real world logic. In a lot of medias you have characters stay trapped for 30 or thousands of years in prison, and while it's an impressive amount of time it's not that easy to sympathize with - unless you're a convict ig 😭

5 years is a lot easier to visualize, though, a lot easier to relate to and sympathize with. No angst for the sake of angst. A realistic, 4-5 time frame that would make sense for a toy to go missing in.

Idk about anyone else, but my views on people or troubling situations can change in the span of DAYS, weeks or months at best.

So the fact it took two entire years for Emmet to even START breaking is truly a testament to how strong his will is, and just how much pressure from all sides it takes to shatter it. Constant "proof" that his friends never cared about him right in his line of sight, and yet he remains optimistic for over 730 days. Seven hundred and thirty days of holding onto hope. Some would call that naive. I think it's inspiring.

...it really sounds like a lot when you put in that perspective, huh? And that's only year two. Out of five.

No wonder Rex is the way he is. He stops being so violently out of character to Emmet once you put it into perspective just how much it took to drag him down to this point

Probably around 60 months, 260 weeks 1,826 days, 43800 hours, 2628000 minutes, and 157788000 seconds.

Long time to be paralysed and stuck with your own thoughts, watching as the people you called friends move on without a second thought.

It's just angst.

That's the whole thing about those 5 years, it's just Emmet suffering.

Compared to tons of other media where characters are trapped for a long time by themselves, it is pretty common for them to go insane or go on a whole villain arc as revenge to the people who wronged them.

On some occasions, said characters come out the 'same', but that should be taken with a grain of salt, since those times a lot of what was their life has been torn away, and they have to help another group of people.

The thing is, is that these characters that are trapped are usually able to do something while trapped. It really the isolation that’s a common appearance between them.

Emmet had a chance to watch the world move on. He wasn’t able to do anything during those 5 years but watch and think.

I say he starts to break after 2 years because while he’s able to stay optimistic through the first stretch of isolation, the reality of the situation eats away at him.

Some people might say "Oh that's not the worst, apocalypseburg lasted 5 years as well." Which... okay it did last 5 years too, but all of those things that happened over those 5 years also transferred to the years in undar.

Emmet finally breaking and deciding to change his whole personality and sense of self was the after-effect of his treatment in the first movie, apocalypseburg, and undar.

It wasn't just Undar that broke him. Everything before that piled ontop of him until that one event finally made him snap.

I guess at the end of the day that's all he really is. A man. One that has gone though way too much and finally cracked under all the pressure.

Emmet is an individual that possesses a lot of willpower to be able to keep up his cheeriness for most of his life, especially in the face of dangerous or depressing situations that would otherwise end with other people giving up.

But that cheeriness was also making him push down any negative feelings he had. Emmet is the reliable ray of sunshine in everyone's eyes, he had to ignore all the hateful comments to keep up that happiness.