Things About The LEGO Movie You Only Notice As An Adult

A big part of what makes The LEGO Movie so fun is its authentic eye toward how real kids play with LEGO. Most kids probably don't keep all their different types of LEGO separate, and The LEGO Movie brings together lots of disparate different characters, many of them licensed. Just to name a few, it's got DC Comics characters, Star Wars characters, Harry Potter characters, Simpsons characters, and real people both living (Shaquille O'Neal) and dead (William Shakespeare). 

Kids don't know much about intellectual rights and copyright law, but adults do, and any adult watching The LEGO Movie with a critical eye had to have the thought about what a legal nightmare it must have been to get the rights to use so many different pop cultural entities. Co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have confirmed that it was a logistical nightmare to secure all the necessary permissions, with Star Wars and Harry Potter characters being the trickiest to lock down. Also, with every major script revision, rights-holders had to be approached anew.