During the throes of entertainment industry awards season, it is fun to highlight the proverbial slam dunks and touchdowns. Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out is a metaphorical home run with an ironic title. This CGI Cartoon Network special circa September, 2012 is the progeny of Lego (as in, the toy company), Lucasfilm Television, and Santa Monica-based Threshold Animation Studio. To commemorate the show's imminent video release and possible 2013 Annie Award (it is nominated in the category of Best Animated Television Production for Children), the LA Animation Examiner tallies five reasons to love this hit TV movie.
1) Fun with Lego - Lego Star Wars is full of nods to the eponymous plaything. For instance, toy manifestations of familiar Star Wars characters comically adjust their rigid, molded hair; exploding starships atomize into plastic building blocks; and a new and improved Death Star manifests via a model kit inexplicably adrift in space.
2) Fun with Star Wars - This TV special is essentially a mash-up of the entire Star Wars canon. Fans of the franchise will smile knowingly at inside jokes about Luke and his father, Luke and his sister, and Han Solo's itchy trigger finger.
3) Excellent action sequences and special effects - The aerial duels are particularly impressive feats of CG animation.
4) Short form at its best - This 22-minute mini-motion picture packs big entertainment value into its small (time) frame. This is a breath of fresh air during an awards season full of marathon fare, particularly at the box office.
5) Family friendly guffaws - Lego Star Wars is a laugh riot, albeit a squeaky clean one. It contains the same humorous spirit as the Robot Chicken: Star Wars spoofs and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Star Wars segments; however, even the youngest of youngsters are welcome to watch.
For related antics, see Lego Star Wars: The Padawan Menace (2011) on video plus all of the related Lego Star Wars video games. More about the Lego Star Wars universe also is available at http://starwars.lego.com/en-us/default.aspx?icmp=COUSFR3StarWars.
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