We’ve seen LEGO books and video games before, but this past week, the world got its first taste of a feature-length LEGO movie with LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers. Who is Clutch Powers, you ask? Well, aside from the great name, he’s the premiere explorer in the LEGO universe, a veritable MacGyver, Indiana Jones, Han Solo and Speed Racer  all wrapped up into one hunky, well-coiffed pile of bricks.

Produced straight to DVD, LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers finds our hero and his team of LEGO experts on an action-packed adventure that takes them from LEGO City to the LEGO Space Police realms to the medieval world of Ashlar — all of which will be familiar to your kids from the LEGO sets currently lying in pieces around their room. As with the LEGO video games that’ve stolen our hearts (and our free time), cheeky humor and inside jokes about — which means the film will be as funny to you as it is fun for your kiddoes. Be sure to check out the extras, too — while admittedly not as jaw-dropping as the upcoming 4D Chuck Powers experience at LEGOLAND California, they’re an amazing inside look at the works behind a LEGO feature.

Check out the official trailer below for a sneak peek at Clutch & Co. in action — and head to Amazon, where the DVD is currently $US5 off its regular $US19.99 sticker price, to get your own copy.

For the most part, I like having a kid who’s Lego-obsessed. I’m always pleased at the rapturous approval I get from other parents when I tell them about Zachary’s passion. Lego is seen as creative, educational, great for developing fine motor skills, and there’s a whiff of nostalgia about it all.

But I’ve been following the current debate over the evolution (some argue devolution) of Lego. And I’ve begun to wonder. Is there a dark side to the “wunder” toy? Do creativity and imaginative play still rest at the heart of the Lego experience? Or have marketing ploys and bossy instructions squeezed the joy right out?

Give a Lego box even a cursory glance, and you’ll see things aren’t what they used to be. Pieces now come in colors like chartreuse, and shapes such as skeletons, monsters and space missiles. There are bombs, evil villains, and every sort of teeny, tiny weapon. According to Time magazine, change came by necessity. In 1998, the Lego Group posted its first ever losses and then sales dwindled for years. In 2004, the company reported a $374 million loss but also enacted a drastic turnaround plan. This involved more Lego sets with lucrative tie-ins including more of the Star Wars line first introduced in 1999, Batman in 2006, Indiana Jones in 2008 and a series of videogames. On the business end, the company drastically cut its work force and outsourced packaging and production to Eastern Europe and Mexico. The plan worked: In 2006, the Lego Group boasted $281 million in profit and sales have been robust ever since.

The current backlash against Lego was stoked by Michael Chabon’s recent book, Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son. Re-connecting with Lego while playing with his four children, Chabon found himself chafing at “the authoritarian nature of the new Lego” and its “provided solution.” What Chabon and other parents I know object to is the corporate branding and rigid instructions provided in the sets, which, they argue, stanch imagination and discourage the construction of random, teetering creations.

This might be true but it hasn’t hurt sales; parents are buying more Lego than ever. “Even as other toymakers struggle, this Danish maker of toy bricks is enjoying double-digit sales gains and swelling earnings,” said a September article in the New York Times. Amidst the clash of messages, adult fans of Lego (or AFOLs as they call themselves) have attempted to bring some clarity. Roy T. Cook, a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota and one of 14 officially sanctioned Lego ambassadors in the U.S., posted a response to Chabon on an AFOL blog. Cook calls Chabon’s essay a “significant contribution to the debates about the nature and role of LEGO as a medium.” However, the real question, insists Cook, is whether the changes to Lego “constitute an improvement, in that it gives creators more resources with which to carry out their creative projects, or is it regressive, eliminating many of the challenges which creators need to overcome or circumvent — challenges which, when overcome, result in superior creations?”

I think the whingeing about corporate influence and lost creativity is overblown. (Even Chabon told the LA Times, “… I recognise the possibility that I might be overstating my objections.”) I don’t know what’s so bad about by-the-book construction. My son is five years old. If he wants to sit for three hours and painstakingly put together a new Mars Mission ETX Alien Infiltrator, I’m in — that kind of focus on anything is admirable. I also don’t think Zachary’s commitment to building using the instructions signals a surrender to corporate designs. He’s simply learning to build. As Chabon points out in his essay, inevitably, all Lego construction ends up a fantastic, crumbled “stew” anyway. The pieces get mashed together and something new rises up every day: the Lego camper morphs into a rock monster-mobile. Indiana Jones dresses up like a pirate.

I can appreciate the critiques. And, with our overflowing bins, and a stream of new releases, I wonder how much more of the stuff we need. Yet, it became clear to me recently which camp we’ve joined. Just before Christmas, Zachary and I were in a small toy store pondering Lego sets. Beside us a woman dismissed the towering wall of options and huffed at a clerk: “I want a set with bricks. Just bricks! Do you have any of those?” My son stared at her, incredulous at her lack of enthusiasm. For him, Lego is hands-down the most captivating toy medium yet. Since Christmas, he and his friends have shared hours of fun, revelling in their new Lego sets. And there have been amazing quiet times too, Zachary absorbed in play. The other day, he was building his new Lego Coast Guard ship. With pieces scattered across the living room floor, he looked up and said: “Mummy, I’m in Lego heaven.” After a quick smile, he got right back to it.

Certainly, toy guns that look real should not be allowed, nor should guns that are obviously toys, but are still the approximate size and shape of the real thing, in my opinion.  But should a zero-tolerance policy include a two-inch hunk of plastic designed for use by a LEGO minifig?  According to an elementary school in Staten Island, New York, the answer is a resounding yes.  Nine-year-old Patrick Timoney was playing with his LEGO in the school cafeteria when he was suddenly hauled off to the principal’s office.  The reason?  One of his LEGO minifigs — the little people that inhabit the LEGO world — was a policeman with a rifle.

“You don’t traumatise a child who loved to go to school,” said Patrick’s mother Laura, “who wanted to be early every day to school, you don’t make him cry, you don’t make him fill out statements.  You don’t do it.”  It turns out that Patrick’s father is a retired police officer; he was understandably upset as well, having dealt with people who used toy guns when committing crimes.  This was not such a situation.  In the end, the toy was confiscated by the principal, Patrick and his folks met with her, and that was the end of that.

But is it really the end?  Will a child with a rolled-up poster be on the most-wanted list for carrying a replica of a bludgeon?  I still have a scar on my arm from when my sister stabbed me with a pencil; are those next on the list of proscribed items?  I’m certainly in favour of zero-tolerance towards weapons, even if they are toys, but there has to be some semblance of sanity applied or else we’ll end up clothing our kids in bubble wrap for the first 20 or 30 years of their life.

Photo: BrickArms.com

Though the game won’t be here till May, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and TT Games have released the latest teaser from LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4. Available on Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, PSP and PC, the game follows Harry and friends through their first years at Hogwarts, with Year 2 in particular focusing on The Chamber of Secrets and its accompanying basilisk. Pay special attention to the trailer’s closing credits if you’re watching it with the kids: the “magic words” displayed will let you unlock extra content in the VIP section of the LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 website.

Watch video after the jump:

US TV show,The Morning News , chatted up a bunch of kids and found everyone has a different name for individual pieces in the LEGO brick collection. So they pulled together a LEGO nomenclature chart that’s a bit of geekery this parent can appreciate.

And it got me thinking about the other randomised things that go by different names house to house – a lot of it seems to be rooted in what their kids call things. An example: my parents still refer to the remote control as a “mote-kin,” a phrase that dates back to when my brother (now in his 20s) was just learning to talk and couldn’t pronounce the real thing. Sometimes it’s shortened simple to the “mote” as in “have you seen the mote?”

It drives my husband bonkers, but then, he has no problem telling our daughter to go put on her “jamas” after her bath. Of course these are all bastardisations of actual words.

For LEGO, there is no word on the box for each piece. It’s up to your family to come up with your own. Good vocab practice for your kids. And off the top of my head, I can’t think of much else in the toybox that provides that opportunity. Truck parts have real names. Ditto doll parts. Puzzle pieces can be described by the picture on them. Play-Doh has its colour.

Check out the LEGO nomenclature, then come back and tell us: what else has a strange name in your house?

Image: Amazon

This firefighter, construction worker and policeman will happily hold up your children’s coats.

For Lego fans this is cute. However I don’t think the first figure looks much like a fireman.

Each hook holds up to 11 lbs and plugs and screws are included.

Sold at the Lego site, this is $US23.

I’ve always thought the only way to make LEGO more creative was to throw out the box (and the directions too). Apparently, LEGO’s been listening at my door.

The new Builders of Tomorrow box set from LEGO is loaded with 650 of their favorite bricks in different colours. And the cover of the box shows just that – a pile of bricks,  waiting to be made into whatever you want (we’re thinking lawnmower, no spaceship, no . . . ).

Aside from the lack of directions, the Builders of Tomorrow gives them everything they’ve come to know and love from LEGO – and lets them be captain of the LEGO universe.

Get the whole kit from Amazon for $29.99 plus shipping.

Be honest – who is more likely to get a kick out of the new Lego Architecture collection, featuring none other than Frank Lloyd Wrights’ Falling Water and Guggenheim buildings? Here’s a hint – probably not your child.

The LEGO© Group have created the new line in collaboration with Architectural Artist Adam Reed Tucker of Brickstructures, Inc.™, Inc.

In a statement on the Brickstructures website, Adam Reed Tucker claims that the objective of LEGO Architecture is to celebrate the past, present and future of architecture through use of
The LEGO Brick.

With products such as the line of souvenir sets and educational events we wish to promote
an awareness of the fascinating worlds of Architecture, Engineering and Construction. Initially, in 2008 LEGO
Architecture featured a pair of Chicago’s most famous landmarks: the Sears Tower and the John Hancock
Center. Showcasing America’s West and East coasts in 2009 will be Seattle’s Space Needle & New York’s Empire State Building. In the future, the line will offer other famous landmarks throughout the world celebrating influential landmarks, architects and movements that have shaped our world’s cities and cultures. LEGO Architecture will work to inspire future architects, engineers and designers from around the world.

Falling Water won’t be available until July, but in the meantime you can order a construction set of the Guggenheim Museum for $US45.00 plus shipping at BrickStructures.com (International shipping available.)

[Via Boing Boing]

If you want to keep a kid busy for hours, you can hardly do better then a LEGO set. Two new lines out from our favorite bricklayers take the building occupation on the road.


The LEGO Racers’ Tiny Turbo Fold-Out Race Tracks give a whole new meaning to backseat driver. The plastic case that carries their bricks on the road doubles as a race track when opened up. Each set lets them build two different cars while they’re riding along in the back of the car, and than it’s all about the racing action. So keep your hands on the wheel while they do the steering. Get the Ice Rally (for kids who drive to extremes), Thunder Raceway (above), or take on a Desert Challenge, all straight from LEGO for $US14.99.

LEGO Creator Minis pack three times the fun in a plastic container that’s three times smaller than your average LEGO product box – leaving more room in the suitcase for extra swimsuits. There’s more room in your wallet too; the new toys are a steal at $US4.99. Get the Mini Jet or the Mini Off-Roader from LEGO.