Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 LEGO STUDIES

Home , Lego Atlantis, Lego Club Magazine, Lego Prince of Persia, Lego Studios, Lego Wild West, Mego Corporation

Since the “Automatic Binding Bricks” that LEGO produced in 1949, and the LEGO “System of Play” that began with the release of Town Plan No. 1 (1955), LEGO bricks have gone on to become a global phenomenon, and the favorite building toy of children, as well as many an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO). LEGO has also become a medium into which a wide number of media franchises, including Star Wars, Harry Potter , Pirates of the Caribbean , Batman , Superman , Lord of the Rings , and others, have adapted their characters, vehicles, props, and settings. The LEGO Group itself has become a multimedia empire, including LEGO books, movies, television shows, video games, board games, comic books, theme parks, magazines, and even MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games). LEGO Studies: Examining the Building Blocks of a Transmedial Phenomenon is the ﬁ rst collection to examine LEGO as both a medium into which other franchises can be adapted and a transmedial franchise of its own. Although each essay looks at a particular aspect of the LEGO phenomenon, topics such as adaptation, representation, paratexts, franchises, and interactivity intersect through-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 out these essays, proposing that the study of LEGO as a medium and a media empire is a rich vein barely touched upon in Media Studies.

Mark J. P. Wolf is Chair of the Communication Department at Concordia University Wisconsin. He is the author of Building Imaginary Worlds and co-editor with Bernard Perron of The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies and The Video Game Theory Reader 1 and 2 . This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 LEGO STUDIES

Examining the Building Blocks of a Transmedial Phenomenon

Edited by Mark J. P. Wolf Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 First published 2014 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Taylor & Francis The right of the editor to be identiﬁ ed as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identiﬁ cation and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data LEGO studies : examining the building blocks of a transmedial phenomenon / edited by Mark J.P. Wolf. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. LEGO toys. 2. Educational toys. 3. Popular culture. I. Wolf, Mark J. P. TS2301.T7L384 2015 688.7′25—dc23 2014019502 ISBN: 978-0-415-72287-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-72291-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-85801-2 (ebk)

Typeset in ApexBembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 CONTENTS

List of Figures vii Acknowledgments xi About the Contributors xiii Institutions xix Prolegomena xxi Mark J. P. Wolf

1 The Cultural History of LEGO 1 Lars Konzack

2 Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: The Case of LEGO Set #10188 15 Mark J. P. Wolf

3 Middle-earth and LEGO (Re)creation 40

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Neal Baker

4 Myth Blocks: How LEGO Transmedia Conﬁ gures and Remixes Mythic Structures in the Ninjago and Chima Themes 55 Lori Landay

5 Chicks with Bricks: Building Creativity Across Industrial Design Cultures and Gendered Construction Play 81 Derek Johnson vi Contents

6 (Un)blocking the Transmedial Character: Digital Abstraction as Franchise Strategy in Traveller’s Tales’ LEGO Games 105 Jessica Aldred

7 Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game and the Transgenerational Appeal of the LEGO Video Game Franchise 118 Robert Buerkle

8 Brick by Brick: Modularity and Programmability in MINDSTORMS and Gaming 153 Christopher Hanson

9 Building the LEGO Classroom 166 Michael Lachney

10 The LEGO System as a Tool for Thinking, Creativity, and Changing the World 189 David Gauntlett

11 LEGO: The Imperfect Art Tool 206 Nathan Sawaya

12 LEGO Art Engages People 216 Ed Diment and Duncan Titmarsh

13 The Virtualization of LEGO 227 Kevin Schut

14 Bright Bricks, Dark Play: On the Impossibility of Studying LEGO 241

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Seth Giddings

15 Afterword: D.I.Y. Disciplinarity—(Dis)Assembling LEGO Studies for the Academy 268 Jason Mittell

Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship 275 Index 289

FIGURES

1.1 Patent #3,005,282, for the stud-and-tube design of the LEGO brick. 3 2.1 Four different LEGO incarnations of the Millenium Falcon, ranging in resolution from 663 pieces to 5,195 pieces. 21 2.2 The Kenner Death Star set from 1979, designed for use with the Kenner action fi gures. 22 2.3 The LEGO Death Star set #10188 (2008), as seen from the front and back. 24 2.4 Comparisons of the gun towers on the Death Star’s exterior; in the fi lm (top) and in set #10188 (bottom). 25 2.5 Comparisons of the garbage compactor interior; in the fi lm (top) and in set #10188 (bottom). 26 2.6 Comparisons of the Detention Block area, in the fi lm (left, top, and bottom) and set #10188 (right). 28 4.1 Lions in Chima. Left column, from top down: Legends of Chima animated series, 2013; the story of the Legend Beast, Laval riding

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 the Legend Beast, the Legend Beast easily thwarts a Chi-ed up Croc, and the temporary Chi-up state. Middle column, top: Lion Legend Beast playset #70123, Lagravis speedor from Royal Roost #70108; middle: Laval in iPad game LEGO® Legends of CHIMA: Speedorz™ (2014); bottom: Chi-up in Chima Online; right column: choosing avatar in Chima Online, multiplayer play in Chima Online, bottom: CHI Laval (set #70200). 61 4.2 Transmedial Imaginary Worlds Experience (model and photographs by Lori Landay). Ninjago images in the model (from top): Ninjago viii Figures

book; tornado in animated series; iPad game; cards, minifi gures, and spinner. For these and other images, see http://lorilanday.com/lego. 63 4.3 Castle sets from 1986 and 2013. 73 5.1 Gender-normative Friends product (Butterfl y Beauty Shop #3187) as marketed on the online LEGO storefront. 87 5.2 Screenshot from Feminist Frequency’s “LEGO and Gender Part 1” video, through which Anita Sarkeesian argues that the minidoll is an “entirely separate species” from the minifi gure. 90 5.3 Feminist attempts to mobilize the 1981 “What it is . . .” ad, as seen on the Women You Need to Know blog. 93 5.4 Screenshot from Gizmodo.com in which the potential for supposed gender-neutral, free play with Friends is asserted. 96 5.5 Fenella plays with the Dolphin Cruiser and the mini-doll while exclaiming “Whee!” and “Splash!”. 97 5.6 Screenshot from a “behind the scenes” Chima designer video in which Adrian Florea is identifi ed as a designer and surrounded by lights and other self-refl exive production iconography. 98 6.1 The expanded cast of playable characters in LEGO The Lord of the Rings (2012) (top); Aragorn prepares Gimli for launch (center); and the master inventory of playable characters during the “Pass of Caradhras” chapter of LEGO The Lord of the Rings (bottom). 112 6.2 The Riders of Rohan strut their stuff during a typically fi gurative cut-scene performance. 115 8.1 Hans Andersson’s Tilted Twister robot, built from LEGO MINDSTORMS, is capable of autonomously solving a Rubik’s Cube. (Image provided by Hans Andersson, used with his permission) . 154 10.1 Participants in a LEGO Serious Play workshop. (Photo by David Gauntlett) . 193 10.2 A model of culture. 196 11.1 Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton made of LEGO. (Image courtesy of Nathan Sawaya). 209 11.2 Red (2006). (Image courtesy of Nathan Sawaya). 210

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 11.3 Yellow (2006). (Image courtesy of Nathan Sawaya). 211 11.4 My Boy (2009). (Image courtesy of Nathan Sawaya). 214 12.1 Bright Bricks’ LEGO Christmas tree, St Pancras Station, London, November 2012 to January 2013. 219 12.2 Sabre-toothed cat, “LEGO Lost World Zoo” exhibition, Milestones Museum, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK, February 26, 2014 to April 27, 2014. 220 12.3 Milestones Museum visitor numbers and percentage change in visitor numbers. 221 Figures ix

12.4 Bright Bricks’ LEGO Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 jet engine, Rolls-Royce Plc, Derby, UK, 2012. 223 12.5 Bright Bricks’ LEGO tunnel boring machine for Bechtel Corporation, London, UK, 2013. 225 13.1 LEGO Digital Designer is a completely open-ended virtual LEGO-building tool. LEGO creators can make anything they can imagine—such as a pair of telegraph poles. 228 13.2 LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (2012) is one of the popular LEGO action games. It has a relatively elaborate narrative, and many rules that restrict free play. 234 14.1 “Crazy Bamboo Town”. 263 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Several of the essays in this collection came out of “The LEGO Studies Panel” which I put together and chaired at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Conference in 2013, so I would like to thank everyone involved with it for trying something new. And thanks go to all the book’s contributors: Jessica Aldred, Neal Baker, Robert Buerkle, Ed Diment, David Gauntlett, Seth Giddings, Christopher Hanson, Derek Johnson, Lars Konzack, Michael Lachney, Lori Landay, Jason Mittell, Nathan Sawaya, Kevin Schut, and Duncan Titmarsh. Thanks to Erica Wetter at Routledge for her enthusiasm for this project, to production editor Reanna Young, and to the anonymous reviewers who were likewise encouraging. Thanks go to my parents, Joseph and Dorothy, for buying me LEGO during my childhood and encouraging LEGO as a hobby. Also, thanks to my wife Diane, and my three sons, Michael, Christian, and Francis, who in recent years have inherited my old LEGO and have invited me to build with them. And, as always, thanks be to God. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Jessica Aldred is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Université de Montréal, where she holds a grant from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Jessica’s research focuses upon digital character animation, the growing intersections between cinema and video games in the age of media convergence, and what is at stake when characters are translated from cinema into digital games. Her work has been published in Animation , An Interdisciplinary Journal, Games and Culture, and The Oxford Handbook for Sound and Image in Digital Media. [jessica. [email protected]]

Neal Baker is Library Director at Earlham College. A Senior Bibliographer for the MLA International Bibliography , his scholarship includes published essays on Star Trek , animé vampires, Marvel Comics, Québécois science ﬁ ction, disaster novels, and various aspects of librarianship. [[email protected]]

Robert Buerkle received his Ph.D. from the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He currently teaches ﬁ lm and digital media

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 courses at USC and at Chapman University, and has previously taught at the Uni- versity of Pittsburgh. [[email protected]]

Ed Diment has been an avid fan of LEGO for nearly 40 years. Prior to joining Bright Bricks as co-owner and Director, he had pursued a career as an analytical consultant for ﬁ fteen years. During this time, Ed was also renowned as a LEGO artist, builder, and fan, both in the UK and internationally. Even before joining the company, Ed’s LEGO creations had been to dozens of shows and were displayed around the World, with breath-taking models often of epic proportions. Ed has a reputation for building big, but at the same time paying attention to detail. Ed joined Bright Bricks in August 2011 and moved to being full-time with the xiv About the Contributors

company from April 2012. Since then, Ed has taken the lead on such projects as the giant three meter Osprey handbag, the miniﬁ g scale model of the Polarcus Alima oceanographic research ship, and the working Rolls Royce Trent 1,000 jet engine using over 150,000 LEGO bricks and with a 1.5 meter diameter fan disk. Ed’s motto is: “If you can think of it, we can build it!” Ed’s educational background is in business, IT, and ﬁ nally, statistics. Ed lives in Hampshire with his wife and fellow LEGO enthusiast, Annie, and their two cats. [[email protected]]

David Gauntlett is a Professor in the Faculty of Media, Arts, and Design, and Co-Director of the Communications and Media Research Institute at the University of Westminster, UK. His teaching and research is about self-initiated everyday creativity, and cultures of making and sharing, with some emphasis on digital media. He is the author of several books, including Creative Explorations (2007) and Making is Connecting: The Social Meaning of Creativity, from DIY and Knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0 (2011). He has made several popular websites and YouTube videos, and has worked with a number of the world’s leading creative organizations, including the BBC, the British Library, and Tate. For almost a decade he has worked with LEGO on innovation in creativity, play, and learning. [www.davidgauntlett.com]

Seth Giddings is an Associate Professor of Digital Culture & Design, Win- chester School of Art, University of Southampton, UK. He is the author of Gameworlds: Virtual Media & Children’s Everyday Play (Bloomsbury, 2014), a co-author of New Media: A Critical Introduction (Routledge, 2009), and the editor of its companion volume The New Media & Technoculture Reader (Routledge, 2011). He has published extensively on game cultures, technoculture, and play. His research and teaching covers the theory and practice of everyday and experimental media technoculture, particularly games, social media, and the moving image. [[email protected]]

Christopher Hanson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Syracuse University. He teaches courses in new media, television, digital games, genre, and media theory. Prior to joining the faculty at Syracuse, Chris worked as a Visiting Lecturer in the Screen Arts and Cultures department at the University

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 of Michigan in Ann Arbor and taught courses at Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television in Los Angeles. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Critical Studies at the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts. He is currently writing a book on the function of temporality in software, video games, television, and avant-garde ﬁ lm, and his work has appeared in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Film Quarterly, and Spectator . [[email protected]]

Derek Johnson is Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies in the Depart- ment of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the About the Contributors xv

author of Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries (NYU Press, 2013) as well as the co-editor of A Companion to Media Authorship (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) and Making Media Work: Cultures of Management in the Entertainment Industries (NYU Press, 2014). Among his many other essays on media industries and production cultures, he has published work on the post-racial politics of LEGO miniﬁ gures and media licensing in the International Journal of Cultural Studies . [[email protected]]

Lars Konzack is an Associate Professor in Information Science and Cultural Communication at the Royal School of Library and Information Science (RSLIS), University of Copenhagen in Denmark. He has an M.A. in Information Science and a Ph.D. in Multimedia. He is working with subjects such as ludology, game analysis and design, geek culture, and sub-creation. Currently, he is teaching subjects such as video game analysis, Internet culture, media culture, knowledge media, culture analysis, and the fantastic genres. He has, among other works, published “Computer Game Criticism: A Method for Computer Game Analysis” (2002), “Rhetorics of Computer and Video Game Research” (2007), “Video Games in Europe” (2007), and “Philosophical Game Design” (2008). [konzack. blogspot.com] [[email protected]]

Michael Lachney is a doctoral student in the Science and Technology Studies department at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His current ﬁ eldwork explores how educational technologies inﬂ uence teachers’ labor in both Ghana and the United States. Michael is a member of the Culturally Situated Design Tools (http:// csdt.rpi.edu/) research team, which works with underserved communities across the globe to develop educational software that connects cultural heritage and indig- enous knowledge systems to math and computing curricula. His other work has been featured on the DMLcentral blog and in the 2012 edited collection, Fan Culture: Theory/Practice. [[email protected]]

Lori Landay , Professor of Cultural Studies at Berklee College of Music, is an interdisciplinary scholar and new media artist exploring the making of visual meaning in 20th- and 21st-century culture. She is the author of two books, I

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Love Lucy (2010) and Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture (1998), and articles on virtual worlds, digital narrative, silent ﬁ lm, television culture, and other topics. Her creative work includes animation, graphic design, creative documentary, machinima, interactive virtual art installa- tions, and music video. Her current project combines critical and creative work to explore subjectivity, presence, and the “virtual kino-eye” in interactive media, continuing the inquiry begun during her NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Enduring Questions Grant for “What is Being?” in 2010–12. [[email protected]] xvi About the Contributors

Jason Mittell is Professor of Film and Media Culture and American Studies at Middlebury College. He is the author of Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture (Routledge, 2004), Television and American Culture (2009), Complex Television: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling (NYU Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of How to Watch Television (NYU Press, 2013), as well as numerous essays about media studies. He runs the blog Just TV [http://justtv. wordpress.com]. [[email protected]]

Nathan Sawaya is a renowned artist who creates awe-inspiring large-scale sculptures using only LEGO bricks. Sawaya was the fi rst artist to ever take LEGO into the art world. For years, Sawaya’s critically-acclaimed exhibition— The Art of the Brick® —has entertained and inspired art lovers and enthusiasts around the globe. CNN has named The Art of the Brick® as one of the top must-see exhibitions in the world. Born in Colville, Washington, and raised in Veneta, Oregon, Sawaya’s childhood dreams were always fun and creative. He drew cartoons, wrote stories, perfected magic tricks, and, of course, also played with LEGO. When it came time for college, Sawaya moved to New York City, attended the NYU School of Law and became an attorney. But soon he realized he would rather be sitting on the fl oor expressing himself with LEGO bricks, than sitting in a boardroom negotiating contracts. It was then that Sawaya rediscovered LEGO bricks and indulged in his inner child to create what many believe is a new art revolution using LEGO as an art medium. Today, Sawaya has more than four million colored bricks in his New York and Los Angeles art studios. His work is obsessively and painstakingly crafted and is both beautiful and playful. Sawaya’s ability to transform LEGO bricks into something new, his devotion to scale and color perfection, the way he conceptualizes the action of the subject matter, enables him to elevate an ordinary toy to the status of fi ne art. Sawaya’s art form takes shape primarily in three-dimensional sculptures and oversized portraits. He continues to create daily with the brick medium while accepting commission work from around the world. For more information about Nathan Sawaya and his artwork, visit brickartist.com.

Kevin Schut is a Full Professor in the Department of Media and Communica-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 tion at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. He received his Ph.D. in Communication Studies at the University of Iowa in 2004, with a focus on media ecology theory, social construction of technology theory, and critical cultural studies. His research interests are the intersection of culture, technology, faith, and history, and he ﬁ nds that computer and video games are a perfect place to investigate this. He has published Of Games and God: A Christian Exploration of Video Games (2012), as well as articles and chapters on fantasy role- playing games and masculinity, mythology in computer games, Evangelicals and games, and the presentation of history in strategy games. He is fatally vulnerable to turn-based games of any sort. [[email protected]] About the Contributors xvii

Duncan Titmarsh has been a fan of LEGO all his life. He became the UK’s only LEGO Certiﬁ ed Professional in 2008 and formed Bright Bricks to pursue his goal as a LEGO artist. Prior to 2003, Duncan had served in the Royal Air Force as well as working for Honda and in the construction industry. As his professional LEGO business grew, Duncan approached Ed Diment to join the company and make the most of the opportunities for a LEGO business. Duncan is now the Managing Director of a company with a growing client list and strong reputation for LEGO art, LEGO events, and all things LEGO related. Duncan has overseen the creation of some of the most iconic LEGO models of the past few years. For Christmas 2011, Duncan led the Bright Bricks team that produced the world’s largest LEGO Christmas tree out of 600,000 bricks and measuring 12 meters in height! Positioned in St. Pancras Station, it captured the public’s imagination as well as sparking a media frenzy. This only spurred Duncan on to greater things, following up in 2012 with the monumental LEGO Advent calendar in Covent Garden. This epic LEGO work of art measured three meters tall and ﬁ ve meters wide, and weighed in at nearly 2 tons. The model included a full set of 24 openable windows, each with a beautiful and detailed Christmas- themed model inside. The reputation of Duncan’s business is such that he has now won work that has seen him travel to Dubai, the US, and Denmark, as well as producing LEGO works of art for clients in Brazil, Finland, and France. Duncan lives in Surrey with his wife Sharon and two daughters Emily and Betsie. [[email protected]]

Mark J. P. Wolf is Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at Concordia University Wisconsin. He has a B.A. (1990) in Film Production and an M.A. (1992) and Ph.D. (1995) in Critical Studies from the School of Cinema/Television (now renamed the School of Cinematic Arts) at the University of Southern California. His books include Abstracting Reality: Art, Communication, and Cognition in the Digital Age (2000), The Medium of the Video Game (2001), Virtual Morality: Morals, Ethics, and New Media (2003), The Video Game Theory Reader (2003), The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to PlayStation and Beyond (2007), The Video Game Theory Reader 2 (2008), Myst and Riven: The World of the D’ni (2011), Before the Crash: Early Video Game History (2012), the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 two-volume Encyclopedia of Video Games: The Culture, Technology, and Art of Gaming (2012), Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation (2012), The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies (2014), Video Games Around the World (2015), the four-volume Video Games and Gaming Culture (Routledge Major Works series, 2016), and two novels for which he has begun looking for an agent and publisher. He is also founder and co-editor of the Landmark Video Games book series from University of Michigan Press and founder of the Video Game Studies Scholarly Interest Group within the Society of Cinema and Media Studies. He has been invited to speak in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Second Life; has had work published in journals including Compar(a)ison , xviii About the Contributors

Convergence , Film Quarterly , Games and Culture, New Review of Film and Television Studies , Projections, The Spectator, and The Velvet Light Trap; is on the advisory boards of Videotopia, the International Arcade Museum Library, and the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, and is on several editorial boards including those of Games and Culture and The Journal of E-media Studies . He lives in Wisconsin with his wife Diane and his sons Michael, Christian, and Francis. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 INSTITUTIONS

Bright Bricks is a professional LEGO building company using professional LEGO artists to realize amazing LEGO creations, run LEGO events, and provide artwork rendered in everyone’s favorite building material! The company has used its in-house LEGO artists to create brand awareness for some of the world’s biggest fi rms. For example, building a half-sized working LEGO jet engine for Rolls Royce; creating a 12-meter tall LEGO Christmas tree at St. Pancras Station in London out of 600,000 LEGO bricks, and creating a replica of the London Olympic stadium. In addition to these astounding models, the company also runs events from children’s parties all the way up to massive public engagement events, such as building a mosaic with one million LEGO bricks on London’s South Bank or the amazing annual LEGO Mania event at Milestone’s museum in Basingstoke, a must for all true fans of the brick. Founder Duncan Titmarsh, the UK’s only LEGO Certifi ed Professional, along with his business partner, professional LEGO artist and Master Builder Ed Diment, has created the UK’s leading fi rm for promotion with and of the iconic children’s toy, LEGO. The company’s workshop in Hampshire is a constant hive of activity with massive

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 LEGO sculptures taking shape, most of which are captured in fascinating time- lapse ﬁ lm footage. The company aims to put a smile on everyone’s face, at least after they’ve recovered their dropped jaws! So if you want to see just what can be done with LEGO bricks, check them out. [http://bright-bricks.com]

The LEGO Certifi ed Professional Program was created in order to appoint individuals as LEGO Certifi ed Professionals (LCPs). The program accepts very few candidates and appoints even fewer people as LCPs. In order to become an LCP, there fi rst has to be an opening in a specifi c market, as LCPs are only ever appointed if a LEGO local business market deems that they have need of one. Once such a xx Institutions

need is established, the candidate must pass a rigorous interview process; demonstrate proven building skill and artistic talent, as well as having a track record in building projects for commercial clients. In addition, the person must have a limited company, a website, and a presence in the ﬁ eld. Finally, if accepted, the LCP must pay an annual license fee and adhere to strict conditions as to what they are able to do commercially. The best opportunity for entering the LCP program is to be available in emerging markets, that is, countries that have a LEGO ofﬁ ce but no current LCP provision (this actually includes most countries in the world), however, there are never any guarantees. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 PROLEGOMENA

Mark J. P. Wolf

In 1998, LEGO was among the ﬁ rst toys inducted into the Strong Museum’s National Toy Hall of Fame, and in 2000, it was chosen as the “Toy of the Century” by both Fortune magazine and the British Association of Toy Retailers. In September 2013, the LEGO Group overtook Hasbro to become the second- largest toymaker in the world, and a few months later, in February of 2014, they overtook Mattel to become the world’s top toy producer. 1 And with plans to open a new USD $300 million facility in 2016 in Jiaxing, near Shanghai, which will produce 80 percent of the LEGO products sold in China, the gap between the LEGO Group and its competitors is likely to widen even further, allowing them to remain at the top for many years to come.2 The LEGO phenomenon is a global one, unprecedented in its scope, and the company’s record revenues come at a time when LEGO is expanding into a range of difference media, and is gaining recognition as a medium in and of itself. The name “LEGO” is a combination of the two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”, and is incidentally also a Latin word which can mean “I put together”. The company was founded in 1932 in Denmark, and in 1949 it

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 produced “Automatic Binding Bricks”, a forerunner of modern LEGO bricks, which were based on the “Self-locking Bricks” produced by the British company Kiddicraft (LEGO eventually acquired the legal rights to Kiddicraft in 1981).3 In 1955, LEGO introduced its “System of Play” and the fi rst LEGO sets which were designed so that all their pieces could be combined and used to build together. Lars Konzack’s essay, “The Cultural History of LEGO”, describes some of the cultural contexts and infl uences that shaped LEGO and its System of Play. As I argue in my own essay, part of the genius of LEGO is that it combined the fl exibility and modularity of building sets with the detail and avatars of xxii Prolegomena

playsets, creating something that was both building set and playset, and soon came to be more popular than sets that were only either one or the other. But LEGO is more than just a popular line of toys, it is a medium , a mediat- ing substance through which ideas can be expressed, and with which art can be created. The idea of LEGO bricks as a medium is discussed in two essays of this book written by LEGO artists, “LEGO: The Imperfect Art Tool” by Nathan Sawaya, and “LEGO Art Engages People” by Ed Diment and Duncan Titmarsh. Sawaya and Titmarsh are among a small group of people offi cially recognized by the LEGO Group with the title of LEGO Certifi ed Professional, and their creations have appeared in exhibitions and museums around the world. These essays suggest ways in which LEGO art functions and engages viewers, and why it is arguably as much a sculptural medium as clay or marble. As a medium, LEGO bricks are also a venue for adaptations from other media, and one into which an increasing number of franchises have been adapted, including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Marvel superheroes, Disney characters (including Mickey Mouse, Ariel, and Merida), Pirates of the Caribbean , The Lone Ranger, Harry Potter, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Batman , Bob the Builder, Speed Racer , Toy Story , Cars , Galidor , Prince of Persia, SpongeBob SquarePants, Thomas the Tank Engine, Ben 10 , The Simpsons, and more. The adaptation of licensed franchises into LEGO sets is the topic of my own essay, “Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: The Case of LEGO Set #10188”, and Neal Baker’s essay, “Middle-earth and LEGO (Re)creation”. Both essays look at the strategies and various forces at work in the process of adaptation into LEGO, comparing the outcome to the source material, and examining the differences between the two and what they mean. And, of course, LEGO has its own franchises and sub-brand series of building sets, such as the space-themed Blacktron, Futuron, Space Police, M:Tron, Unitron, and U.F.O. series from the 1980s and 1990s, and more recently, the City series, Friends, Ninjago, and Chima. Lori Landay examines the latter two series in her essay, “Myth Blocks: How LEGO Transmedia Confi gures and Remixes Mythic Structures in the Ninjago and Chima Themes”. In addition to being a medium, LEGO is also at the heart of a transmedial empire, with dozens of books on LEGO published by the LEGO Group (and

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 there are even more unofﬁ cial books on the subject; see the Appendix at the end of this book), comics books and chapter books (like those for the Bionicle series), television series and specials (based on Ninjago, Chima, and Mixels toy lines, and there’s even an episode of The Simpsons (#550) with a world made of LEGO), board games (over two dozen of them), video games (as of early 2014, over 50 games, including several massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs)), theme parks around the world, short ﬁ lms, and even major motion pictures, the LEGO Movie (2014) and the LEGO Movie 2 (scheduled for release in 2017), not to mention thousands of different brick sets and an array of other merchandise, including backpacks, notebooks, pajamas, key chains, refrigerator Prolegomena xxiii

magnets, wristwatches, storage bins, alarm clocks, pillowcases, tote bags, Christmas tree ornaments, Advent calendars, bottles, bracelets, lunch bags, crayons, cake decorations, and more. And these interconnected industrial productions can produce meanings and structure play, creativity, and even identity; Derek Johnson’s essay, “Chicks with Bricks: Building Creativity Across Industrial Design Cultures and Gendered Construction Play”, examines these issues in regard to the gendered Friends sub-brand of LEGO products. And LEGO isn’t just transmedial, it is also transfranchisal . For example, the LEGO Super Heroes series of sets feature characters from the DC Comics Uni- verse as well as the Marvel Comics universe, and the LEGO Movie is even more transfranchisal, as it features the LEGO adaptations of characters including Bat- man, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Milhaus (from The Simpsons ), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, C3PO, Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, Dumb- ledore, and Gandalf, all appearing and interacting together in the fi lm, making it something which bridges across multiple franchises (along with dozens of other references, extending all the way back to the theater of ancient Greece; namely, Cloudcuckooland from Aristophanes’s The Birds (414 BC )). Perhaps only Minecraft (2011), which is itself almost like a digital form of LEGO, allowing for the building of three-dimensional virtual structures with its low-resolution voxels, comes close to LEGO’s transfranchisal potential.4 Other transfranchisal projects, like Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), have featured characters from many different franchises, but the LEGO Movie is unique in that while characters within it are characters from other franchises, they are simultaneously also based on the LEGO minifi gures from the franchised sets, making them adaptations distinct and different from their source material, which all fi nd common ground in the minifi gure format. While sidestepping issues of canonicity (no one will ask whether Batman’s or Gandalf’s appearance in the LEGO Movie affects the canon of either original franchise), the minifi gures nonetheless evoke the characters they are modeled on, and are more than simply minifi gures putting on costumes, since they have no other identity outside of the characters they portray, other than their general status as a minifi gure. Minifi gures and character design are the subjects of Jessica Aldred’s essay, “(Un)blocking the Transmedial Character: Digital Abstraction as Franchise Strategy in Traveller’s Tales’ LEGO Games”,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 which looks at movie game characters and their LEGO incarnations. The LEGO video games, as well as the sets they are based upon, have a broad audience of multiple generations which includes both parents and children who have grown up with LEGO over more than half a century. John Baichtal and Joe Meno’s book, the Cult of LEGO (2011), describes in detail activities of Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs) who collect, build, and exhibit LEGO constructions in clubs and at conventions. Fandom, AFOLs, and LEGO video games are discussed in Robert Buerkle’s essay, “Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars Video Games and the Meta-Experience of Fandom”, which examines playsets as paratexts, and the ways in which fans interact with them. xxiv Prolegomena

Although it is commonly considered as a toy and form of entertainment, LEGO has also been used in education, through such things as LEGO MIND- STORMS, a series of LEGO sets involving robotics, developed jointly by LEGO and the MIT Media Lab, and named after Seymour Papert’s book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980). Christopher Hanson’s essay, “Brick by Brick: Modularity and Programmability in MINDSTORMS and Gaming”, looks at MINDSTORMS, and takes up the topic of modularity, and how building with LEGO can be compared to computer programming. Education is also discussed in Michael Lachney’s essay “Building the LEGO Classroom”, which looks at the politics of LEGO bricks, seeing them as Wittgensteinian “forms of life”, and discusses the LEGO Group’s place in the education-industrial complex, focusing speciﬁ cally on LEGO MINDSTORMS in engineering education. Educational uses of LEGO have also resulted in the LEGO Serious Play program, a consultancy service designed to foster creative thinking, which was developed in the mid-1990s and has evolved from an experiment into a series of standalone products that facilitators could use. David Gauntlett, one of the designers of the LEGO Serious Play initiative, writes about it in his essay, “The LEGO System as a Tool for Thinking, Creativity, and Changing the World”, tying in LEGO play into culture and various forms of creativity. With the extension of imagination aided by computer-generated graphics, the uses of LEGO now reach even beyond what physical bricks can do, and Kevin Schut’s essay, “The Virtualization of LEGO” traces LEGO’s entry into the virtual world, where computer-generated bricks appear onscreen in video games, movies, and software like LEGO Digital Designer, asking what happens when the move from physical to virtual is made. After all these different perspectives, the study of LEGO itself is the topic of Seth Giddings’s essay, “Bright Bricks, Dark Play: On the Impossibility of Studying LEGO”, which discusses the elusive nature of studying LEGO play, how one might go about it, and the implications that this has for the study of LEGO. Concluding the run of essays, Jason Mittell’s Afterword, “D.I.Y. Disciplinarity: (Dis)Assembling LEGO Studies for the Academy”, has a different take on the possible directions for LEGO Studies, and what they might mean. Finally, the Appendix, a Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship, rounds out the volume with a list of sources and entries in different media which are about LEGO or pro-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 duced by the LEGO Group, which may be of interest to scholars studying LEGO. As all these essays demonstrate, there are many different angles and disciplines from which one can study LEGO, and many overlapping and interdisciplinary concerns that one can identify, which are sampled here, but are far from being exhausted. Whether viewed as a toy, collectible, building material, modeling material, artistic medium, educational tool, franchise venue, product, culture, industry, or object of nostalgia, LEGO crosses many boundaries and its audience spans all ages and several generations, making it an ideal subject of study. And one that not only allows some playtime every now and then, but maybe even requires it. Prolegomena xxv

Notes 1. See Rupert Neate, “Lego Builds yet Another Record Profi t to Become World’s Top Toymaker: The Danish Toy Company has Overtaken Rival Mattel after ‘an incredible quadrupling of revenues in less than 10 years’”, The Guardian, February 27, 2014, available at www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/27/lego-builds-record- profi t?CMP=ema_565 (accessed March 3, 2014); and Eveline Danubrata and Laura Philomin, “Asia Is Nuts About LEGO—And Now It’s The Second-Biggest Toy Company In The World”, Reuters, appearing at BusinessInsider.com, October 3, 2013, available at www.businessinsider.com/lego-now-second-biggest-toy-company- 2013-10 (accessed February 3, 2014). 2. Ibid. The $300 million fi gure comes from Neate (2014), while the 80 percent fi gure comes from Danubrata and Philomin (2013). 3. See “Kiddicraft”, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiddicraft (accessed February 3, 2014). 4. On YouTube, for example, one can fi nd examples of Minecraft adaptations of Myst (1993) (www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4UMJFBvuJQ), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) (www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd-oHcbc_dc), Star Trek (www.youtube.com/watch?v= uF8JI1OlRcg), Pirates of the Caribbean (www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYheofqFSbA), and The Lord of the Rings (www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHRC8x4kXcI), among other things. And, of course, there are already several Minecraft LEGO sets. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 1 THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF LEGO

Lars Konzack

The LEGO Brick is a cultural object with its own history. It was designed in Denmark during the Cold War that followed WWII and has since swept the world off its feet. The history of LEGO has already been told; Jan Cortzen’s LEGO Manden: Historien om Godtfred Kirk Christiansen (1996) is an excellent biography of Godtfred Kirk Christiansen (1920–95), son of Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891–1958), which tells how Godtfred created the LEGO brick and became one of Denmark’s most successful businessmen; and more recently, Niels Lunde’s Miraklet i LEGO (2012) tells how Godtfred’s son Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen (his family name was spelled with a K due to a clerical mistake) continued to develop the LEGO Group, and how they changed to professional leadership in order to handle the company crisis. 1 David C. Robertson’s Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry (2013) is about the toy company as well, focusing on innovations; John Baichtal and Joe Meno’s The Cult of LEGO (2011) describes the consumer and LEGO-fan perspective with a little introduction to the company; and Sarah Herman’s A Million Little Bricks: the Unofﬁ cial Illustrated History of the LEGO Phenomenon (2012) focuses on how 2 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 the LEGO Group and its products developed over time. What remains to be done, then, is not the writing of the history of LEGO, but to put the history of LEGO into a general overview. Consequently, the aim of this essay is to com- prehend the cultural history of LEGO from a broader cultural perspective.

An Overview of LEGO’s History Understanding the history of the LEGO Group can be done in at least two ways: 1) according to leadership, and 2) according to the products. The Pre-LEGO Era is from 1895 to 1933, leading to 1934, when the company coined the name 2 Lars Konzack

LEGO, a contraction of “leg godt”, which means “play well”. Before 1934, it was called “Billund Maskinsnedkeri og Tømreforretning” (Billund Machine Joinery and Carpentry Business). It was established by master carpenter Steffen Pedersen in 1895 and bought by Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1916. In the early years, it was a business that built houses in the summertime and furniture during the cold Danish winters. In 1932, as a consequence of the Great Depression, nobody could afford building or renovating their houses and the family was about to go broke when Ole Kirk Christiansen began the production of wooden toys, and bartered in kind, since most people at the time didn’t have any money. In 1936, the motto of LEGO was carved in wood stating “Det bedste er ikke for godt ” which is often translated as “The best is not good enough” while in fact an accurate translation would be “The best is not too good”. If this sounds a bit odd in English, I can assure you that the motto sounds just as odd in Danish. The following year, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen began designing wooden toys. The Kirk Christiansen family had a lot of trouble with fi res. In 1924 the house and workshop burned down. His carpentry shop was struck by lightning in 1932. During World War II, in 1942, the factory burned down due to a short circuit. And in 1960, the wooden toy factory burned down again. Every time, the workplace was rebuilt, but not this last time. From 1960 onwards, the LEGO Group stopped manufacturing wooden toys. After the war, in 1947, Ole Kirk Christiansen acquired the fi rst plastic molding machine in Denmark, and the company started producing and selling plastic toys. In 1949, the fi rst plastic bricks with four and eight studs were manufactured, and the following year Godtfred Kirk Christiansen was appointed Junior Vice President of the company. A few years later, in 1954, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, inspired by a conversation with a toy buyer from a department store, set out to design a general toy system, and one year later the LEGO System of Play was invented. The LEGO brick was about to change the company. The fi rst bricks had the problem that they did not work well, because they easily came apart. The LEGO brick, with the stud-and-tube coupling system it has today, was patented in 1958. That same year, in which Ole Kirk Christiansen passed away, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen became head of the company. In 1956, the fi rst foreign sales branch was established in Germany; three years

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 later, LEGO France, British LEGO Ltd., LEGO Belgium, and LEGO Sweden were established. The extremely fast expansion continued, and, amazingly, the small town of Billund got its own airport in 1963. By 1966 LEGO was sold in 42 countries worldwide. The new developments of the 1960s were the LEGO wheel (1962), light-brick (1966), battery-driven LEGO train (1966), motorized truck set (1967), automatic direction changer (1968), 12-volt motor in the Train series (1989), and LEGO DUPLO (1969). Furthermore, in 1968, the ﬁ rst LEGO- LAND opened in Billund. Initially, the US market for LEGO was licensed to Samsonite for a nine-year contract in 1961 and included the Canadan market one year later. But the contract Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 1.1 Patent #3,005,282, for the stud-and-tube design of the LEGO brick. 4 Lars Konzack

ended in 1972, even though the Canadian contract was to end in 1986, because the LEGO Group wasn’t satisfi ed with the marketing and quality of the products being sold. LEGO had success around the world, but the American market turned out to be diffi cult. It wasn’t until 1978, when the LEGO Town, LEGO Castle, and LEGO Space themes were introduced, that the American frontier was won. During the 1970s, many innovations were focused on play content. Some of the most important developments were dollhouse and furniture pieces for girls (1971), LEGO people with faces and jointed arms (1974), the expert series (1975), the town, castle, and space themes (1978), and the LEGO minifi gure (1978). In 1977, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen offi cially joined the LEGO Group management team, introducing the future direction of LEGO themes, and two years later his father Godtfred Kirk Christiansen was appointed Knight of the Order of Dan- nebrog (Dannebrog is the name of the Danish fl ag, which is red with a white cross). That same year Kjeld Kirk Christiansen was appointed president and CEO of the LEGO Group. In the 1980s, the themes continued, with many new LEGO sets, a clothing line in 1988, and a pirate theme in 1989. In 1986, Godfred Kirk Christiansen resigned as chairman of the board of the LEGO Group. Also that year, the LEGO Group was granted the title “Purveyor to Her Majesty the Queen” on April 16, the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. At the end of the decade, Dr. Seymour Papert became LEGO Professor of Learning Research, and the fi rst programmable product was introduced: LEGO MIND- STORMS (1989). The 1990s continued many of the trends of the 1980s. What made this decade interesting was that the LEGO brand expanded into such a wide variety of products that the company was at the brink of collapsing in the early 21st century. By 1990, LEGO was one of the world’s ten largest toy manufacturers—and the only one in Europe; the others were located in the United States and Japan. LEGOLAND had, for the fi rst time, one million visitors that year. And the following year, the company installed its 1,000th plastic molding machine among its fi ve LEGO factories. In 1992, two Guinness World Records, one in LEGO railway construction and one in LEGO castle building, were accomplished. New themes such as DUPLO Zoo (1990), LEGO Belville (1994), LEGO Wild West

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 (1996), DUPLO Winnie the Pooh (1999), and LEGO Star Wars (1999) were instigated. In 1996, www.lego.com was launched, and in the same year LEGO- LAND Windsor opened, followed up by LEGOLAND California three years later. In 1993, LEGO Kids Wear was introduced, and the ﬁ rst LEGO Kids Wear shop opened in Oxford Street, London, in 1997, the same year as the ﬁ rst LEGO video game, LEGO Island, which launched a new product line of LEGO video games. In 1999, Fortune Magazine named LEGO as one of the “Products of the Century”. At a glance, the future was looking bright for the Danish company. However, in 1998, the very same year that LEGO Media Group, in collaboration with Egmont Group, began publishing children’s books, and the Japanese Emperor The Cultural History of LEGO 5

Akihito together with the Empress Michiko visited LEGOLAND Billund, LEGO faced a defi cit for the fi rst time ever. The growing fear in the company was that future children wouldn’t play with LEGO bricks but only with video games, and that playing with plastic toys would become a thing of the past. 3 By the early 2000s, the LEGO Group was continuing the expansion of new products as well as staggering defi cits. Nonetheless, by the end of the decade the company had been turned around, into a grandiose success, and became one of the top fi ve toy companies in the world. Creativity was unbounded at the beginning of this decade; the company debuted an apple that could make music for babies (2000), Robot MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System 2.0 (2000), LEGO Studios Steven Spielberg MovieMaker set (2000), Jack Stone (2001), Alpha Team (2001), LEGO Explore Music Composer (2002), LEGO Explore Music Roller (2002), Galidor (2002), and Clickits (2003). LEGOLAND Deutschland opened in 2002. By 2004, as a result of a huge defi cit, owner and CEO Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen appointed Jørgen Vig Knudstorp as the new CEO of the company, and in 2006 Jørgen Vig Knudstorp announced the Shared Vision—an action plan to save the company. In 2005, in order to get capital, the LEGO Group divested the LEGOLANDs to the Merlin Entertainment Group; it should be added, however, that the LEGO Group had a 30 percent share in the Merlin Entertainment Group. While LEGO MINDSTORMS was a success and showed how LEGO could have a future in the 21st century, it wasn’t enough. More promising fi nancially were the LEGO Star Wars sets (launched in 1999), as well as other product lines licensed from well-known intellectual properties from movies and television which appeared during this decade: LEGO Harry Potter (2001), LEGO Bob the Builder (2001), LEGO Spider-man (2002), LEGO SpongeBob SquarePants (2006), LEGO Avatar: The Last Airbender (2006), LEGO Batman (2006), LEGO Indiana Jones (2008), and LEGO Toy Story (2009), along with LEGO’s own Bionicle line (2000). While a lot of these licensed lines have been discontinued, they helped the company to solidify and regain market share. In the same period, 17 LEGO video games were produced. LEGO Bionicle was one of the most successful product lines of the decade, because the company owned the intellectual property and consequently could control the product, make their own storylines, and not

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 have to share the proﬁ t. By the end of the decade, LEGO Board Games (2009) and LEGO MINDSTORMS 2.0 (2009) were launched and the LEGO Group announced a multi-year partnership with Disney Consumer Products obtaining exclusive rights to construction toys based on the entire portfolio of Disney and Disney Pixar properties. In the early 2010s, LEGO launched several new video games (LEGO Universe (2010), LEGO Battles: Ninjago (2011), LEGO Creationary (2011), LEGO Friends (2013), LEGO Ninjago: The Final Battle (2013), LEGO City Undercover (2013), LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins (2013), LEGO Legends of Chima: Laval’s Journey (2013), LEGO Legends of Chima Online (2013), LEGO Legends of Chima: 6 Lars Konzack

Speedorz (2013), LEGO Minifi gures Online (2014), and more. In 2010, Hero Fac- tory, a continuation of the discontinued Bionicle theme, was started along with LEGO Minifi gures, LEGO Ben 10, LEGO Atlantis, LEGO Prince of Persia and a re-launch of LEGO Harry Potter—although Atlantis, Ben 10, Prince of Persia, and Harry Potter were all discontinued the following year. In 2011, LEGO Ninjago was initiated as LEGO’s own ninja universe. LEGOLAND Florida opened in 2011, and LEGOLAND Malaysia the following year. LEGO Batman was re- launched in 2012 as a part of LEGO Superheroes from both the Marvel and DC universes. Another well-known fi ctional universe, Tolkien’s Middle-earth, was licensed the very same year, and LEGO launched LEGO Lord of the Rings and LEGO The Hobbit. And LEGO Minecraft appeared that year as well. In 2013, LEGO continued licensing intellectual property (IP), with LEGO The Lone Ranger and LEGO Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and their own IP, LEGO Legends of Chima, and in 2014, their fi rst feature fi lm, the LEGO Movie. And with the new LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 (2013), the future is actually looking bright for LEGO. This overview helps one to get an understanding of how the LEGO Group has changed through the years; next, the aim is to put this into a broader cultural context.

Historical Epochs First of all, the leaders of the company have had great inﬂ uence in the decisions made, and therefore it is important to understand how they shaped LEGO. Ole Kirk Christiansen was the initial leader from 1916 to 1958. He started out as a carpenter and furniture-builder, but ended as a toymaker. Gradually, he gave more responsibility to his son Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, who ran the company from 1958 to 1979, although he was a member of the board until 1986. Godtfred was the inventor of the famous LEGO Brick. His successor, Kjeld Kirk Kris- tiansen, was in charge of the company from 1979 to 2004; he introduced themes and licensing, but ﬁ nally gave in to competition and appointed leaders with business training and outside the family, and since 2004 Jørgen Vig Knudstorp has pulled the company through the crisis and turned LEGO into a success

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 story. You could say that Ole Kirk Christiansen was the craftsman, the entre- preneur, and the self-made man, building products in his factory; Godtfred Kirk Christiansen was the inventor, designer, and manufacturer that made his groundbreaking idea of a toy system come true; Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen was the manager type, but eventually realized that the company needed more professional leadership in the 21st century’s competitive industrial world. Each of them contributed to the company with their own personal ideas and designs. In a broader cultural perspective, it shows how Denmark changed through the 20th century from an agricultural to an industrialized country and ended up as an information society. Ole Kirk Christiansen was very close to his local community of farmers while The Cultural History of LEGO 7

building up his local factories; Godtfred Kirk Christiansen changed the production into an international business; and his son Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen took over focusing on themes and administration. Another way to approach LEGO is by looking at the materials. In the beginning from 1895 to 1932 the main materials were wood, bricks, and mortar to build furniture and houses. Later from 1932 to 1960, wood was used to make toys. From 1947 until today, plastic has been the main material. Rubber was used to make the LEGO wheel from 1962 onwards. Electronics were introduced in the LEGO train from 1966; in 1989 digital technology was used for LEGO MINDSTORMS. Digital technology was also used in the production of the virtual LEGO found in the LEGO video games, starting in 1997. These video games have later become more and more integrated into the product lines. In a cultural perspective we can speak of different epochs: 1) the wood, mortar and bricks epoch; 2) the wooden toys epoch; 3) the plastic and wooden toys epoch; 4) the plastic, rubber, and analog electrical toys epoch; 5) the physical toys and digital toys epoch; and 6) the physical toys, digital toys, and the virtual LEGO epoch. From this perspective, one can acknowledge a company changing with the available technology, having the necessary fl exibility to adapt to new ways of designing and producing new products. Sarah Herman presents fi ve cultural epochs of the LEGO Group: 1) 1891– 1953: Bricks and Mortar; 2) 1954–77: Systematic Success; 3) 1978–88: The Golden Age; 4) 1989–99: It’s a LEGO World; and 5. 2000–11: Foundations for the Future. 4 The fi rst epoch is the furniture, house-building, and wooden toy epoch. The second epoch is the invention of the LEGO Brick. The third epoch is the Golden Age, according to Herman, when LEGO introduced the LEGO themes and conquered the American market. The fourth epoch begins with LEGO MINDSTORMS and ends with the Star Wars licensing. And the last epoch has many new licenses and intellectual property like Bionicle. While I can understand this breakdown into epochs to some extent, it still has problems. The fi rst epoch actually has two rather distinct eras; the fi rst when the company was building houses and furniture, and the second when the company was building wooden toys. This distinction is important, because Ole Kirk Christiansen’s focus changed from basic living comforts to children’s toys. Fur-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 thermore, Herman’s Golden Age may be golden when seen from an American point of view, but Europeans would probably see the period from 1954 to 1977 as the Golden Age, and the period after 1978 as the Silver Age. Then, of course, you could have a Bronze Age followed by an Iron Age. I do not think that these terms are very appropriate since most of these metals aren’t used as LEGO materials. From a literal perspective, one could consider the terms Wooden Age and Plastic Age. In that sense, LEGO has archeology of its own. Furthermore, I don’t think the epoch from 1978–88 is very distinct from 1989–99. The company was more or less doing the same things, although new ideas were present, like LEGO MINDSTORMS. However, with the Star Wars license in 1999, 8 Lars Konzack

followed by several other movie/television licenses and with a greater focus on intellectual property, LEGO took a turn toward transmedial culture. Transmedial in the sense that the intellectual property comes in many forms and media, such as books, movies, television, video games, and toys. 5 Even though I do appreciate Herman’s efforts, I would break down the epochs of LEGO slightly differently. One can, of course, always discuss these breakdowns. Was 1947 the most interesting year, when they got the fi rst plastic molding machine in Denmark, or was it 1954, when Godtfred Kirk Christiansen had the idea for the LEGO Brick, or was it the next year, when the “System i Leg” [System of Play] was sold for the fi rst time, or 1958, when LEGO fi led the patent for the stud-and-tube coupling system, or 1962, when the patent was granted? When did LEGO enter the digital age? Was it with the LEGO MINDSTORMS toy from 1989, or www.lego.com in 1996, or the fi rst video game in 1997, or was it in fact the importance of digital culture which was fi rst really understood with the Star Wars license in 1999? My epochal breakdown is as follows:

1. Pre-Kirk Christiansen (1891–1915) 2. Pre-LEGO (1916–33) 3. LEGO Arts and Crafts toys (1934–54) 4. LEGO System (1955–77) 5. LEGO Themes (1978–98) 6. LEGO Transmedial (1999–present)

This gives an overview of the stages of how the company developed over the years from a small local Danish carpentry house to a global toy and media enterprise, and with this in mind it is possible to address a broader cultural historical perspective.

From National Romantic to Transmedial The Pre-Kirk Christiansen and Pre-LEGO epochs are interesting in the sense that they explain what kind of cultural tradition LEGO came from. It had its roots in the 19th century National Romantic Movement and what was known

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 as Biedermeier culture, respecting family and church values and close ties to the local community. 6 Although the National Romantic Movement and Biedermeier culture were in decline at the time, they still had considerable infl uence in rural areas in which tradition and local customs were held in high regard. But, at the same time, it would be the industrious Kirk Christiansen family that later changed the Billund village into a central part of industrialized Denmark. Even though it must be stated that the Kirk Christiansen family was not directly infl uenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, it could be argued that, indeed, this movement infl uenced the works of the early wooden toy factory. The Arts and Crafts Movement originated from Great Britain in the 19th The Cultural History of LEGO 9

century, 7 and the Kirk Christiansen family followed the same trends as the rest of Europe, so the wooden toys were undoubtedly made with the same care as the Arts and Crafts Movement would have encouraged. “Det bedste er ikke for godt” or “The best is not too good” as the inspiring motto of Ole Kirk Christiansen asserted, was not just merely proverbial: it was his way of life. The story goes that Ole’s son Godtfred Kirk Christiansen once got an idea to save the company money. Wooden ducks technically needed only two coats of paint instead of three, and so that’s all he gave them. Later, having delivered the ducks at the train station, he proudly told his father what he had accomplished. His father, instead of being pleased with his son’s ingenuity, got angry with him and decided his punishment. The young Godtfred was asked to go and fetch the ducks back straight away. Then he would have to give them their ﬁ nishing coat of paint, repack them, and walk all the way back and deliver them anew at the train station. And he should do it all by himself—even if it took him all night to do so. 8 The quality of the products being sold was more important than saving money in the short run. The governing principle for the LEGO System epoch is, of course, the system itself. Seen from a broader cultural perspective, the LEGO Group integrated modernist views, such as that of the Bauhaus Movement. Again, it cannot be established that modernist views had an impact, and one might think of syn- chronicity. However, modernist design views were already well established during the 1920s with the Bauhaus Movement which spread rapidly through the Western world after World War I. 9 To understand the similarity of the LEGO Brick to Bauhaus designs, we must look at the criteria behind the ideas. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen chose ten criteria for the ideal toy system, which LEGO bricks were able to meet. Accord- ing to Cortzen, the ten criteria are as follows: 10

1. Unlimited play potential 2. For girls and for boys 3. Fun for every age 4. Year-round play 5. Healthy, quiet play

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 6. Long hours of play 7. Development, imagination, creativity 8. The more LEGO, the greater the value 9. Extra sets available 10. Quality in every detail

If we look at Kandinsky’s minimalist use of shape and colors it becomes obvious that the Bauhaus Movement, inspired by a group of Dutch painters known as De Stijl, wanted basic shapes like circles, triangles, and squares (even though it must be noted that the square, in fact, consists of two triangles) and the basic 10 Lars Konzack

colors red, yellow, and blue—as well as the tones white and black. The Bauhaus also insisted on basic materials like wood, stone, and metal. This description, of course, fi ts the LEGO Brick since it is made of squares and circles and primary colors and the non-colors white and black—and also green, which is one of the additive primary colors. And while it could be argued that plastic wasn’t really a basic material, the general idea of the LEGO Brick still fi ts in with the minimalist ideals of Bauhaus design. Moreover, another ideal of Bauhaus design was that of functionality, and Godtfred Kirk Christiansen’s ten criteria were exactly that. They were a calculated, logical way of achieving the perfect toy system. And Godtfred Kirk Christiansen succeeded in doing so. What happened next was the phase in which new ideas come to mind and move away from the perfect system because it is almost too perfect; this phase is known as postmodernism. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen was a designer and innovator—not a rigid ideologist. He saw opportunities rather than obstructions. Still, over time the concept became less and less clear. It is diffi cult to say when postmodern LEGO became evident, just like it is diffi cult to say exactly when modern design in general became postmodern. As for LEGO, it wasn’t the introduction of the wheel, or the train, or the LEGO family fi gures or any one thing. It was not the introduction of LEGOLAND in itself. But at some point, there were too many specialized bricks, too many new design ideas; and even though all of them surrounded the original LEGO Brick, they sort of drifted away from the original basic idea. LEGO was becoming postmodern. LEGOLAND, as an example of postmodernism in LEGO, refl ects the postmodern notion of hyperreality, which means that it is more real than reality itself. Jean Baudrillard claims:

The Disneyland imaginary is neither true nor false: it is a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the ﬁ ction of the real. Whence the debility, the infantile degeneration of this imaginary. It’s meant to be an infantile world, in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the ‘real’ world, and to conceal the fact that real childishness is everywhere, particularly among those adults who go there to act the 11 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 child in order to foster the illusion of their real childishness.

The same logic can be applied to LEGOLAND, of course. The original LEGO- LAND from 1968 was constructed when Western culture became postmodern. It is a reﬂ ection of this general cultural trend. Rather than presenting a toy for children to play with, it presents a play world in which the audience must lend themselves to the illusion, and for a given time believe, that it is more real than reality itself. It is a world made of LEGO Bricks and family fun. The LEGO family becomes the ideal family without any real problems, with mum, dad, and their children living in the perfect suburban house. The Cultural History of LEGO 11

It is obvious that the LEGO product becomes more postmodern as Western societies become ever more consciously kitsch. And by 1978, the toy company needed a new governing principle, which Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen offered with his new LEGO themes: LEGO City, LEGO Castle, LEGO Space, and later LEGO Pirates. These themes solve some of the problems of postmodernism, because now it is no longer dependent on the ideal product, but on how the product functions in a hyperreal setting. Each theme has its own concept and it is possible to produce new boxes of LEGO bricks within this frame, even when the LEGO patent expired in 1989. Another problem, however, is that there is no limit in postmodernist thinking; anything goes, so to speak. In this context, the variety of LEGO elements suddenly exploded from approximately 3,000 in around 1980 to more than 14,000 in 2004, and the number of colors rose from the original six to more than fi fty. 12 Postmodernist thinking was bringing down the company. The new governing principle was introduced with LEGO Star Wars in 1999, but it wasn’t until the crisis management in 2004 that this principle was fully recognized. The governing principle was, of course, that of transmedial worlds. LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Bionicle, LEGO Harry Potter, and all the other LEGO products based on fi ctional universes were more than just postmodern themes; they are what J. R. R. Tolkien would describe as subcreations. 13 The builder of fi ctional worlds, or subcreations, is called a subcreator. They are often transmedial worlds in the sense that they are not just appearing in one media platform but in several or all possible media platforms such as literature, comics, movies, television, video games, other kind of games, and as toys like LEGO. In this new millennium, the LEGO Group has invested their money and creativity in building these transmedial subcreations in LEGO and, as such, it has become a company of subcreators. According to Tolkien, there are two ways to build a subcreation: 1) through willing suspension of disbelief, and 2) by giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of reality. The fi rst approach is the escapist way of deserting reality. Such an approach can be comical, because you’ll never know what is going to happen, but at the same time it may feel empty, having no other purpose than light entertainment. The second approach is the groundbreaking idea that the subcreation has an inner consistency of reality, meaning that everything is there with a purpose. The subcreator does not

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 introduce anything to the subcreation unless it makes sense within the ﬁ ctional universe. It seems that the more the LEGO Group takes their subcreations seriously, the more popular their ingenuous inventions become among their fans, not least their Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOL). 14

LEGO and Geek Culture This profound involvement in subcreation is deeply rooted in geek culture. But what is geek culture? According to researcher Sam Moskowitz, it can be traced back to science ﬁ ction fandom in the 1930s. 15 Having close ties to fantasy 12 Lars Konzack

fi ction, superhero comics, strategy war games, and later role-playing games and video games, this culture became an alternative subculture. 16 This was not just a consumer culture but a participatory culture in which Do-It-Yourself (DIY) was not just common but encouraged. A lot of participants were engineers and programmers, and consequently used to collaborating on inventing new ideas and products. And obviously, playing with LEGO was not frowned upon, even if they were no longer kids. It is from within this geek subculture that the AFOLs arose. These adult fans were willing to spend far more money on LEGO than anyone expected. Even though at the beginning of the millennium they only accounted for 5 percent of the market, the average AFOL spent twenty times more than an average family with children. 17 A central part of geek culture is participatory culture, and the Internet has provided plenty of opportunities for spreading this way of life. Through Internet forums and online games, geek culture has grown from a small subculture to becoming one of the most infl uential subcultures of the 21st century. Therefore, it has been vital for LEGO to become part of this growing culture and providing transmedial world LEGO products for this growing market. It is of no coincidence that the science fi ction, fantasy, superheroes, board games, and video games are popular within geek culture, because they are the cultural essence of geek culture. By supporting geek culture, LEGO gains a lot of supporters that are willing to crowd source and help to develop the future of LEGO. 18

Other Modernist Play Products Comparing LEGO to other kinds of modernist games and toys, we see that they had some success as well, but without the fl exibility of the LEGO Brick. Rubik’s Cube, popular in Western countries during the 1980s, was designed by the Hungarian sculptor and architect Ernő Rubik in 1974. The cube had the basic colors and minimalist square shape, fi tting well within Bauhaus design ideas. While LEGO was the basic brick from which everything could be built, presenting a bright future of the modern world, Rubik’s Cube presents a world diffi cult to master, but with a sharp mind it can be done. A decade later, in 1984, the Russians Alexey Pajitnov and Vladimir Pokhilko 19 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 programmed and designed the video game known as Tetris . Like Rubik’s Cube, it turned out to be a craze in the Western world around the end of the Cold War. But this game is quite different; the Bauhaus-like shapes, known as tet- riminos, fall faster and faster, and it is the player’s task to put them into the right place. At fi rst it seems easy, but as the game goes on, it becomes virtually impossible. If we perceive these play products as metaphors of the modernist epoch in the 20th century, the LEGO Brick becomes a symbol of a time of confi dence in the modernist world view, fl exibility, and the ability to build anything. Rubik’s Cube still has some confi dence in the modernist project, but recognizes The Cultural History of LEGO 13

the intelligence, hardship, and effort that has to be put into it in order for the project to become perfect. But it is still possible to achieve this perfection. Finally, Tetris is a game of tragedy; the player, however competent, can never win. In this sense, Tetris becomes the symbol of the failed modernist project: Communism. It is the story of how everything seemed within the grasp of humanity but turned out to be a nightmare—never able to keep up with the ever-faster pace of modern life.

Conclusion LEGO has a cultural history which stems from Biedermeier and National Romantic furniture and house-building. LEGO started out as Arts and Crafts toy-crafting. During the 1950s, the toy company invented the LEGO brick that ﬁ t with the minimalist ideals of the modernist Bauhaus Movement. The toy company entered a postmodern phase and had to re-invent itself with LEGO themes as the governing principle. However, in postmodernism, anything goes, and LEGO lost its visions and goals and had to reinvent itself again, this time based on transmedial worlds, building subcreations with LEGO bricks. The LEGO Brick can be viewed as a symbol of the conﬁ dence in a modern world. Still, the LEGO Brick couldn’t just stay in the 20th-century modernist culture but had to be adapted to new trends, and LEGO is now embracing the growing geek culture.

Notes 1. See Jan Cortzen, LEGO Manden: Historien om Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, Copenhagen, Denmark: Børsens Forlag, 1996; and Niels Lunde, Miraklet i LEGO, Copenhagen, Denmark: Jyllands-Postens Forlag, 2012. 2. See David C. Robertson and Bill Breen, Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry, New York, NY: Crown Business, 2013; John Baichtal and Joe Meno, The Cult of LEGO , San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press, 2011; and Sarah Herman A Million Little Bricks: The Unofﬁ cial Illustrated History of the LEGO Phenomenon , New York, NY: Skyhorse Publications, 2012. 3. See Lunde, Miraklet i LEGO, 2012; and Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013. 4. See Herman, A Million Little Bricks , 2012. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 5. See Mark J. P. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation, New York, NY: Routledge, 2012. 6. See Søren Byskov, Tro, Håb and Legetøj: Landsbyfolk og Industrieventyr i Billund 1920–1980, Grindsted, Denmark: Overgaard Bøger, 1997; and Radim Vondracek, Claudia Terenzi, Jiri Rak, and L. Jenkins, Biedermeier: Art and Culture in Central Europe 1815–1848, Milan, Italy: Skira, 2001. 7. See Elizabeth Cumming and Wendy Kaplan, The Arts and Crafts Movement , London, England: Thames & Hudson, 1991. 8. See Cortzen, LEGO Manden: Historien om Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, 1996, page 33. 9. See Magdalena Droste, Bauhaus 1919–1933, Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 2006. 10. See Cortzen, LEGO Manden: Historien om Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, 1996, page 70. 14 Lars Konzack

11. See Jean Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simulacra”, in I. J. Natoli and L. Hutcheon, editors, A Postmodern Reader, New York, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993, page 352. 12. See Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013, chapter 4. 13. See J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories”, in Christopher Tolkien, editor, The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays , London, England: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997 (originally published by George Allen & Unwin Ltd. in 1983), pages 109–61. 14. See Baichtal and Meno, The Cult of LEGO , 2011. 15. See Sam Moskowitz, The Immortal Storm: A History of Science Fiction Fandom, New York, NY: Hyperion Press, 1974. 16. See Brad King and John Borland, Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic , Emeryville, CA: McGraw-Hill, 2003; and Jon Peterson, Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, From Chess to Role-Playing Games , San Diego, CA: Unreason Press, 2012. 17. See Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013, chapter 5. 18. Ibid., chapter 8. 19. See Tristan Donovan, Replay: The History of Video Games, East Sussex, England: Yellow Ant Media, 2010, chapter 16.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 2 ADAPTING THE DEATH STAR INTO LEGO: THE CASE OF LEGO SET #10188

Mark J. P. Wolf

When one of the world’s most famous toymakers decided to license one of the world’s most popular media franchises, a successful new line of products perhaps seemed inevitable. The fi rst LEGO set based on the Star Wars galaxy appeared in 1999 and, since then, over 200 different LEGO Star Wars sets have appeared, as well as LEGO Star Wars video games, books, pajamas, and other merchandise. Considering the importance of the Death Star within the Star Wars saga, it is not surprising that a LEGO set would be made of it, and the resulting set (#10188) demonstrates how the fi lm scenes on which it is based, the set’s audience, and the process of adaptation itself were all carefully taken into account during the design of the set. Most of the work found in Adaptation Studies considers the adaptation of a narrative from one medium into another (novels into fi lms, fi lms into television shows or video games, and so forth), but in the realm of transmedial franchises set in imaginary worlds, we also fi nd adaptation into toys and playsets, using other kinds of media, such as LEGO bricks. Adaptation into a physical playset is qualitatively different from narrative adaptation between audiovisual

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 media, since it involves not so much the adaptation of a narrative, but rather the settings, objects, vehicles, and characters from which a narrative can be interactively recreated by the user. At the same time, this kind of adaptation still shares many of the same issues and processes and can be discussed in relation to them (for example, video games also deal with adaptation into interactive form, and the narrative recreation made possible by a particular playset may still require the adaptation of the original narrative on which it is based). The adaptation of the Death Star from the Star Wars movies into LEGO set #10188 (released in 2008) provides a good example of such an adaptation, and reveals many of the concerns in the processes involved. 16 Mark J. P. Wolf

Other traditional forms of adaptation also involve transformation into a physical form. When a novel or screenplay is adapted into a fi lm, for example, descriptions must be fl eshed out into visible designs and then into physical sets, props, and costumes, a process which can change an original conception due to its lack of practicality or level of vagueness in which specifi cs are lacking and have to be assumed or extrapolated. 1 While stage plays and screenplays can be written with the constraints of adaptation in mind, making the process easier, the malleability of the end medium also aids the process. LEGO, the bricks of which have been produced in thousands of specialized shapes since their fi rst incarnation appeared in 1949, is a far more versatile medium to use for adaptation than are other older building sets like Meccano (1908), A. C. Gilbert’s Erector Set (1913), the Tinkertoy Construction Set (1914), and Lincoln Logs (1916), which are more limited in the shapes one can construct with their elements and the ways in which those elements can be fi t together. 2 Thus, it should come as no surprise that while other building sets have appeared in dozens of different sets, the much-younger LEGO has appeared in several thou- sand different sets. Concurrent with the rise and popularity of building sets was the development of the playset , the various elements of which are designed around a particular theme or location, and are usually complete in and of themselves, needing little or no assembly. While less fl exible than building sets, playsets featured designs that were often more representational than the abstracted versions of things built from pieces of a building set, and had more complete and detailed environments than those that one could construct with a building set. This would, of course, change once LEGO became developed enough to match the level of detail and functionality found in playsets, but this would not happen for some time. Thus, it is to the development of the playset that we must next turn.

Development of the Playset While the creation of miniature scenarios dates back to the models found in ancient Egyptian tombs, such as that of Mehenkwetre (circa 2000 BC ), which reveal what daily life in Egypt was like, the earliest commercially-produced

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 playsets were dollhouses. German companies produced miniatures for collectors in the 19th century, and by the 1920s dollhouses and their accessories were being produced by American companies like the TynieToy Company, who made replicas of New England homes. After World War II, dollhouses and their fur- nishing were mass-produced, making them more affordable and available as toys, but at the same time less detailed and simpliﬁ ed due to the demands of mass production. Other playsets appeared around the same time, from companies like the Tobias Cohn Company and Remco Industries, and most notably from the Marx Toy Company, which became one of the largest toy companies in the world during the mid-20th century. 3 Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 17

Begun in 1919, the Marx Toy Company made metal playsets during the 1930s and 1940s, like the Sunnyside Service Station (1934) and the Roadside Service Station (1935). After the development of plastics in the 1940s, production became easier and less expensive, and the number of playsets increased, as did their popularity. In the 1950s, Marx produced more generic sets, like the Western Ranch Set (1951), Cowboy and Indian Camp (1953), and Arctic Explorer Play Set (1958), as well as sets based on actual events like the Civil War and real places like Fort Apache (1951) and Fort Dearborn (1952). Other sets were adaptations of existing properties in other media, like the Roy Rogers Ranch Set (1952), Lone Ranger Rodeo (1952), Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett at the Alamo (1955), and Gunsmoke Dodge City (1960). The transmedial nature of these sets, which played on the popularity of existing franchises, encouraged the sale of playsets in general. According to Marx Toys collector and historian Eric Johns:

While Fort Apache playsets were the biggest seller for Marx in the long run, it was Roy Rogers that provided the initial spark for the Golden Age of Playsets in the 1950s and 1960s. Playset Magazine quoted Marx Chief Designer Frank Rice as saying, “The Western Ranch (Play Set) wasn’t doing as well as we’d have liked. But then we added the Roy Rogers name and it really took off.” Roy Rogers playsets were the fi rst Marx sets that included character fi gures, representing wild west characters from popular television series or movies. Though it cost the toy company money to use the character name and likeness, the character fi gure and playset became standard Marx practice with such sets as the Alamo, Lone Ranger, Wagon Train, and Gunsmoke. In fact, some sets were created with a few new character fi gures simply added to existing fi gures and accessories already used in previous sets. For example, Lone Ranger ranch and rodeo playsets were basically the same as the Roy Rogers sets, but with different character fi gures. 4

The Marx Toy Company made even more playsets during the 1960s and 1970s, and the number of playsets based on transmedial franchises increased, including sets based on Gunsmoke (1955–75), Wagon Train (1957–65), The Untouchables 5 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 (1959–63), MGM’s Ben-Hur (1959), and more. Other companies realized the value of known franchises and hurried to buy up rights. During the 1970s, the Mego Corporation licensed Edgar Rice Bur roughs’s works, and produced toys for the Planet of the Apes , Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and Star Trek franchises, and even The Wizard of Oz and His Emerald City (1974) playset. Properties that were new and not already known by the public were considered more risky, and in 1976 Mego turned down an offer to license toys based on an upcoming science fi ction fi lm named Star Wars (1977). The license went to Kenner Products, who produced over 100 different action fi gures from the original Star Wars fi lm trilogy, along with several playsets, 18 Mark J. P. Wolf

including Death Star Space Station (1978), Cantina Adventure Set (1978), Creature Cantina Action Play Set (1979), Death Star (1979), Droid Factory (1979), Land of the Jawas Action Play Set (1979), and Millennium Falcon Spaceship (1979). 6 Kenner sold over 300 million Star Wars action ﬁ gures (rebranded by Hasbro, Kenner’s owner, after 1999), and became the largest Star Wars merchandiser of the 20th century. 7 But after the ﬁ rst decade of the 21st century, LEGO would outgrow Hasbro, with the help of over 200 sets of LEGO Star Wars merchandise. 8

The Road to LEGO Star Wars Sets The genius behind LEGO was the combining of building sets and playsets into a single product, resulting in the introduction of the LEGO System in which every piece fi t together with every other piece, the fi rst “system” in the toy industry. When LEGO bricks fi rst appeared on the market, building sets like Lincoln Logs and Tinkertoy could build specifi c kinds of things (like log cabins and stick-and-spool structures or vehicles, respectively), but they generally were not used to build entire settings, nor did they contain characters which children could use as avatars to vicariously experience what they had built. Playsets, on the other hand, featured detailed settings and characters to inhabit them, but they were limited to what they already represented; everything was ready-made, and little or no new building could be done. LEGO, however, suggested settings that could be built (which determined what pieces came with each set), but children could build other things with the same bricks, and even combine multiple sets together to build even larger settings. The gradual merging of the playset and building sets can be seen in the early development of LEGO. The fi rst plastic bricks, “Automatic Binding Bricks”, were produced by the company in 1949, and the fi rst set in the LEGO system, Town Plan No. 1, appeared in 1955, along with other sets that could be combined with it to enlarge the town. The cars, trees, and especially the miniature people, however, were still like the plastic fi gures found in other playsets; each was a single piece that could be used during play, but not changed. LEGO wheels, and the bricks into which they attached, came in 1961, 9 allow-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 ing children to build their own vehicles. But characters, so crucial to the playset because of their role as children’s avatars, would not become buildable for some time. In 1963, Master Builder set #004 displayed on its box cover a human-like ﬁ gure built of LEGO bricks, but as a construction around two dozen bricks tall, it was more of a statue than a usable avatar, and much too large to be used with typical LEGO vehicles and buildings. The following year, several small sets appeared that were character-based; Seesaw #803, 3 Little Indians #805, Cowboy and Pony #806, and Doll Set #905, and another set, Clowns #321 appeared in 1965. In all these sets, the characters were still very blocky, with no faces or jointed limbs; yet they were a step closer to a usable Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 19

avatar in their design and smaller size. Over these years, dozens of vehicle sets appeared, and vehicles remained the main avatars for LEGO play. One set, Baggage Carts #622 of 1970, even had a few bricks that represented the cart’s driver, but only as a feature of the cart rather than a character that could be used separately. Six of the Basic sets released in 1973 (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, and #8), along with Building set #105 and Building set #115, show brick-built people amidst the scenes on their boxes, but still the blocky, faceless kind. It was not until 1974 that LEGO fi nally introduced specialized pieces representing people, which had round heads, faces, and jointed arms and hands, and which were scaled to fi t vehicles and buildings (see the image on the front cover of this book). Nine sets were introduced that featured these human fi gures, and one set, Family #200, was made up entirely of people. 10 While the introduction of human fi gures broadened the possibilities for sets, the scale of these fi gures was still large enough that they could not be included with some sets, which had smaller vehicles and buildings representing larger structures. In 1975, a new kind of LEGO fi gure appeared, one that did not have a face or jointed arms, but which had a specialized head (along with hat pieces that could be added on), a torso piece, and a piece representing a pair of legs and feet (though there was no separation between the legs). These would be updated over the next few years, until in 1978 when the modern minifi gure would appear, with a painted face, movable arms and legs, and hand pieces that connected to the arm pieces. Although the minifi gure would eventually replace the larger LEGO people, the two were produced contemporaneously, and even appeared together in some sets (like Mother with Baby Carriage #208 and Nursery #297, both from 1978, and Bathroom #261, Family Room #268, and Kitchen #269, all from 1979), with the minifi gures positioned as babies or children and the larger people as parents and adults. Minifi gures were featured in the sets for the new town, castle, and space themes, allowing their structures to be populated with characters (minifi gures would be an important part of set #10188, which included 24 minifi gures and droids, the most to come with any LEGO Star Wars set up to that time). Along with the new application of themes, LEGO sets were now available that had all the features of other types of playsets, completing the merger between building

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 sets and playsets. As the sets were designed at minifi gure scale, the larger people no longer appeared in sets after 1979. Themed sets meant that LEGO could be designed to connect with prevailing themes in popular culture at any given time, yet without licensing any particular property or franchise; the appearance of a space theme, in 1978, would certainly have fi t in with the new popularity of science fi ction projects due to the continuing success of fi lms like Star Wars (1977). New space-themed sets would be released every year during the 1980s and 1990s, including subseries of sets known as Blacktron, Futuron, Space Police, M:Tron, Unitron, and U.F.O. The subseries designations grouped sets together into LEGO’s own in-house brands; despite 20 Mark J. P. Wolf

the rise of franchising and merchandising tie-ins during the 1980s and 1990s, LEGO preferred to create their own original properties. But that policy changed in 1999, when LEGO licensed its fi rst property since the early 1970s, 11 and the fi rst LEGO Star Wars sets appeared. The change in this decades-long policy may have been in part due to fi nancial concerns. In 1998, the company had experienced a decline in profi ts for the fi rst time since 1932, signaling that changes were needed (the company would experience further losses in 2003 and 2004). 12 Apart from selling some foreign properties and reducing their staff and the variety of brick components produced (both by about half ), LEGO also changed its thinking about the kinds of toys it produced. According to reporter James Delingpole:

What Lego’s staff also had to do was abandon their high-mindedness. Typical of this was the internal row that had broken out in 1999, when a product tie-in with Star Wars was ﬁ rst mooted: the older company hands had objected on the grounds that any product with ‘wars’ in the title set a bad moral example. The Star Wars series went on to become one of Lego’s biggest sellers. 13

Besides helping the company’s sales, the success of these licensed sets led to the production of over 200 different LEGO Star Wars sets, as well as the purchase of other licenses, including ones for the Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Batman , Minecraft , and Lord of the Rings franchises. But Star Wars would remain the company’s most lucrative license.

Adapting Star Wars into LEGO Adaptation into a physical playset differs from other forms of adaptation, particularly due to the kind of open-ended play that a playset encourages. Even adaptation into a sandbox-style video game, which may be the form of audiovisual media closest to a playset, will generally restrict what the player can do more than a physical playset will (although, in return, a video game can offer kinds of interaction that a physical playset cannot). Instead of merely adapting a nar-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 rative, a playset will be designed to provide its user all the elements needed to reenact a particular narrative, without requiring that the narrative be reenacted. Star Wars playsets (LEGO and otherwise) include models of characters, vehicles, props (such as weapons), and locations, with which particular scenes from the movies can be recreated by the user. Typically, these characters, vehicles, props, and locations will be simpliﬁ ed, with their recognizable and distinct features exaggerated, resulting in caricatures that still are able to evoke their original referents. Thus their overall shapes, color palettes, and distinctive details, particularly those clearly shown in the ﬁ lms, become the criteria behind the design of a LEGO Star Wars set. Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 21

In the world of LEGO, the least caricatured sets are those that are models intended for display purposes, (which are usually not playsets to be used with minifi gures), including the models of the LEGO “Architecture” sub-brand (made up of the “Architect” and “Landmark” series), sets #21000 to #21021 (as of 2014), as well as the LEGO Death Star II set #10143, which depicted the unfi n- ished second Death Star from Return of the Jedi (1983). Set #10143 was not nearly as popular as set #10188, according to the customer reviews one can fi nd online, and its “unfi nished” nature gave it a much more detailed appearance and silhouette, rendering it more diffi cult to adapt into a recognizable LEGO set.14 Nor is the Death Star the only setting or vehicle to be featured in multiple LEGO incarnations. The Millennium Falcon has appeared four times (see Figure 2.1 ), as set #7190 (released in 2000) at 663 pieces (and 12 inches across); set #4504 (released in 2004) at 985 pieces; set #7965 (released in 2011) at 1,238 pieces; and set #10179 (released in 2007) at 5,195 pieces (by far the largest size, at 33 inches long, 22 inches wide, 8 inches tall). While minifi gures can be used inside all four sets, only set #10179 is actually scaled to match the minifi gure size, and is the least caricatured of the four sets; it features the most details on the ship’s exterior, as well as recreated spaces with the ship’s interior. Of all the Star Wars models, the fi rst Death Star is one of the most iconic designs found in Star Wars because it can be recognizably represented with the simplest of graphics: a circle with a line across its diameter, with a smaller circle inside the upper half of the larger circle. These lines represent the two distinctive features on the Death Star’s otherwise nondescript gray spherical exterior, the equatorial trench Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 2.1 Four different LEGO incarnations of the Millenium Falcon, ranging in resolution from 663 pieces to 5,195 pieces. 22 Mark J. P. Wolf

and the concave crater-like depression which focuses the multiple beams of the superlaser into one large planet-destroying beam (never mind that such a beam ought to simply burn a hole into a planet, rather than make a planet explode immediately the way Alderaan does, as though it were made entirely of fl ammable material). Thus the fi rst Death Star is, in one sense, a good candidate for adaptation, since it has so few distinctive features needed for identifi cation, making it so easily recognizable. And indeed, the Death Star of set #10188 does have a spherical shape, equatorial trench, and superlaser crater, although each of these features is reproduced to a different degree. The two Kenner Death Star models, the plastic Death Star Space Station (1978) playset, and the cardboard Death Star (1979) (see Figure 2.2 ), could be used with Kenner’s action fi gures, but both represented only a section of the spherical shape. The 1978 set was wedge-shaped, standing four levels high, extending from an elevator shaft connecting the fl oors out to a section of the station’s curved hull. The station was open on both sides between the shaft and hull, and its fl oors, from bottom to top, represented the garbage compactor level, a control room, an elevated walkway and bridge, and a laser cannon at the top level. The 1979 set used cardboard dividers shaped into a two-level hemisphere, with images on walls and fl oors depicting the various locations, similar to the rooms of a Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 2.2 The Kenner Death Star set from 1979, designed for use with the Kenner action ﬁ gures. Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 23

dollhouse, although the rooms opened all around the hemisphere, leaving no room for an exterior except at the very top where a large gun was mounted. The design of the 1979 set was the closest to set #10188, which would add the bottom hemisphere, completing the Death Star’s shape, and include more exterior features, making it more recognizable as the Death Star. Both Kenner sets were designed for the company’s 3.75-inch action fi gures, which required a scale much larger than the typical height (1.5 to 2 inches, depending on headgear) of LEGO minifi gures. Thus, the smaller scale LEGO minifi gures made larger-scale adaptations more practical than the earlier Kenner action fi gures, giving the Death Star a better chance of being adapted in more detail.

The LEGO Death Star Set #10188 The LEGO Death Star set #10188 was released in 2008, the year after the other LEGO Death Star, set #10143, was retired after only two years of production. Whereas set #10143 was not designed to be used with minifi gures, set #10188 was (and included 24 minifi gures), leading to its greater success and desirability. Its design, like a spherical dollhouse, features four levels, with four small areas at the top level (the Imperial Conference Room, a droid maintenance facility, the Overbridge Control Room (with its viewscreen), and a gunnery area with two rotating gun towers); four larger areas on the second level down from the top (Docking Bay 327, the Superlaser Fire Control Room (with the Docking Bay 327 Control Room up in the corner, where it can overlook the Docking Bay), the Detention Block, and the Emperor’s Throne Room); fi ve areas on the third level down (the garbage compactor room, tractor beam controls, the chasm that Luke swings across (extending down to the bottom level), a garage-like work area, and a laser cannon room); and four small areas of hallways and storage on the very bottom level (which is harder to access due to the overhanging level above; these areas contain very little and are not themed to specifi c locations in the fi lms). Finally, an elevator shaft is set vertically into the center of the model, connecting all the levels together with an open-sided elevator. The inclusion of the Emperor’s Throne Room, along with minifi gures of two red-cloaked Imperial guards, the Emperor, and a black-suited short-haired Jedi Luke, and images on

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 the box showing Luke in a lightsaber fi ght with Darth Vader, indicate that the set was designed for the reenactment of scenes occurring on both Death Stars, though all the other areas are from the fi rst Death Star; as Neal Baker points out in his essay in this collection, a similar confl ation appears in the set Unexpected Gathering (#79003) which combines things from before and after Bilbo’s adventure. Despite the small size of LEGO minifi gures, Death Star set #10188 is still by far the most out of scale of all the LEGO Star Wars sets (see Figure 2.3 ). British astrophysicist Dr. Curtis Saxton has assembled detailed analyses of various Star Wars -related topics on his webpages at theforce.net, and among them is a 24 Mark J. P. Wolf

FIGURE 2.3 The LEGO Death Star set #10188 (2008), as seen from the front and back.

discussion of the size of the fi rst and second Death Stars, based on evidence from the fi lms, books, magazines, and other offi cial (that is, Lucasfi lm-supported) sources, which he fi nds are occasionally vague or even appear to confl ict. 15 According to these sources, the fi rst Death Star is said to internally have 84 levels, each composed of 357 sublevels, for a total of 29,988 sublevels, and the diameters of the fi rst and second Death Stars are, according to offi cial fi gures, 160 kilometers (99.4194 miles) and 900 kilometers (559.234 miles), respectively. Assuming the typical minifi gure height (four bricks tall, about 1.5 inches) is scaled to about six feet (a ratio of 1:48), scale models of the two Death Stars would have diameters of 3.3333 kilometers (about 2.0712 miles) and 18.75 kilometers (about 11.6507 miles). Thus, set #10188 is out of scale by several orders of magnitude, even for the smaller of the two Death Stars. But a playset, of course, is judged by what it enables its users to do; and in the case of a playset licensed from a movie, how well it allows scenes from the movies to be reenacted. So how well does set #10188 represent the Death Stars, as seen in Episodes IV and VI ? First we must determine the importance of the Death Stars in each fi lm, and the relative importance of the various locations

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 found within them. Episode IV has a running time of 2 hours, 4 minutes, and 38 seconds (2:04:38), according to the 2004 DVD release. Of that time, the Death Star, or part of it, is onscreen for 40:37, which is almost a third of the fi lm’s running time. 16 Of the 40:37, the majority of the time, 34:11, consists of interior shots, while exterior shots take up 6:26. With a design like a spherical dollhouse, the Death Star lacks an exterior shell, and thus has few exterior features. The equatorial trench is only represented by a layer of gray bricks separating the upper and lower halves, but the superlaser crater is present, and fi ring. The crater’s disc is attached to a gun mount, making it movable and positionable, unlike in the fi lm, combining its properties with Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 25

FIGURE 2.4 Comparisons of the gun towers on the Death Star’s exterior; in the ﬁ lm (top) and in set #10188 (bottom).

those of a laser cannon. The other surface features represented in set #10188 are the two gun towers on the top level (see Figure 2.4 ); while the other three areas of this level represent interiors, the gun towers are exterior features, and are designed to move together in unison. Together, these two features represent about 20 seconds of actual screen time (two seconds of the superlaser crater fi ring, and 17 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 18 seconds of various shots of the gun towers), but as weaponry, they are memorable and important to the story. Thus set #10188 does represent the Death Star’s exterior to a degree (Darth Vader’s TIE fi ghter is also included, which appears in scenes on the Death Star’s exterior). The Death Star’s interior is represented by a number of locations in the fi lm: the most time (8:51) is spent on the connected areas of the Detention Block (made up of a reception area (2:05), hallway (1:47), and Leia’s cell (49 seconds)) and the garbage compactor room directly below it (4:10) (see Figure 2.5 ), and these areas are all represented, and likewise connected, in set #10188. The next largest amount of time (8:39) is spent on the connected areas of Docking Bay 26 Mark J. P. Wolf

FIGURE 2.5 Comparisons of the garbage compactor interior; in the ﬁ lm (top) and in set #10188 (bottom). Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 327, where the Millennium Falcon is docked, and the Docking Bay 327 Control Room which overlooks it; 2:26 is spent in wider shots of Docking Bay 327, while 1:06 is spent showing a side area where R2D2 and C3PO are hiding, and 5:07 is spent on scenes in the Docking Bay 327 Control Room. Both areas are present in set #10188, and one overlooks the other as well. The third most- appearing interior location (4:39), the Imperial Conference Room, is present in set #10188, as is the fourth (2:16), the Overbridge Control Room (which includes 18 seconds of close-ups of its viewscreen, which is represented in the set by a double-side piece depicting the unexploded Alderaan on one side and Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 27

the approach to Yavin 4 on the other). The Overbridge is also located directly above the superlaser crater in the set, even though the spatial relationship between the two is only indicated in sources outside of the fi lm. 18 The next two locations, the chasm that Luke swings over with Leia (1:17) and the tractor beam controls (1:16), are also represented in set #10188, as are the Superlaser Fire Control Room 19 (21 seconds), the elevator interior (12 seconds), and laser cannon bay (6 seconds). Death Star locations not represented by the set include the elevator balcony by the air shaft where characters wait for the elevator (35 seconds), the stormtrooper room and TIE fi ghter bay that Han Solo almost runs into (two seconds), the TIE docking bay that Darth Vader’s TIE fi ghter and two other are seen leaving (two seconds), and the Particle Accelerator Tube used when the superlaser fi res (two seconds). Finally, there are 5:53 of various Death Star hallways, which could be represented by the lowest level of set #10188, which are little more than passageways. If this is allowed, then out of the 40:37 of Death Star interiors onscreen, only 41 seconds’ worth is not represented; which means set #10188 enables 98.31 percent of the interior scenes to be reenacted with the playset’s locations.20 Set #10188 also contains the Emperor’s Throne Room from Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), and the characters necessary for the fi lm’s climactic scene. The second Death Star has less screen time than the fi rst one (28:01, which is 20.8 percent of Episode VI’s running time of 2:14:40, according to the 2006 DVD release), even though Episode VI is longer than Episode IV. Of that time, interiors have far more screen time (23:43) than do exterior shots (4:18), while the second Death Star has a number of locations similar to the fi rst (a Superlaser Fire Control Room, an Overbridge Control Room, docking bays, hallways, and so forth), and the new location, the Emperor’s Throne Room, is where most of the interior scenes are set (15:16 of the 23:43). 21 The Throne Room in set #10188 has everything needed for the fi lm’s climactic scenes; the raised dais with the throne by the window, the collapsing walkway for the fi ght scene, and the walkway with railings that overlooks the chasm into which the Emperor is thrown (this chasm connects with the one below it that Luke swings across). Most of these locations also contain moveable elements, like doors that open and close, elevators that can be controlled and moved from one level to another,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 guns that can be repositioned, and so on. The tractor beam can be turned off and the walls of the garbage compactor can be made to close inward. In the docking bay, Darth Vader’s TIE fi ghter hangs ready to be used, and is large enough to seat the Darth Vader minifi gure inside. As stated earlier, the LEGO versions are caricatures of the fi lms’ locations, simplifying them and exaggerating their salient features. Design elements from the overall architectural style and color palette to such things as the shapes of light fi xtures, windows, doorways, and control panels, all evoke a feeling similar to the original, yet their disproportionate sizes give them greater emphasis and make the viewer more aware of the style that they represent and embody 28 Mark J. P. Wolf

FIGURE 2.6 Comparisons of the Detention Block area, in the ﬁ lm (left, top, and bottom) and set #10188 (right).

(see Figure 2.6 ). After examining set #10188, one becomes more conscious of these elements in the fi lms, despite the fact that they mainly occur in the background. The design also has a way of compartmentalizing the fi lm’s action, even though, as mentioned earlier, a number of locations are adjacent the way they are in the fi lm (for example, Leia’s cell connects to the Detention Block corridor, which also is above the garbage compactor). Besides active play with the set (as children might do on an afternoon), the set is also designed to reenact fi lm scenes through the staging of vignettes, as is shown on the set’s box. That this is encouraged seems evident due to the inclusion of multiple minifi gures representing the same character; for example, the three representing Luke Skywalker, in his original desert garb, in a stormtrooper uniform, and in the black clothing he wears as a Jedi (along with one black hand, representing the black-gloved mechanical hand he has in Return of the Jedi ). Thus, the set is also designed to be something that is put on display to be looked at (like set #10143), even by adults (as the set initially sold for around $400, it is hard to insist that the set was intended only for children). At the same time, however, the dollhouse-like nature of the levels of open-walled rooms encourages, or at the very least allows, a dollhouse approach to play. When two

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 of my sons (then aged eight and nine) were playing with the set with two girls from the neighborhood, I happened to overhear their play, in which the Death Star was a home where Luke and Leia had bedrooms and referred to Darth Vader as “Daddy”; thus the children used the familial relationships that the ﬁ lm’s characters already had, along with the dollhouse design of the set, to create domestic play scenes that blended Star Wars with family dollhouse play. Set #10188, then, appears to have been designed with a number of potential uses in mind. The adaptation of the Death Star into LEGO, successfully combines a display model with a playset, just as LEGO itself combines building sets with Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 29

playsets, and combines the two Death Stars of Episodes IV and VI into one set. It represents the fi lms’ locations while also changing them, offering greater interactivity than a video game while at the same time changing the way one sees the fi lm locations, emphasizing their production design as well as caricatur- ing it. The set exhibits an intriguing balance between compactness and economy of the design and the level of detail and recognizability of the fi lm sets’ salient features, resulting in a model that can be admired by young and old alike, allowing the set to interest an audience that includes children and adults, and spans multiple generations. A transgenerational audience is something that both LEGO and Star Wars were each able to attain on their own, and this is strengthened even further by their combination, as demonstrated by the clever way in which the Death Star has been adapted into set #10188.

Notes 1. For example, in moving from graphic designs to physical sets and costumes, problems can occur when designs are constructed in three dimensions; unclear notes can lead to objects the wrong size on the set (for example, during the making of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), a table that was supposed to be 10 feet wide was 16 feet wide due to a misread digit (see J. W. Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, New York, NY: Del Rey Books, 2005, page 208)), and designs must accommodate other considerations such as the human actors (during the making of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), costumes were drawn and made into maquettes (small, physical models) that had unrealistic body shapes and dimensions and had to be redesigned to ﬁ t the actresses (see Jody Duncan, Star Wars Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of Attack of the Clones, New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 2002, page 48)). 2. Of course some sets, like Tinkertoy, allow more ﬂ exibility if the models in question are built at much bigger scales, but the stick-and-spool nature of Tinkertoy’s elements, compared to the blocks used in LEGO, makes each medium better at one type of building over another, just as vector graphics and raster graphics in video games each have their own advantages and disadvantages. 3. According to the Marx Toy Company Museum, which claims that “During the 1950’s [sic ], Louis Marx & Co. became the ‘largest toy manufacturer in the world,’ with over one-third of all toys in the U.S. being Marx toys”. See www.marxtoymuseum.com/ info_marx_history.htm. 4. See Eric Johns, “Marx Playset Figures, Structures, and Accessories of the American

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Wild West Manufactured from 1951 to 1980 (now with added pages for other playset themes), Page 11 – A Virtual Wonderland of Marx Wild West Playsets at Your Fin- gertips” at http://marxwildwest.com/Wonderland.html#roy_rogers. 5. See Russell S. Kern, Toy Kings: The Story of Louis Marx & Company, Volume 1: 1919–1954 , and Volume 2: 1955–1982 , Colorado Springs, Colorado: Atomic Home Videos LLC, 2011. 6. See www.plaidstallions.com/starwars/index.html. 7. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenner_Star_Wars_action_fi gures. 8. See Christian Wienberg, “Lego Outgrows Hasbro, Mattel as ‘Star Wars’ Sets Boost Profi t”, Bloomberg.com , March 1, 2012, available at www.bloomberg.com/news/2012- 03-01/lego-outgrows-hasbro-mattel-as-star-wars-sets-boost-profi t.html. 30 Mark J. P. Wolf

9. See Daniel Lipkowitz, The LEGO Book, London, England: Dorling Kindersley, 2009, page 21. 10. The other eight sets with people were Antique Car #196, Aeroplane and Pilot #250, Windmill with Miller and His Wife #251, Locomotive with Driver and Passenger #252, Complete Kitchen with 2 Figures #263, Living Room with 2 Figures #264, Complete Bathroom with 1 Figure #265, and Children’s Room #266, according to Sebastian Eggers, Christian Horstkötter, and Tobias Kaminsky, editors, LEGO Collector: Collector’s Guide, Dreieich, Germany: Fantasia Verlag GMBH, 2008, pages 94–5. 11. Some of the earliest LEGO sets included brand names, though they were typically from the automotive industry, like the Esso Trailer #252, VW Beetle #260, and Esso Filling Station #310, all 1958, or the Citroën DS 19 #603 and Fiat 1800 #605, both 1965, or the Shell Service Station #648 of 1971. Also, LEGO produced some bathing rings and a wooden pull-toy featuring Disney characters in 1956 (see Lipkowitz, The LEGO Book, 2009, page 156). 12. See James Delingpole, “When Lego lost its head – and how this toy story got its happy ending”, Mail Online, December 18, 2009, available at www.dailymail.co.uk/ home/moslive/article-1234465/When-Lego-lost-head--toy-story-got-happy-ending. html. 13. Ibid. 14. See http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/10143_Death_Star_II. 15. For Saxton’s discussion of the size of the Death Stars based on a range of available information, see www.theforce.net/swtc/ds/index.html#summary. 16. Not including the 1:09 of wireframe graphics representing the Death Star, 12 seconds of which are the wireframe trench graphics viewed by the X-wing pilots, and 57 seconds of the wireframe graphics presented at the brieﬁ ng that occurs on Yavin 4 before the attack (in these graphics, the Death Star’s superlaser crater is drawn with its center on equatorial trench, not above it). The list of Death Star appearances in Episode IV is as follows:

Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope [2:04:38 total]

0:36:55–0:37:00 EXT. Long shot 0:37:00–0:39:04 INT. Imperial Conference Room (Vader chokes Motti) 0:40:54–0:40:59 EXT. Long shot 0:40:59–0:41:06 INT. Detention Block hallway, opens into Leia’s cell 0:41:06–0:41:10 INT. Leia’s cell 0:41:10–0:41:13 INT. Detention Block hallway 0:41:13–0:41:34 INT. Leia’s cell (probe droid enters) Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 0:41:34–0:41:40 INT. Detention Block hallway (door closes) 0:51:12–0:51:16 EXT. Medium shot 0:51:16–0:51:40 INT. Overbridge Control Room (Tarkin sets course for Alderaan) 0:56:58–0:57:04 EXT. Medium shot 0:57:04–0:57:08 INT. Overbridge Control Room (Alderaan visible outside window) 0:57:08–0:57:11 INT. Hallway to Overbridge Control Room (Leia brought in) 0:57:11–0:58:52 INT. Overbridge Control Room (Tarkin orders Alderaan destroyed) 0:58:52–0:59:02 INT. Superlaser Fire Control Room (technicians pull levers) 0:59:02–0:59:04 INT. Particle Accelerator Tube (green beam ﬁ res) 0:59:04–0:59:06 EXT. Superlaser crater (green beams ﬁ re) 0:59:06–0:59:06 INT. Overbridge Control Room (Leia watches Alderaan’s destruction) Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 31

1:02:42–1:03:08 INT. Imperial Conference Room (Tarkin orders Leia’s execution) 1:04:20–1:04:25 EXT. Long shot (Death Star mistaken for small moon) 1:04:32–1:04:35 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 1:04:44–1:04:48 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 1:04:52–1:04:55 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 1:05:03–1:05:08 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 1:05:11–1:05:14 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 1:05:17–1:05:20 EXT. Medium shot (seen outside window) 1:05:20–1:05:24 EXT. Medium shot (Millennium Falcon ﬂ ies toward the Death Star) 1:05:28–1:05:47 EXT. Death Star surface (Millennium Falcon enters the Docking Bay 327) 1:05:47–1:05:54 INT. Hallway (stormtroopers pass through) 1:05:54–1:05:59 INT. Docking Bay 327 (troops exit Millennium Falcon and report) 1:05:59–1:06:14 INT. Imperial Conference Room 1:06:14–1:06:57 INT. Docking Bay 327 (troops ordered to scan Millennium Falcon) 1:07:37–1:08:19 INT. Docking Bay 327 (troops ambushed off-screen) 1:08:19–1:08:29 INT. Docking Control Room 327 (overlooking Docking Bay 327) 1:08:29–1:08:37 INT. Docking Bay 327 1:08:37–1:12:29 INT. Docking Control Room 327 (plans made, droids left hiding there) 1:12:29–1:12:55 INT. Hallway (Chewbacca scares mouse droid) 1:12:55–1:13:30 INT. Elevator balcony by air shaft 1:13:30–1:13:38 INT. Hallway (Kenobi in same hallway where mouse droid was) 1:13:38–1:13:46 INT. Hallway with octagonal doorway (Kenobi passes through) 1:13:46–1:13:51 INT. Hallway 1:13:51–1:14:03 INT. Elevator interior, which opens to Detention Block reception area 1:14:03–1:15:49 INT. Detention Block reception area 1:15:49–1:15:57 INT. Detention Block hallway 1:15:57–1:16:21 INT. Leia’s cell (Luke enters to rescue Leia) 1:16:21–1:17:07 INT. Imperial Conference Room 1:17:07–1:17:10 INT. Hallway with octagonal doorway (Kenobi passes through) 1:17:10–1:17:29 INT. Detention Block reception area 1:17:29–1:17:50 INT. Detention Block hallway 1:17:50–1:18:04 INT. Docking Control Room 327 (C3PO replies) 1:18:04–1:19:06 INT. Detention Block hallway 1:19:06–1:22:12 INT. Garbage compactor room 1:22:12–1:23:03 INT. Docking Control Room 327 1:23:03–1:23:26 INT. Garbage compactor room 1:23:26–1:23:35 INT. Docking Bay 327 1:23:35–1:23:46 INT. Garbage compactor room Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 1:23:46–1:23:59 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:23:59–1:24:02 INT. Garbage compactor room 1:24:02–1:24:05 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:24:05–1:24:06 INT. Garbage compactor room 1:24:06–1:24:10 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:24:10–1:24:17 INT. Garbage compactor room 1:24:17–1:24:23 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:24:23–1:24:25 INT. Garbage compactor room 1:24:25–1:24:27 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:24:27–1:24:29 INT. Garbage compactor room 1:24:29–1:24:30 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 32 Mark J. P. Wolf

1:24:30–1:24:39 INT. Garbage compactor room 1:24:39–1:24:46 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:24:46–1:24:47 INT. Garbage compactor room 1:24:47–1:24:48 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:24:48–1:24:53 INT. Garbage compactor room 1:24:53–1:24:56 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:24:56–1:25:02 INT. Hallway (Kenobi) 1:25:02–1:25:41 INT. Tractor beam controls 1:25:41–1:26:21 INT. Hallway outside garbage compactor room 1:26:21–1:26:58 INT. Tractor beam controls 1:26:58–1:27:06 INT. Hallway overlooking Docking Bay 327 (mouse droid) 1:27:06–1:27:08 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:27:08–1:27:10 INT. Docking Bay 327 1:27:10–1:27:18 INT. Hallway overlooking Docking Bay 327 1:27:18–1:27:31 INT. Hallway 1:27:31–1:27:36 INT. Hallway 1:27:36–1:27:37 INT. Hallway 1:27:37–1:27:39 INT. Stormtrooper room / TIE ﬁ ghter bay 1:27:39–1:27:47 INT. Hallway 1:27:47–1:27:52 INT. Hallway 1:27:52–1:27:53 INT. Hallway to chasm entrance 1:27:53–1:27:58 INT. Chasm (bridge out) 1:27:58–1:28:02 INT. Hallway to chasm entrance 1:28:02–1:28:04 INT. Chasm 1:28:04–1:28:05 INT. Hallway to chasm entrance 1:28:05–1:29:15 INT. Chasm scene (swing across) 1:29:15–1:29:28 INT. Hallway (octagonal doorway) 1:29:28–1:29:38 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:29:38–1:29:52 INT. Hallway (octagonal doorway) 1:29:52–1:31:25 INT. Hallway (Kenobi and Vader) 1:31:25–1:31:41 INT. Hallway (octagonal doorway) 1:31:41–1:31:52 INT. Hallway (Kenobi and Vader) 1:31:52–1:31:54 INT. Docking Bay 327 1:31:54–1:31:55 INT. Hallway (Kenobi and Vader) 1:31:55–1:31:58 INT. Hallway (looking into Docking Bay 327) 1:31:58–1:32:04 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area 1:32:04–1:32:05 INT. Hallway 1:32:05–1:32:13 INT. Docking Bay 327, side area Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 1:32:13–1:32:15 INT. Hallway (Kenobi and Vader) 1:32:15–1:32:16 INT. Docking Bay 327 1:32:16–1:32:25 INT. Hallway (Kenobi and Vader) 1:32:25–1:32:32 INT. Docking Bay 327 1:32:32–1:32:35 INT. Hallway 1:32:35–1:32:54 INT. Docking Bay 327 1:33:03–1:33:11 INT. Docking Bay 327 (looking out) 1:33:19–1:33:21 EXT. Close shot of Death Star exterior 1:36:20–1:36:35 INT. Overbridge Control Room (watching Millennium Falcon leaving) 1:39:04–1:39:11 (Wireframe model of Death Star) Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 33

1:39:11–1:39:16 EXT. Medium shot of Death Star exterior 1:39:16–1:39:24 INT. Imperial Conference Room 1:39:33–1:39:37 (Wireframe model of Death Star) 1:39:44–1:39:49 (Wireframe model of Death Star) 1:39:51–1:40:09 (Wireframe model of Death Star) 1:40:11–1:40:15 (Wireframe model of Death Star) 1:40:17–1:40:18 (Wireframe model of Death Star) 1:40:21–1:40:23 (Wireframe model of Death Star) 1:40:28–1:40:35 (Wireframe model of Death Star) 1:40:38–1:40:41 (Wireframe model of Death Star) 1:40:51–1:40:57 (Wireframe model of Death Star) 1:40:57–1:41:01 EXT. Very long shot of Death Star exterior 1:41:01–1:41:08 INT. Viewscreen (in Overbridge Control Room) 1:41:08–1:41:18 INT. Overbridge Control Room 1:41:18–1:41:20 INT. Viewscreen (in Overbridge Control Room) 1:45:22–1:45:26 EXT. Very long shot of Death Star exterior 1:45:33–1:45:34 EXT. Long shot of Death Star exterior 1:45:41–1:45:45 EXT. Long shot of Death Star exterior 1:45:42–1:45:55 EXT. Close shot of Death Star exterior 1:45:52–1:45:55 EXT. Close shot of Death Star exterior 1:46:00–1:46:03 EXT. Extreme close up of Death Star exterior 1:46:09–1:46:11 EXT. Extreme close up of Death Star exterior 1:46:15–1:46:17 EXT. Extreme close up of Death Star exterior 1:46:17–1:46:18 INT. Laser cannon bay 1:46:20–1:46:22 EXT. Surface 1:46:22–1:46:25 EXT. Surface (gun tower) 1:46:25–1:46:26 EXT. Surface 1:46:30–1:46:33 INT. Laser cannon bay 1:46:33–1:46:34 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:46:34–1:46:36 EXT. Surface 1:46:40–1:46:41 EXT. Surface 1:46:42–1:46:43 EXT. Surface 1:46:44–1:46:46 EXT. Surface 1:46:47–1:46:48 EXT. Surface 1:46:48–1:46:50 EXT. Surface (gun tower) 1:46:50–1:47:02 INT. Hallway leading into Docking Control Room 327 1:47:02–1:47:05 EXT. Surface 1:47:05–1:47:08 EXT. Surface seen outside window Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 1:47:11–1:47:14 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:47:14–1:47:15 EXT. Surface 1:47:15–1:47:18 INT. Hallway 1:47:18–1:47:19 EXT. Laser cannon bay 1:47:26–1:47:27 EXT. Surface 1:47:27–1:47:30 INT. Viewscreen (in Overbridge Control Room) 1:47:30–1:47:33 INT. Overbridge Control Room 1:47:34–1:47:35 EXT. Surface 1:47:41–1:47:43 EXT. Surface 1:47:43–1:47:44 INT. Laser cannon bay 34 Mark J. P. Wolf

1:47:46–1:47:47 EXT. Surface 1:47:56–1:47:57 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:48:01–1:48:02 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:48:02–1:47:03 EXT. Surface 1:48:06–1:48:07 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:48:08–1:48:10 EXT. Surface 1:48:11–1:48:12 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:48:12–1:48:14 EXT. Surface 1:48:16–1:48:17 EXT. Surface 1:48:19–1:48:21 EXT. Surface 1:48:24–1:48:25 EXT. Surface 1:48:25–1:48:27 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:48:29–1:48:38 INT. Hallway 1:48:52–1:48:55 EXT. Surface 1:49:02–1:49:06 EXT. Surface 1:49:06–1:49:07 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:49:08–1:49:09 EXT. Surface 1:49:09–1:49:10 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:49:30–1:49:32 INT. View out of the TIE docking bay doorway 1:49:32–1:49:35 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:49:38–1:49:43 EXT. Surface (entering trench) 1:49:43–1:49:51 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:49:51–1:49:53 EXT. Trench 1:49:53–1:49:54 EXT. Trench (gun tower) 1:49:54–1:49:56 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:50:02–1:50:05 EXT. Trench 1:50:05–1:50:08 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:50:08–1:50:10 (Wireframe trench) 1:50:10–1:50:17 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:50:17–1:50:18 EXT. Trench 1:50:18–1:50:23 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:50:24–1:50:25 EXT. Surface 1:50:29–1:50:31 EXT. Trench 1:50:35–1:50:38 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:50:38–1:50:39 EXT. Trench 1:50:39–1:50:40 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:50:40–1:50:41 EXT. Trench 1:50:41–1:50:42 EXT. Trench seen outside window Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 1:50:42–1:50:43 EXT. Trench 1:50:43–1:50:48 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:50:48–1:50:50 EXT. Trench 1:50:50–1:50:52 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:50:52–1:50:54 EXT. Trench 1:50:54–1:50:54 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:50:57–1:50:59 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:50:59–1:51:01 EXT. Surface 1:51:03–1:51:15 INT. Overbridge Control Room 1:51:15–1:51:18 INT. Viewscreen (in Overbridge Control Room) 1:51:30–1:51:34 EXT. Surface seen outside window Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 35

1:51:35–1:51:37 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:51:41–1:51:45 EXT. Surface 1:51:47–1:51:48 EXT. Trench 1:51:48–1:51:50 EXT. Trench (gun tower) 1:51:50–1:51:51 EXT. Trench 1:51:51–1:51:52 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:51:52–1:51:55 EXT. Trench 1:51:55–1:51:57 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:51:57–1:51:59 EXT. Trench 1:51:59–1:52:00 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:03–1:52:04 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:06–1:52:07 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:07–1:52:08 EXT. Trench 1:52:08–1:52:09 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:09–1:52:11 (Wireframe trench) 1:52:11–1:52:12 EXT. Trench 1:52:12–1:52:14 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:17–1:52:18 EXT. Trench 1:52:20–1:52:22 (Wireframe trench) 1:52:22–1:52:23 EXT. Trench 1:52:26–1:52:28 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:28–1:52:29 EXT. Trench 1:52:29–1:52:33 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:33–1:52:34 (Wireframe trench) 1:52:34–1:52:35 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:35–1:52:36 EXT. Trench 1:52:36–1:52:37 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:37–1:52:39 EXT. Trench 1:52:40–1:52:41 (Wireframe trench) 1:52:43–1:52:44 EXT. Trench 1:52:44–1:52:45 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:45–1:52:46 EXT. Trench 1:52:46–1:52:49 INT. Hallway 1:52:51–1:52:53 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:52:56–1:52:57 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:53:08–1:53:09 EXT. Surface seen outside window 1:53:15–1:53:17 EXT. Surface 1:53:18–1:53:21 EXT. Surface seen outside window Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 1:53:24–1:53:26 INT. Viewscreen (in Overbridge Control Room) 1:53:26–1:53:28 INT. Overbridge Control Room 1:53:43–1:53:48 EXT. Surface (entering trench) 1:53:50–1:53:54 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:53:54–1:53:56 EXT. Trench 1:53:56–1:53:58 EXT. Trench (gun tower) 1:54:00–1:54:01 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:54:04–1:54:06 EXT. Trench 1:54:07–1:54:09 EXT. Trench 1:54:14–1:54:16 EXT. Trench 1:54:16–1:54:19 EXT. Trench (double gun towers) 36 Mark J. P. Wolf

1:54:20–1:54:21 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:54:21–1:54:24 EXT. Trench 1:54:24–1:54:28 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:54:28–1:54:29 EXT. Trench 1:54:29–1:54:30 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:54:31–1:54:33 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:54:34–1:54:38 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:54:39–1:54:39 EXT. Trench 1:54:42–1:54:45 EXT. Trench 1:54:48–1:54:52 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:54:52–1:54:56 EXT. Trench 1:54:57–1:54:58 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:55:00–1:55:01 EXT. Trench 1:55:03–1:55:04 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:55:04–1:55:06 EXT. Trench 1:55:07–1:55:09 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:55:09–1:55:12 INT. Overbridge Control Room 1:55:13–1:55:17 EXT. Trench 1:55:22–1:55:24 (Wireframe trench) 1:55:24–1:55:25 EXT. Trench 1:55:27–1:55:30 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:55:30–1:55:32 EXT. Trench 1:55:32–1:55:34 (Wireframe trench) 1:55:37–1:55:39 EXT. Trench 1:55:41–1:55:43 EXT. Trench 1:55:44–1:55:45 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:55:50–1:55:52 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:55:59–1:56:01 EXT. Trench 1:56:02–1:56:05 EXT. Trench 1:56:08–1:56:09 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:56:09–1:56:11 EXT. Trench 1:56:12–1:56:13 EXT. Trench 1:56:21–1:56:22 INT. Viewscreen (in Overbridge Control Room) 1:56:22–1:56:25 INT. Overbridge Control Room 1:56:25–1:56:30 INT. Superlaser Fire Control Room 1:56:30–1:56:33 EXT. Trench 1:56:36–1:56:37 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:56:37–1:56:38 EXT. Trench Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 1:56:39–1:56:40 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:56:42–1:56:44 EXT. Trench 1:56:44–1:56:45 EXT. Trench seen outside window 1:56:49–1:56:51 EXT. Trench 1:57:00–1:57:01 EXT. Trench 1:57:03–1:57:08 INT. Superlaser Fire Control Room 1:57:08–1:57:10 EXT. Long shot 1:57:10–1:57:11 INT. Superlaser Fire Control Room 1:57:11–1:57:12 INT. Overbridge Control Room 1:57:12–1:57:22 EXT. Long shot, Death Star explodes Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 37

17. One two-second shot of a gun tower fi ring is repeated twice, once at 1:51:48 and then again at 1:53:56. Other shots are also duplicated in the fi lm; for example, a fi ve- second point-of-view shot of a fi ghter entering the trench is used at 1:49:38 and then again at 1:53:43. 18. It can be found elsewhere, for example in the Death Star Technical Companion (1991) and the “Overbridge” entry of Wookieepedia, The Star Wars Wiki, available at http:// starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Overbridge. 19. The Superlaser Fire Control Room is perhaps the most questionable representation, however; although the superlaser of set #10188 does have control panels on its swivel- ing base, they differ somewhat from those seen in the fi lm. The fi lm, however, depicts the control room as mainly banks of lights and switches, with little other detail. 20. Of course, some scenes would require the Millennium Falcon to be present in the docking bay, but none is provided, since a scale one would be too small for the minifi gures to enter. 21. The appearances of the Death Star in Episode VI are as follows:

Star Wars, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi [2:14:40 total]

0:01:59–0:02:24 EXT. Long shot of Death Star 0:02:28–0:02:33 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 0:02:36–0:02:45 INT. Communications Room (overlooks shuttle docking bay) 0:02:45–0:02:48 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 0:02:52–0:02:59 EXT. Trench, medium shot 0:02:59–0:03:07 EXT. Trench (inside) 0:03:07–0:03:14 INT. Shuttle ddocking bay 0:03:14–0:03:20 INT. Communications Room 0:03:20–0:04:59 INT. Shuttle docking bay 0:37:06–0:38:00 EXT. Surface and trench 0:38:00–0:39:30 INT. Shuttle docking bay 0:49:13–0:49:15 (Wireframe model of Death Star with moon) 0:49:21–0:49:26 (Wireframe model of Death Star with moon) 0:49:44–0:49:50 (Wireframe model of Death Star with moon) 0:50:07–0:50:12 (Wireframe model of Death Star with moon) 0:50:16–0:50:30 (Wireframe model of Death Star with moon) 0:53:30–0:53:33 EXT. Long shot 0:53:33–0:53:40 EXT. Surface 0:53:40–0:54:22 INT. Emperor’s Throne Room 0:54:28–0:54:31 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 0:54:37–0:54:42 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 0:54:46–0:54:50 EXT. Long shot 0:54:55–0:54:57 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 0:55:01–0:55:05 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 0:55:16–0:55:22 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 0:55:57–0:56:02 EXT. Medium shot 0:56:16–0:56:21 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 0:56:32–0:56:34 EXT. Close shot (seen outside window) 0:56:38–0:56:44 EXT. Medium shot 0:56:44–0:56:52 EXT. Close shot (seen outside window) 38 Mark J. P. Wolf

1:06:16–1:06:21 EXT. Close shot 1:06:21–1:07:44 INT. Emperor’s Throne Room 1:30:00–1:30:06 EXT. Long shot 1:30:06–1:33:15 INT. Emperor’s Throne Room 1:34:03–1:34:03 EXT. Very long shot (seen outside window) 1:34:07–1:34:11 EXT. Very long shot (seen outside window) 1:34:11–1:34:14 EXT. Very long shot (seen outside window) 1:34:25–1:34:28 EXT. Long shot 1:34:44–1:34:45 EXT. Close shot (seen outside window) 1:34:53–1:34:55 EXT. Close shot 1:34:57–1:35:00 EXT. Close shot (seen outside window) 1:35:14–1:35:15 EXT. Medium shot 1:35:28–1:36:37 INT. Emperor’s Throne Room 1:40:20–1:40:23 EXT. Long shot 1:41:06–1:41:09 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 1:41:10–1:41:20 EXT. Long shot (seen outside window) 1:41:20–1:41:43 INT. Emperor’s Throne Room 1:41:43–1:41:48 INT. Superlaser Fire Control Room 1:41:48–1:41:50 INT. Overbridge Control Room 1:41:50–1:41:51 INT. Particle Accelerator Tube (green beam fi res) 1:41:51–1:41:52 EXT. Superlaser crater (green beams fi re) 1:43:52–1:43:53 EXT. Superlaser crater (green beams fi re) 1:43:53–1:43:55 EXT. Long shot 1:44:09–1:44:12 EXT. Long shot 1:44:23–1:45:22 INT. Emperor’s Throne Room 1:48:37–1:50:36 INT. Emperor’s Throne Room 1:50:39–1:50:40 EXT. Long shot 1:51:31–1:54:32 INT. Emperor’s Throne Room 1:54:52–1:54:53 EXT. Close shot (seen outside window) 1:54:58–1:55:03 EXT. Very close shot 1:55:03–1:57:34 INT. Emperor’s Throne Room 1:57:34–1:57:42 EXT. Surface 1:57:43–1:57:46 EXT. Surface 1:57:49–1:57:52 EXT. Surface and entering infrastructure 1:57:52–1:57:55 INT. Inside infrastructure 1:57:57–1:58:02 INT. Inside infrastructure 1:58:02–1:58:05 INT. Inside infrastructure (seen outside window) 1:58:05–1:58:13 INT. Inside infrastructure Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 1:58:13–1:58:17 INT. Inside infrastructure (seen outside window) 1:58:18–1:58:20 INT. Inside infrastructure 1:58:23–1:58:27 INT. Inside infrastructure (seen outside window) 1:58:27–1:58:32 INT. Inside infrastructure 1:58:33–1:58:36 INT. Inside infrastructure (seen outside window) 1:58:38–1:58:42 INT. Inside infrastructure 1:59:22–1:59:29 EXT. Surface 1:59:29–1:59:32 INT. Hallway (mouse droid) 1:59:32–2:01:53 INT. Main docking bay 2:01:53–2:01:57 INT. Inside infrastructure 2:01:58–2:02:01 INT. Inside infrastructure Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: Set #10188 39

2:02:01–2:02:07 INT. Inside infrastructure (seen outside window) 2:02:07–2:02:16 INT. Inside infrastructure 2:02:18–2:02:26 INT. Inside infrastructure 2:02:27–2:02:29 (Wireframe model of Death Star) 2:02:29–2:02:33 INT. Shuttle docking bay 2:02:35–2:02:36 EXT. Shuttle docking bay entrance 2:02:39–2:02:40 EXT. Surface 2:02:40–2:02:42 INT. Inside infrastructure (seen outside window) 2:02:42–2:02:43 EXT. Surface 2:02:46–2:02:52 INT. Inside infrastructure 2:02:54–2:02:55 INT. Inside infrastructure (seen outside window) 2:02:55–2:02:57 EXT. Surface 2:03:01–2:03:12 EXT. Long shot (Death Star explodes)

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 3 MIDDLE-EARTH AND LEGO (RE)CREATION

Neal Baker

This essay offers a new vantage for Tolkien scholarship and Adaptation Studies by engaging with LEGO sets based on Middle-earth. To date, Tolkien scholars have occasionally produced analyses of adapted fan fi ction, art, music, radio, card games, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), and comic books. 1 Following the release of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings fi lm trilogy, numerous commentators have also considered Tolkien screen issues from a variety of angles. 2 Until now, though, there has been no account of the processes involved in the recreation of Middle-earth via plastic brick sets themed after Jackson’s Tolkien fi lms. Produced by LEGO since 2012, I will examine the 25 sets on sale as of this writing (in early 2014) tied to The Lord of the Rings fi lm trilogy (2001–3), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), and The Hobbit: The Desola- tion of Smaug (2013). Situated within the broader fi eld of Adaptation Studies, this essay further complicates an area of inquiry that until fairly recently tended to juxtapose literature with fi lm. For more than a decade, scholars have increasingly questioned a perceived over-reliance on simple, page-to-screen comparison. 3 A

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 concurrent, rising interest in transmedial franchises and questions about the boundaries of adaptation provide an entry point for LEGO sets as viable objects of study. 4 More recently, and with particular resonance for anyone studying non-narrative material, Mark J. P. Wolf observes that Adaptation Studies “has typically been most concerned with how narratives change when they move from one medium to another. The growth and adaptation of a world, however, goes beyond narrative, and may even have very little to do with narrative”. 5 Located at the nexus of ﬁ lm and toy, narrative and non-narrative, the LEGO sets literally modeled after Jackson’s Middle-earth ﬁ lms permit new ways to think about adaptation. Middle-earth and LEGO (Re)creation 41

My overarching concept for this essay is that of recreation, a word that can be understood in two separate senses. First of all, “recreation” means to make something anew, again. In this sense, LEGO set designers seek to recreate Jackson’s cinematic Middle-earth by means of LEGO bricks and minifi gures. Second, “recreation” refers to an enjoyable activity. In this sense, LEGO set designers aim to fashion a ludic, interactive experience. Taken together, these two senses of “recreation” demarcate the range of intra-set creative choices available to LEGO sets adapted from fi lm. Intra-set creative choices are better understood, even so, in the context of additional, inter-set creative choices among the LEGO Middle-earth product line. Moreover, intra- and inter-set creative choices take place within broader patterns of creative choice involving what material is selected to adapt from Jackson’s fi lms. As a result, this essay examines both which parts of Jackson’s Middle-earth fi lms LEGO adapts— narrative choices, in effect—and how LEGO parts are then used to spatialize narrative. Put another why, I answer “What?” and “How?” questions about LEGO media spin-offs.

LEGO The Lord of the Rings: May 2012 The initial six Middle-earth LEGO sets released in May 2012 take The Lord of the Rings fi lms as their source. With the exception of Shelob Attacks (set #9470), the sets are drawn from The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. This emphasis on the fi rst two fi lms evinces an overall, inter-set product strategy that roughly conforms to the narrative arc of Jackson’s triptych. However, two of the sets are devoid of almost any narrative whatsoever. Uruk-hai Army (set #9471) pits the Rohirrim Lord Éomer, and a Rohan soldier against two of Saruman’s warrior minions from behind the walls of an unnamed fortress, an encounter never seen or referenced in the Jackson fi lms. The Orc Forge (set #9476) depicts the teeming, industrialized caverns below Isengard as memorably conveyed through vertiginous cinematography and CGI in two scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring. As James G. Davis has pointed out, these Isengard scenes “contrast to the few almost off-hand mentions of it” in Tolkien’s prose. 6 The vivid screen embellishment of Saruman’s war effort downplays plot in favor of maximum

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 ambience, privileging location over narration. Sets #9471 and #9476 thus suggest an awareness of potential derived from world-building as opposed to narrative. The Lord of the Rings 2012 LEGO sets also suggest an awareness of world- building, specifi cally via the fi lm trilogy’s “more and longer action scenes”. 7 While action scenes can and do present vital narrative information, the stress tilts heavily toward spectacle as opposed to plot. 8 The sets Shelob Attacks (#9470), Attack on Weathertop (#9472), The Mines of Moria (#9473), and The Battle of Helm’s Deep (#9474) all recreate special-effects-laden action scenes from the fi lms. In fact, there is a correlation between the number of bricks in the 42 Neal Baker

action-themed sets and the scale of the fi lm source pyrotechnics. Set #9474 accordingly comprises 1,368 pieces to recreate the storm-wracked, cataclysmic clash of armies at the climax of The Two Towers. In descending order based on magnitude, set #9473 uses 776 pieces to recreate the underground assault on the fellowship in the chamber of Mazarbul; set #9472 uses 430 pieces to recreate the Nazgûl push on Weatherop; and set #9470 uses 227 pieces to recreate Shelob’s attempt to waylay Frodo and Sam at Cirith Ungol. To begin to understand the intra-set creative choices available to LEGO designers, the more sedate set Gandalf Arrives (#9469) is a point of departure. Atypical in its quietude—no alarms, monster fi ghts, or massive digital crowd engines—the set ushers in the LEGO Middle-earth product line and recreates the trilogy’s pastoral, opening scene from the Third Age. Gandalf appears again in the Shire after a long absence, astride a horse pulling a cart of fi reworks for Bilbo’s 111st birthday party. Totaling 83 pieces, set #9469 approaches transmedial recreation through creative choices with LEGO “elements”—bricks and minifi gures instead of the special, built-in interactive “functions” found in many sets. The cart moves, but that is the extent of the action per se except for the potential for character minifi gure motion. Such minifi gure motion is a given across most LEGO products and not a set feature in and of itself. Set #9469’s value proposition resides in its elements, so the packaging spotlights not only the main components that recreate the fi lm scene (horse, cart, Gandalf, and Frodo), but also more detailed accessory elements. Set #9469 amounts to a seemingly faithful recreation of the fi lm scene at fi rst glance, but closer examination reveals creative choices that constitute discrepancies in terms of LEGO elements. For one thing, the most prominent prop in the corresponding fi lm scene is absent—Gandalf’s pipe. This creative choice is open to interpretation, but presumably relates to the recommended 8–14-year- old age bracket for the set. More curious, three of the elements are add-ons absent from the fi lm. A carrot element can be used to feed the horse, thereby allowing for a modicum of intra-set interactivity through accessories. Two other elements, however, do little if anything to foster intra-set interactivity and instead embed narrative elements, literally and fi guratively, from subsequent fi lm scenes into #9469: an envelope which seems to be that into which Bilbo grudgingly

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 deposits the One Ring into before departure for Rivendell, and a small, red serpent fi rework, which is later stolen and lit by Merry and Pippin to comic effect. Not only is the fi rework from a later scene in the fi lm (and packed away off-screen when Gandalf arrives), it is a small, red serpent accessory from the LEGO Ninjago product line. Within the set #9469 recreation of The Lord of Rings fi lm trilogy Shire opening, therefore, and the inauguration of the entire LEGO Middle-earth product line, are literal narrative elements linked to different fi lm scenes (like the envelope and red serpent) and a different LEGO product category (the red serpent). LEGO recreation strategies are not as straightforward as they seem. Middle-earth and LEGO (Re)creation 43

The set #9469 minifi gures embody creative choices across LEGO Middle- earth and most contemporary LEGO product lines in general. Clearly, a concerted effort is made to recreate Jackson’s fi lms due to the pre-existing visual design. The scalar relations between Frodo and Gandalf roughly approximate the height differential of halfl ings and Istari, and the minifi gure clothing-equivalent adheres to the source scene. Removable hair (facial and otherwise) indexes the fi lm characters as well, as does Gandalf’s removable gray cloak. Gandalf’s head element is printed with bushy eyebrows and wrinkles, while Frodo’s is printed with a half-smile. Stated more precisely, the minifi gures strive for a sort of LEGO mimesis. It is obvious that the characters are not realistic, but great pains are taken to make them simultaneously signify LEGO and the Jackson Middle-earth fi lms. There is a degree of realism within the LEGO brand, as it were. Although realism is, of course, a highly debatable point, the impulse here is to acknowledge that Middle-earth minifi gures are at once representational and presentational. 9 They represent the fi lm source, certainly, but via stylized, LEGO conventions that adhere to a recognizable, global corporate brand more than they imitate the live-action fi gures of the fi lm. Within the LEGO universe, the presence of a minifi gure in a given set acquires value relative to other products so that exclusivity becomes a defi ning characteristic. A selling point for set #9469 is the exclusive Gandalf minifi gure, in this respect. Most other LEGO Middle-earth sets include at least one exclusive minifi gure, and the inclusion or omission of characters from a source scene makes for an intra-set creative choice relative to inter-set minifi gure availability, as well as further evidence of LEGO mimesis. Set recreation does not necessitate exact correspondence to the number of people in a fi lm scene, such that minifi gures frequently become synecdochal for various character combinations. For example, collectors need to purchase multiple The Lord of the Rings sets if they want to own all members of the fellowship, even though the fellowship members are frequently all present for the events depicted in each set. Set #9469, though, accurately contains the two protagonists from Jackson’s source scene. The Mines of Moria (set #9473) affords a more complex example of LEGO recreation strategies that foreground discrepancies resulting from creative choices with both elements and interactive functions. Depicting the subterranean skir-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 mish at Balin’s tomb from The Fellowship of the Ring , this larger set is boxed with Boromir, Gimli, Legolas, and an exclusive Pippin minifi gure to represent the heroes, and two Moria orc minifi gures that stand in for the fi lm’s goblin swarm. While it might be plausible to question designer choice in terms of minifi gure selection (the elision of Aragorn, Merry, Frodo, and Gandalf from the fellowship, and the decision to include two Moria orcs instead of three or four), the set’s roster suffi ces as a typical LEGO synecdoche for Jackson’s ful- some cast. It also suggests an inter-set, LEGO product strategy that attempts to balance minifi gure exclusivity across The Lord of the Rings range (e.g. set #9472 Attack on Weathertop contains an exclusive Merry minifi gure but no Pippin, 44 Neal Baker

even though he is present at Amon Súl in the fi lm). Set #9473 in addition comes with a huge cave troll that looms over the other minifi gures like Jackson’s CGI fi lm beast. The set is organized into four buildable areas that recreate parts of the scene’s setting: the Chamber of Mazurbal doorway, Balin’s tomb, a well, and a chamber wall. Set #9473’s chamber wall shows LEGO recreation strategies at work. First, the wall includes several LEGO elements not found in the fi lm. The most glar- ing additions are a dwarven treasure chest fi lled with jewels, and a centerpiece dwarven library rendered via decals. Sundry accessories amount to detritus from Balin’s failed expedition to reclaim Khazad-dûm: eight abandoned weapons, a book, a bottle, a barrel, and a pickaxe. Two wall-mounted torches substitute for the single torch carried by Aragorn in the fi lm. With the exception of the dwarven library decals, all of the elements are modular in that they can be interacted with ad infi nitum and swapped across any LEGO set. The elements add recreational value both by generally recreating the look and feel of the fi lm, albeit with divergences, and in terms of future playability. Second, the set #9473 chamber wall includes LEGO functions that are not present in the fi lm. These functions can be conceived of as explicit interactivity prompts within a modular play environment of implicit interactivity. While practically innumerable recombinant possibilities are available using any LEGO elements sourced from any set, set-specifi c functions supply explicit interactive possibilities that might be read as “authorized” for that set. In set #9473, for example, the dwarven treasure chest retracts into a concealed compartment beneath the library and can be triggered to open. Two columns fl anking the dwarven library can topple when levers are pressed. Such functions add explicit, authorized movement to what might otherwise result in an out-of-the box, static diorama. By adding explicit interactivity through functions (on top of the implicit interactivity of component elements), LEGO designers move beyond tableaux to recreational playsets. 10 The rest of set #9473 exemplifi es LEGO recreation strategies that foreground discrepancies resulting from creative choices with both elements and interactive functions. On the one hand, over a dozen decals attempt to recreate the mise- en-scène of Jackson’s Chamber of Mazurbal through optional, stick-on masonry

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 scarring, mildewed wood, and runic inscriptions. A book accessory and two skeleton minifi gures double for their fi lm counterparts, although the skeletons are human-sized and not dwarven, and the book is more of a slim volume than the on-screen, voluminous tome. Taken as a whole, regardless, the elements aptly recreate the fi lm in a LEGO environment. On the other hand, two LEGO functions allow for recreation in the sense of interactivity but only one recreates Jackson’s work. Conforming to its source, set #9473 has a built-in function whereby a skeleton can fall into the well adjacent to Balin’s tomb. Eschewing fi delity to both the fi lm narrative and the mise-en-scène , a second function launches the lid off Balin’s tomb to reveal the skeleton inside. Middle-earth and LEGO (Re)creation 45

Where set #9473 privileges Moria mayhem and set #9469 recreates Shire tranquility, Attack on Weathertop (#9472) balances the martial and bucolic aspects of Middle-earth through LEGO creative choices that diverge from the fi lm. Set #9472’s special, two-level hinged design results in three separate but linked settings. The outer, lower level of the set recreates the hollow where Aragorn and the hobbits camp beneath the watchtower. “Cook with the fi replace!” enthuses the product summary at the LEGO online store, 11 and the set’s bright-colored, culinary elements include a carrot, a drumstick, a green apple, a cooking pot, and a storage rucksack. The bright-colored food elements rest atop a small fi replace with two fl ame elements, all built upon a dark green base that contrasts with the rest of the set’s somber-hued components. The colors and elements lend a dollhouse atmosphere to this portion of set #9472 and indicate a port- manteau approach, with the fi replace parts implicitly signaling hours of peaceful, cooking recreation. Five other exclamation points in the set #9472 product summary point to more dangerous pursuits, however, and underscore LEGO recreation strategies: “Open the fortress to play inside! Defend Weathertop by fi ring the hidden fl ick missiles! Find the hidden weapon rack! Spring the trapdoor!” 12 In a feat of transmedial one-upmanship, the LEGO designers here pile on more bedlam than Jackson’s derring-do Tolkien adaptation. Whereas the Nazgûl in the fi lm have an easy time of it, materializing out of the darkness to corner Frodo and company in the Arnorian ruins, their LEGO counterparts contend with a hidden fortress defense system that shoots missiles at them. If they manage to make it to the ruins, a trapdoor can still send them plunging to their doom below (or their cooking). Neither set function recreates the fi lm; the functions instead heighten the interactive possibility of LEGO recreation at the expense of accurately recreating the fi lm. A similar situation obtains with the hidden weapon rack and accompanying elements nested within the hinged set design. No fortress interior exists in Jackson’s fi lm (or in Tolkien’s book!), extended version or otherwise, but the sword, spear, and rat elements portend quality LEGO time for those whose interests gravitate toward Arnor heirloom arms, not to mention vermin. All told, set #9472 is to Jackson as Jackson is to Tolkien: a muscular, occasionally whimsical recreation. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

LEGO The Hobbit: November 2012 The next batch of Middle-earth LEGO sets released in November 2012 use The Hobbit ﬁ lms as their source. As with The Lord of the Rings assortment in May 2012, most are keyed to action scenes: Escape from Mirkwood Spiders (#79001), Attack of the Wargs (#79002), Barrel Escape (#79004), and The Goblin King Battle (#79010). Major, late, and audacious post-production decisions by Jackson to make three ﬁ lms out of The Hobbit instead of two result in a bizarre situation where set #79001 Escape from Mirkwood Spiders and set #79004 Barrel Escape 46 Neal Baker

display the label, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey even though they involve material from the December 2013 fi lm, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug . This singular state of affairs might explain the mismatch between the relatively small number of 334 pieces for set #79004 and its lengthy, hyperbolic fi lm equivalent that seems ready for a sprawling LEGO recreation. Set #79000, Riddles for the Ring , begins LEGO The Hobbit offerings and is an ambitious project. The set recreates an iconic scene of arguably unrivaled narrative importance, laden with drama, but containing little action. It is essentially a conversation in the dark. The LEGO recreation strategies here consist largely of elements, to interesting effect. The most special element by far in set #79000 is the Gollum minifi gure, a radical change from previous LEGO recreations of fi ctional humanoids. Unlike Dobby the house elf from the Harry Potter product line or Yoda from the Star Wars product lines, for example, the LEGO Gollum is not a smaller, standard minifi gure with a custom head element. He is a misshapen, hunched minifi gure like no other. Just as both the screen and literary Gollum cut a striking fi gure, the LEGO minifi gure fi ts the profi le of what Tolkien scholars have identifi ed as “difference personifi ed” 13 and as an “‘abnormal’, different subjectivity [is] marked on the body”. 14 The Bilbo minifi gure is likewise special, albeit to a lesser extent. Unlike the vast majority of minifi gures, set #79000’s Bilbo head element is printed with two facial expressions—he can be resolute or frightened depending on how the head is positioned—a creative choice that acknowledges the gravity of the source. To bolster the appeal of the set, special accessories include the One Ring and the elven blade, Sting. A stab at explicit interactivity comes in the form of a built-in, hidden compartment function for the One Ring, in addition. Similar to set #79000, An Unexpected Gathering (#79003) accentuates LEGO recreation in terms of special elements that lead to implicit interactivity—not explicit, built-in interactive functions. More than any other 2012 LEGO Middle-earth set, #79003 recreates a Jackson fi lm location and, in so doing, furnishes a dollhouse- type experience. The comfortable Baggins abode at Bag End contains 652 pieces, second among the fi rst six The Hobbit sets only to the 841-piece recreation of the Goblin capture, battle, and chase in #79010. The level of domestic detail resembles set #3315, Olivia’s House, from the Friends product line targeting young females,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 also released in 2012, or set #31012, Family House, from the Creator product line in 2013. Food elements include a pretzel, sausage, drumsticks, bread, carrots, and apples. Two goblets, bottles, plates, and pans round out the kitchen utensils, and there is a writing nook for Bilbo replete with two quill pens and lighting accessories. As beﬁ ts any respectable hobbit hole, Bag End is festooned with ﬂ owers and other plants. Altogether, set #79003 excels at recreating Jackson’s mise-en-scène . Set #79003 elements arguably violate narrative continuity, however. A copy of what appears to be the Red Book of Westmarch is included, along with three maps covering the Shire, Mirkwood Forest and part of Wilderland east of the Misty Mountains, and the Lonely Mountain. Sting, the elven sword, is displayed Middle-earth and LEGO (Re)creation 47

in pride of place. With the exception of the Shire map, none of these elements should be present at the time of the unexpected gathering at Bag End (spring, 2941 of the Third Age). The Lonely Mountain map is debatable, since it is based on a section of Thrór’s map of Erebor brought to Bag End by Gandalf. It is exactly the set’s “ Unexpected Gathering ” title that causes confusion for Tolkien cognoscenti. (In a way, the title also ironically (and unintentionally) alludes to the odd collecting of these anachronistic objects together.) The set at one and the same time recreates Bag End at the start of The Hobbit with narrative elements from months or many years in the future. Set #79003 is at once rooted in time and confl ates time. Title notwithstanding, the chronological ambiguity of set #79003’s elements is warranted as an incisive LEGO creative choice considering its fi lm source. Unlike Tolkien’s book, the plot of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens at Bag End not in the year 2941 of the Third Age but just before Bilbo’s 111st- birthday in 3001. Bilbo labors over what will eventually become the Red Book of Westmarch and by now owns Sting and is knowledgeable about Rhovanion geography. As such, seemingly incongruous LEGO elements make sense. So too does the choice of minifi gures. Five exclusive minifi gures can be dated to 2941 at the outset of the quest to Erebor—a youthful Bilbo (middle-aged by Shire standards), and the dwarves Balin, Dwalin, Bofur, and Bombur. A non-exclusive Gandalf minifi gure completes the set, one not necessarily pegged to a discernible date and place. Just as the page-and-screen Gandalf character transits through Middle-earth time and space, cropping up regularly in the Shire after 2941, so the LEGO Grey Pilgrim minifi gure appears in various sets. Among The Hobbit products from 2012, set #79001, Escape from Mirkwood Spiders, probably crams the optimum combination of elements and functions into the fewest number of pieces. All told, its 298 pieces encompass three exclusive minifi gures plus Legolas, two large spiders with uncommonly articulated bodies, three smaller arachnids, and seven weapons to kill them with using either ranged or close attacks. Instead of the normative, vivid green LEGO leaves, two Mirkwood trees feature moldy red and brown foliage. Extra macabre touches include three skulls and two bones, two mushrooms with glow-in-the-dark stalks, two cocoons in which to place hapless minifi gure victims, and glow-in-the-dark eyes for the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 large spiders. Two functions lend high-impact interactivity to the gruesome ambience and level the playing ﬁ eld for the set’s forces. For those who favor malevolent foes, a small spider launches out of a hole beneath a tree. Sylvan elf and dwarf fans in turn can upend the taller tree to rescue heroes from the spider cocoons.

LEGO Middle-earth: 2013 More LEGO Middle-earth sets were delivered in the second half of 2013. Five sets from The Lord of the Rings series became available for sale in the summer, with predictable, ready-to-wage-war strongholds like The Tower of Orthanc 48 Neal Baker

(#10237) and Battle at the Black Gate (#79007) among the largest (2,359 and 656 pieces, respectively). Much smaller at 113 pieces, set #79005, The Wizard Battle, recreates mano a mano combat between Gandalf and Saruman. Four sets themed on The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug likewise spoil for action in their subject matter, albeit more esoterically. Steering clear of the main quest for Erebor narrative, two of the four The Hobbit sets from 2013 follow Gandalf’s side trip to the Necromancer’s lair (Dol Guldur Ambush (#79011) and Dol Guldur Battle (#79014)). Set #79012, Mirkwood Elf Army, also sidesteps plot in favor of a woodland realm garrison never shown in the fi lm. Only set #79013, Lake-town Chase , approaches the main narrative en route to Smaug’s lair. Amalgamation distinguishes the LEGO sets recreating Jackson’s sequel to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. To be sure, The Desolation of Smaug sets give new variations on the LEGO bundle of exclusive minifi gures, custom elements, and assorted functions. How and what the sets fi t together is more notable. Sets #79011 and #79014 recreate the Dol Guldur location from 217 and 797 pieces, respectively, and are built to be combined to form a more prodigious evil bas- tion. Set #79012, Mirkwood Elf Army, meanwhile, puts a fresh take on garrison construction. First, the set seems to mix design aspects of Thranduil’s fortress palace with an elven river stockade unique to Jackson’s fi lm. It also throws in a guard tree for the woodland realm never shown in the fi lm. The resulting hybrid has the look and feel of a bona fi de wood elf redoubt from Jackson’s fi lm, but is not so much a LEGO recreation as an original creation. Second, this original creation is modularly designed to fi t together with multiple instances of the same set to make a jumbo elf fastness. Viewed as an ensemble, three out of the four Desolation of Smaug sets thus manifest an “arms race” approach to LEGO recreation, all explicitly engineered to prompt the construction of big, bristling bulwarks with larger, more lethal armies. World-building becomes warmongering, with narrative pushed aside. Of the LEGO 2013 sets based on The Lord of the Rings, two arrive as a surprise. Set #79008, Pirate Ship Ambush, devotes a generous 756 pieces to a plot development barely seen at all in the Return of the King theatrical release and for less than a minute in the extended edition. As Sauron’s host imperils Minas Tirith, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas commandeer a Corsairs of Umbar vessel and

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 sail to the rescue with spectral recruits from the Army of the Dead. The counter- attack throws Sauron’s forces into disarray and marks a turning point in the War of the Ring. Although the Corsair subterfuge is a pivotal plot twist, it is an auxiliary incident to the titanic Battle of the Pelennor Fields that occupies a huge amount of screen time. The decision to lavishly recreate a ship only glimpsed in the fi lm makes little sense at fi rst, especially since LEGO has to date ignored the recreational potential of the epic Minas Tirith battle scenes that aggrandize Jackson’s Return of the King . Set #79008 is better understood through 2013 inter-set comparison, specifi - cally, as a naval contribution to the LEGO Middle-earth arms race. The Corsair Middle-earth and LEGO (Re)creation 49

ship is a fl oating fortress protected by 10 plain shields, 14 decorated shields, an assortment of custom Umbar spike protuberances, an oversized and out-of- proportion battering ram, and a fi ring crossbow function. Its glow-in-the-dark, Army of the Dead draftees are opposed by two Mordor orcs and their fi ring catapult function. Similar to the Mirkwood-themed Desolation of Smaug fortress sets #79011, #79012, and #79014, as well as set #79007, Battle at the Black Gate , and set #10237, The Tower of Orthanc, from the The Lord of the Rings product line, Pirate Ship Ambush exhibits a tendency toward world-building as warmongering. Its Corsair vessel can be combined with others to form a squadron or fl eet, so that, by land and by sea, LEGO Middle-earth militarizes in 2013. While Jackson’s fi lms provide abundant martial bravado and emphasize fi ghting far more than do the books, the cinematic world-building extends beyond the clash of arms to meticulous recreations of Lothlórien, Fangorn Forest, the Inn of the Prancing Pony, Beorn’s house, and many more Middle-earth settings. The LEGO Middle-earth recreational trend, in contrast, is to mobilize for war through selection of relatively peripheral source material built for hostilities (like the Corsair ship or Dol Guldur) and fi lm-based extrapolation (like the Mirkwood Elf Army and defenses), along with the deployment of iconic military assets (Orthanc, and the Morannon). The trend ratchets-up encounters and skirmishes (like 2012’s goblin king, barrel escape, Weathertop, and Moria sets) to mass troop movements and full-fl edged battle sites. At odds with the escalation trend, set #79006, The Council of Elrond , is the second surprise among the 2013 LEGO trilogy offerings. The set fi rst of all recreates surprising content, given the product line’s focus on strife and valor. As Tolkien scholar, Tom Shippey, has noted of The Fellowship of the Ring source chapter, “‘The Council of Elrond’ does one thing, which is pass on information, and do it from an almost bewildering complex of directions”. 15 Exposition trumps action at this Rivendell meeting, verbally shared by a sizable group to equalize knowledge and determine opening moves in the struggle against Sauron. Indeed, Shippey points out that the Council of Elrond involves no less than 15,000 words and at least 19 distinct voices. 16 Pared down in Jackson’s fi lm, the screen version nonetheless serves as a long, dialogue-driven caesura between heroic deeds.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Faced with the challenge of how to recreate a prolix committee meeting, set #79006 undertakes a gestural approach. A rather small set containing 243 pieces, it hints at the Rivendell surroundings through custom elements like autumn- colored leaves, slender elven wall arches, and a profi led sloping roof. Exclusive Arwen and Elrond minifi gures, and a Frodo minifi gure with a unique, worried- expression head element, join Gimli at the council table to denote the much larger convocation. An elven weapons rack adds an implicit prompt for action, and explicit action comes in the form of a catapult function to be toggled when Gimli tries to pulverize the One Ring with his axe, fl inging the dwarf backwards as in Jackson’s fi lm version to reveal the Eye of Sauron. Every component of 50 Neal Baker

set #79006 contributes to recreate a Council of Elrond of sorts, but a surprisingly minimalist one that contrasts with the rich detailing found in most LEGO Middle-earth products. If anything, set #79006 only gestures at its source and cries out to be inserted into an as-yet-to-be-built, larger LEGO Rivendell product.

Beyond LEGO Middle-earth A larger LEGO Rivendell does exist. Alice Finch and David Frank’s 200,000- piece Rivendell is an extreme instance of a “MOC”—My Own Creation (pronounced “mock”)—an unoffi cial LEGO work assembled without instructions. Displayed at the October 2013 BrickCon annual hobbyist event catering to the AFOL (Adult Fans of LEGO) community, Finch and Frank’s Rivendell MOC epitomizes LEGO recreation. 17 It recreates and expands upon the offi cial Council of Elrond set, making it anew on a much more elaborate scale. In so doing, it aspires to recreate Jackson’s Tolkien fi lms via LEGO bricks and minifi gures sourced from a myriad of offi cial products (for example, LEGO Star Wars Gungan shields recontextualized as elven windows). At the same time, Finch and Frank’s Rivendell MOC demonstrates the nearly limitless capacity of LEGO recreation as a ludic, interactive experience. LEGO recreation and Middle-earth as a ludic, interactive experience ranges from the impromptu, cross-franchise efforts of kids playing with orc minifi gure heads and stormtrooper helmet accessories in cluttered bedrooms around the world, to the painstaking MOC genius of Blake Baer and Jack Bittner’s 56-inch- tall, 80,000-piece Erebor. 18 Within this wide compass, LEGO recreation is a three-dimensional variant on fan fi ction as described by Henry Jenkins: “Fan fi ction can be seen as an unauthorized expansion of these media franchises into new directions which refl ect the reader’s desire to ‘fi ll in the gaps’ they have discovered in the commercially produced material.” 19 The fi lling of the LEGO gaps can take innumerable forms that all result in transformative works keyed to various extents on Middle-earth. While fan agency and the production of transformative works is a growing area of scholarly interest, a sustained analysis of LEGO Middle-earth MOCs merits a book chapter of its own.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 A LEGO brand strategy that inspires transformative works is highly relevant to this essay, however. “Combining the best aspects of building sets and playsets, LEGO has become the most versatile world-building toy available”, asserts Mark J. P. Wolf in his book-length study, Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation . 20 Modular and interchangeable by design both in terms of intra-set and inter-set capability, it might be axiomatic to state that LEGO is built to encourage creativity. Although all LEGO Middle-earth sets come with instructions, the implicit, unoffi cial combinatorial prospects for subsequent recreation are also shipped in every offi cial box. A set accordingly supplies authorized Middle-earth fi ctional material, together with a LEGO brand framework Middle-earth and LEGO (Re)creation 51

predicated on the construction of unauthorized material. Such built-in, structural tension between the explicit, offi cial instructions and the tacit, latent potential for unoffi cial recreation perhaps explains the enduring popularity of LEGO. It affords a generative experience; it is world-building. The world-building trait differentiates LEGO sets from other 3-D, licensed products based on Jackson’s Middle-earth fi lms. Collectible The Lord of the Rings action fi gures at 1:6-scale from Asmus Toys are made with dozens of articulation points and detailed character likenesses, for example, but are shipped mostly assembled and meant for display purposes. 21 United Cutlery 22 fashions high-end replica props to the tune of hundreds of dollars per item. 23 Although its Mace of Azog the Defi ler and the like could be put to interactive purposes to make the real world anew, there is an associated cost for hospital payment, probable legal fees, and item repair. Jackson’s own Weta Workshop fabricates a small treasure trove of gorgeous 1:6-scale fi gures, props including pipes and jewelry, and sculptures of Barad-dûr, the White Council chamber, and other fi lm locations. 24 Unlike their LEGO counterparts, the Weta wares are manufactured at different scales that allow for no interoperability and thus cut down on the prospects for world-building because characters cannot inhabit environments, and environments cannot be torn down and rebuilt into new combinations. Only Games Workshop, PLC, rivals LEGO for world-building potential in Middle-earth. Listed on the London stock exchange, the most successful tabletop miniature game company on the planet has produced lead, plastic, and alloy fi gurines based on Jackson’s fi lms since 2001. As with their signature intellectual property, Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the Games Workshop array of Middle-earth fi gurines are lovingly detailed, packaged unassembled, unpainted, and intended for use with the company’s own paints, hobby accessories, and rulebooks for tabletop combat. Despite the title, Games Workshop refers to their business as “Hobby”—“Collecting, painting, modeling, and gaming . . . with the best model soldiers in the world.” 25 Just as elements from any LEGO set, Middle-earth or otherwise, can be mixed and matched, so too can the fi gurine parts within and across Games Workshop product lines. Whereas LEGO Middle-earth sets recreate both locations and characters, the Games Workshop products highlight the latter. The impetus is to assemble armies

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 for tabletop combat gaming instead of recreating the wider Middle-earth milieu in 3-D. For example, kit #99121463006, Mirkwood Rangers , contains 23 components to make 10 troops, and kit #99121462009, Hunter Orcs and Fell Wargs , supplies 44 components to make six mounted troops. Although Games Workshop de-emphasizes built environments in its Middle-earth product line, hobbyists can contrive their own terrain using the company’s glue, sand, snow, grass and water effects. At the same time, Games Workshop does try to recreate a wider, Middle- earth setting in print format through its rulebooks and White Dwarf monthly magazine. Every troop kit is tied to a statistical block with unit-speciﬁ c rules pertaining to weaponry and movement, for instance, and there is background 52 Neal Baker

about the armies of Middle-earth. The rulebooks and magazine articles proffer scrupulous detail and battle scenarios, at times layering on original material not found in either the Jackson fi lms or Tolkien novels, such as kit #99061464137, Dalamyr, Fleetmaster of Umbar, and the Haradrim assassins from kit #99061464134, Watchers of Kârna . Throughout the Games Workshop Middle-earth products, the ambition is to realistically recreate Jackson’s fi lms in miniature. LEGO’s lack of realism thus differentiates it from other 3-D, licensed products based on Jackson’s fi lms. The Middle-earth sets recreate both LEGO and the fi lms. They are referential and self-referential, tied to cinema sources and a unique brand look. The LEGO Arwen, among many similar examples, fi ts the unrealistic, recognizable minifi gure profi le yet is engineered with realistic touches to emulate Liv Tyler’s visual appearance in the fi lm: a long brown, fl owing hairpiece with fl esh-colored elven ears, a reversible face (calm/angry), and a pale blue dress. The Games Workshop kit #990614632022, Arwen Foot and Mounted , on the other hand, strives for a realistic, miniature representation of the fi lms through its slender fi gurine with fi ne facial features, wind-swept hair, and details like riding gloves, ruffl ed dress sleeves, and an intricate, elven harness for the horse, Asfaloth. While the LEGO Arwen and LEGO Middle-earth sets as a whole are engineered to represent Jackson’s fi lms, they unabashedly present their marque in so doing. The Games Workshop products, in contrast, strive to unobtrusively represent their cinematic sources. Ultimately, it is the structuring tensions that characterize LEGO recreation and Middle-earth. The sets deliver authorized, licensed recreations of Jackson’s fi lms as well as a license for recreational possibility that goes far beyond the packaged content and instructions. Legitimate construction is boxed with the innate potential for out-of-the-box recreation in the sense of recreating cinematic Middle-earth as depicted on screen, and in the sense of playing around to make new things. The recreation of Middle-earth, meanwhile, is designed to explicitly signal both the Jackson fi lm franchise and the LEGO universe. Finally, the creative choices available to LEGO set designers allow for new ways to think about transmedial adaptation, but in the context of a product range whose success is attributable to the creative choices that arise when LEGO set instructions and designer choices are ignored. As befi ts Tolkien and Jackson, LEGO recreation

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 in Middle-earth opens up the door for further world-building.

Notes 1. Robin Anne Reid, “Thrusts in the Dark: Slashers’ Queer Practices”, Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 50, No. 3 (Fall 2009), pages 463–83; Emily E. Auger, “The Lord of the Rings Interlace: Tolkien’s Narrative and Lee’s Illustrations”, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 19, No. 1 [72] (2008), pages 70–93; Amy H. Sturgis, “‘Tolkien Is the Wind and the Way’: The Educational Value of Tolkien-Inspired World Music”, in Bradford Lee, editor, Middle-Earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien, Jef- ferson, NC: McFarland, 2010, pages 126–39; Martin Barker, “Making Middle Earth Middle-earth and LEGO (Re)creation 53

Sound Real: The Lord of the Rings and the Cultural Politics of the BBC Radio Edi- tion”, in Ernest Mathijs, editor, The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context, London, England: Wallfl ower Press, 2006, pages 61–70; Klaudia Seibel, “‘Nothing But a Pack of Cards’? Mittelerde Im Sammelkartenspiel”, Inklings: Jahrbuch Für Literatur Und Ästhetik 28 (2010), pages 130–47; Tanya Krzywinska et al. , Ring Bearers: The Lord of the Rings Online as Intertextual Narrative, Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2011; Dirk Vanderbeke, “The Comic-Book Adaptation of The Hobbit”, Hither Shore 5 (2008): pages 186–96. 2. Prominent examples include Kristin Thompson, The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007; and Janice M. Bogstad and Philip E. Kaveny, editors, Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy , Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2011. 3. Among others, see Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelehan, editors, Adaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text , London, England: Routledge, 1999; James Michael Welsh and Peter Lev, editors, The Literature/fi lm Reader: Issues of Adaptation , Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007; and Dennis R. Cutchins and Laurence Raw, editors, Redefi ning Adaptation Studies, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010. 4. See Julie Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation, The New Critical Idiom, London, England and New York, NY: Routledge, 2006; Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adapta- tion, New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. 5. Mark J. P. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation, New York, NY: Routledge, 2012, page 246. 6. James G. Davis, “Showing Saruman as Faber: Tolkien and Peter Jackson”, Tolkien Studies 5, No. 1 (2008), page 59. 7. Kristin Thompson, The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007, page 59. 8. For a discussion of spectacle over plot in contemporary blockbuster action fi lms, including The Two Towers (2002), see Kristen Whissel, “The Digital Multitude”, Cinema Journal 49, No. 4, 2010, pages 90–110. 9. For a discussion of realism, representation, presentation, and medium-specifi c realism, see the “Introduction” in Lúcia Nagib, World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism, New York, NY: Continuum International Pub. Group Inc, 2011. 10. Terms like “tableau” and “diorama” are beyond the scope of this chapter and quite diffi cult to pinpoint; any attempt to place LEGO sets in a lineage of tableaux, dioramas, or related phenomena such as nativity scenes would entail remarkable theoretical and historical sophistication. For a convincing walk through parts of this minefi eld, see Mark B. Sandberg, Living Pictures, Missing Persons: Mannequins, Museums, and Modernity, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 11. “Attack on WeathertopTM”, available at http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Attack-on- Weathertop-9472?p=9472&track=checkprice. 12. Ibid. 13. Jane Chance, The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2001, page 81. 14. Gergely Nagy, “The ‘Lost’ Subject of Middle-Earth: The Constitution of the Subject in the Figure of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings”, T olkien Studies 3, No. 1, 2006, page 63. 15. T. A. Shippey, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, Boston, MA: Houghton Miffl in, 2001, page 77. 16. Ibid., page 68. 54 Neal Baker

17. Andrew Becraft, “Tolkien’s Rivendell Comes to Life with 200,000 LEGO Bricks – Exclusive Interview with Builders Alice Finch & David Frank”, The Brothers Brick , accessed December 30, 2013, available at www.brothers-brick.com/2013/12/11/ tolkiens-rivendell-comes-to-life-with-200000-lego-bricks-exclusive-interview-with- builders-alice-ﬁ nch-david-frank/. 18. “Check out This 56-Inch-Tall Model of Erebor Made from 80,000 Pieces of LEGO!”, available at www.theonering.net/torwp/2013/12/05/84012-check-out-this-56-inch- tall-model-of-erebor-made-from-80000-pieces-of-lego/. 19. Henry Jenkins, “Transmedia Storytelling 101”, accessed December 30, 2013, available at http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html. 20. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds, pages 138–9. 21. “Asmus Toys The Lord of the Ring – NEWS”, available at www.asmuslotr.com/news. 22. “United Cutlery for Wholesale Movie Replicas, Collectible Blades, Traditional Knives & Swords”, available at www.unitedcutlery.com/. 23. For a discussion of the importance of realistic weaponry in the Jackson Middle-earth ﬁ lms, see Robert C. Woosnam-Savage, “The Matérial of Middle-Earth: Arms and Armor in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy”, in Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy , pages 139–67. 24. “Hobbit Collectibles, Props and Art and The Lord of the Rings Collectibles by the Same Weta Artists Who Worked on the Movies”, available at www.wetanz.com/. 25. “The Games Workshop Hobby”, available at http://investor.games-workshop.com/the- games-workshop-hobby/. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 4 MYTH BLOCKS : HOW LEGO TRANSMEDIA CONFIGURES AND REMIXES MYTHIC STRUCTURES IN THE NINJAGO AND CHIMA THEMES

Lori Landay

Ninja defeating ancient evil by tapping into the power of natural elements, and talking animals battling to preserve and share chi, the world’s energy force: this is what happens in the imaginary worlds of LEGO Ninjago and Chima. As my twin sons became increasingly interested in Ninjago, then Chima, and now again the rebooted Ninjago, I was struck by the mash-up of elements from different Asian cultures. As I looked at the Ninjago transmedial world manifesting in toys, cards, television series, books, and in the LEGO Club Magazine, it was as if someone had broken apart mythologies into parts and they had landed in the toy box, myth blocks there to be conﬁ gured however one wished. At ﬁ rst, I perceived the mash-up as appropriation, but as I researched and thought more deeply about mythology and transmedial world-building in the Ninjago and Chima original intellectual property themes, I found a far more interesting story, revealing much about how an imaginary world can be created transnationally, distributed globally, and experienced transmedially, all shaped by the LEGO Group’s “System of Play” and the practices that have followed—and deviated— from it.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Mythic structures and other components of mythology and folklore are used in Ninjago and Chima as if they were “myth blocks”, pieces available to be snapped into place in various recombinations. To be sure, this is similar to inﬂ u- ential ideas about narrative structure, from Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp’s structuralist analysis of Russian folktales, to how the “monomyth” or hero’s journey Joseph Campbell used to describe a universal pattern common to every human culture expressed with particular variations has been adopted as a pre- scriptive formula for contemporary Hollywood screenwriting. Both realistic and fantastical ﬁ ctional worlds in a range of media from literature to comic books, movies, and 3-D graphical environments in which people can play games are 56 Lori Landay

characterized by infrastructures ﬁ lled with remixed bits and pieces from various world mythologies. What’s interesting about how LEGO has done this in its original intellectual property imaginary worlds is how mythic structures have become both a part of and a metaphor for the LEGO “System of Play”. LEGO’s use of “myth blocks” in constructing its imaginary worlds, and people’s participation and extensions within them, are aspects of cultural practices of transmedial experience that exemplify a remix culture. Seen in a certain way, LEGO is a precursor of remix culture. In the LEGO “System of Play”, every brick can be used with every other brick; even though they may have different shapes, colors, and other properties, they all click together. In the almost 60 years since Godtfred Christiansen, the grandson of founder Ole Kirk Christiansen, realized that instead of standalone toys that could be built by bricks, the LEGO bricks should be the foundation of a scalable (both for producers and consumers) building and playing system, the System of Play has expanded to a system of creativity and culture. As LEGO moved from its core of making construction toys into other kinds of toys and onto other media platforms, the System of Play changed into a developed into a multiplatform “supersystem” of transmedia intertextuality 1 with not only brick toys and non- brick toys, but also video games on many platforms, animated television series, movies, books for a range of reading levels, graphic novels, magazines, websites, trading cards, merchandise, theme parks, board games, and more. LEGO has also extended the principle of pieces that can and should be conﬁ gured and recombined beyond bricks to cultural materials in a metasystem that encompasses not only play and learning, and transmedial world-building, but also creativity and culture. As if they were LEGO bricks, pieces of mythic structure and elements of mythology and folklore from a wide range of sources are compiled and remixed. These “myth blocks”, or units of mythic source material, are not only drawn from traditional cultural expression and popular culture, but also, and increasingly, from LEGO’s own mythos-making about play and itself, often grounded in research into childhood development, neuroscience, and play, but nevertheless shaped into a narrative. In particular, this essay explores how myth blocks function in the imaginary worlds of the themes of Ninjago and Chima, available transmedially across multiple media platforms. It uses an

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 interdisciplinary approach that combines research from the ﬁ elds of cultural studies, video game studies, education, and marketing with primary source material from LEGO playsets, graphic novels, chapter books, character encyclopedias and ofﬁ cial guides, sticker books, activity books, books that come with minifgures, websites, games, television series, and other facets of LEGO transmedia, including the company’s own documents and its representatives’ public statements. I use the material from LEGO, especially the reports on research published online by the LEGO Foundation (previously The LEGO Institute), as a source where the values and concepts at the core of the LEGO ideology, its own myth blocks, are articulated. The LEGO Foundation owns 25 percent of the LEGO Group, and Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 57

supports its teaching, education, and research activities. My approach to LEGO material is not uncritical, but I seek to analyze both the rhetorical strategies it presents as well as interpret implicit meanings. In framing my ideas, I also draw on informal observations of children playing with LEGO and engaging with the Ninjago and Chima imaginary worlds transmedially, mostly my own twin boys and their friends, in both organized after-school LEGO activities and at home. I have no doubt that playing with LEGO bricks can foster learning and creativity and aid a constructionist approach in my own work and teaching, and I would enroll my kids in the new LEGO- funded International School of Billund if it were possible. I would classify myself as an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO), I have dabbled in making art with LEGO, and I have enthusiastically enabled and encouraged my children to play fi rst with DUPLO, then with the smaller LEGO bricks, and more recently with themed playsets. Although I limit “screen time”, LEGO animated shows are among the media they can watch, and along with Minecraft (2010) (described by one of them as a “computer world made up of LEGO bricks”), they play some of the LEGO games on the iPad and computer. Recently, they’ve been making stop- motion animation with the LEGO Movie Maker app on the iPad. I’ve been particularly fascinated with the way kids use LEGO since I witnessed a staggering deployment of necessity and invention in my son’s kindergarten classroom; because there were no cannons or other weapons available for the battleships some boys were building during their free play time, they used LEGO pants (or legs) and coined the term “pants shooters”. Even a piece as particular as a part of a minifi gure can be used for another purpose, if imagination and interest are involved. Nevertheless, when faced with the shelves of themed playset boxes in the LEGO Store or in the catalog, I wonder if the specifi c object has to be built and then, as it inevitably is, returned to the pile of bricks from which it came, before the full value of the brick comes into play. Although pants shooters were not foreseen when LEGO launched the System of Play in 1955, that they can be used in that way is the result of the system, and this indicates one of the tensions between the original LEGO philosophy and the increasingly confl ict-based dramatic premises and narratives of children’s toys and media across the children’s culture industries, with which LEGO must

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 compete. In many ways, the story of how we end up with myth blocks in Ninjago and Chima is the story of how the System of Play evolved into a supersystem (to use Marsha Kinder’s term for a children’s transmedial franchise) as LEGO adapted to changes in how children’s toys were being used and bought. The System of Play evolved into “a system within a system” designed by Gotdfred’s son Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen to differentiate product ranges for children of different ages in 1978, and the concept of systems has remained central rhe- torically and organizationally, as evidenced by the research on Systematic Cre- ativity 2 now under the umbrella of the LEGO Foundation. In the 1990s, when LEGO shifted away from the “brick-related attributes of the LEGO brand” and 58 Lori Landay

toward “the main LEGO value of ‘creativity’ and its related values of ‘limitless’, ‘fun’ and ‘pride,’” 3 the “System of Play” became a more all-encompassing system of creativity supported by the education and research unit of the company, and the kind of play afforded by LEGO was more explicitly expanded to include not only construction play but also pretense play.

The LEGO Group’s ambitious push to pursue an entirely new set of consumers—the two-thirds of kids who told researchers they’d rather plug into an Xbox (and the like) than play with construction toys—led to that all-out effort to think beyond the brick and fan out in entirely new directions, not only with digital toys but also with physical toys that were easier to build with because they had bigger, chunkier pieces. Above all, LEGO set its sights on developing turn-on toys featuring amped-up, good-versus- evil story lines. 4

The entire shift during this time was toward a more “meta” paradigm; as Esben Karmark concludes, “From the mid-1990s, LEGO’s top management began considering the LEGO brand, rather than the product, as the company’s strongest asset”. 5 Toys introduced from the mid-1990s to 2004:

focused heavily on playing with the construction once it was ﬁ nished. The preformed elements shortened the building process and thus the journey to the projected play practice with the ﬁ nished construction. Looking at LEGO brochures introducing the new LEGO toys during this period, we see the discourse changing from bricks to action, from construction to narrative, from process to product. 6

This undermined the idea that all LEGO bricks were interchangeable:

Many of the new products were, for example, not compatible with the System of Play. Preformed elements were often only useful in the context of one single LEGO set. These preformed elements frustrated modular, expansive, open-ended forms of LEGO play and restricted the projected 7 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 uses and users.

The LEGO Movie (2014) can be seen as an articulation of how the company, and what it means to be LEGO, has rejected the strategies from the earlier time period, refocusing on the original spirit of creativity, imagination, and possibility achieved through remixing, and in the January/February 2014 LEGO Club Magazine, that emphasis is stronger when compared with issues from 12 to 24 months ago. The company was over-extended and in ﬁ nancial trouble by 2004 when Jørgen Vig Knudstorp refocused the company on core building experiences with Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 59

bricks. As David Robertson summarized, “Thinking ‘outside the box’ almost put Lego out of business; it regained its footing when it began to think once again inside the box. Or in this case, the brick”. 8 Knudstrop reinforced the LEGO mission when he commented on LEGO displacing Mattel as the top toy company in the world, “We think we are changing children’s lives forever when they play with Lego”. 9 LEGO still refers to its “System of Play”, but the LEGO Foundation material now refers to a “LEGO System for Learning” (2012), or uses “system” more comprehensively as in the fascinating report “Systematic Creativity”, which asserts that “LEGO is one of the few systems capable of channeling both [creativity toward solving problems and artistic expression]”. Or, as the Senior Manager of Open Innovation and Technology Innovation at the LEGO Group writes, “The LEGO System has evolved into a means of creative expression handed down through several generations making it one of the world’s most recognized toys and the LEGO brand one of the most loved”. 10 Therefore, in 2014, the System of Play has evolved and expanded beyond how the bricks interlock physically, practically, to how the bricks function ideologi- cally within a research-based theory of how play fosters learning, development, creativity, and culture. It may be harder to see all that in a random brick, rather than how it will connect with all the others with studs; but that is where the mythos, and the myth blocks, come in. As systems, the transmedial imaginary worlds of Ninajgo and Chima rely on three kinds of myth blocks: from cultural sources, from other toys in children’s culture, and from LEGO’s mythologizing of LEGO, which can be remixed in media platforms to greater or lesser degrees. Myth, as part of the infrastructure of imaginary worlds, is integral to Ninjago and Chima because of the process of “mediatization” that had already occurred in the 1990s and 2000s, when the LEGO playsets were, to use Stig Hjarvard’s terminology, “imaginarized, narrativized, and virtualized”. Imaginarization, he writes:

is a process by which the symbolic content of the toy comes to refer to an imagined world, rather to an existing reality (present or historical). The physical brick is still at the center of the play, but it is used to create non- realist fantasy universes. Narrativization is understood as a process through

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 which the bricks, due to their physical design, marketing, or an accompanying text, motivate play with narrative qualities. . . . Virtualization is understood as a process by which the bricks lose their physical and tactic sensory form and become represented in virtual universes. 11

As Hjarvard concludes, “The bricks may still be around, but they are profoundly different from the bricks of earlier days. The physical bricks have been circum- scribed by the imaginary world of the media industry and the physical bricks of today’s LEGO are only one manifestation of the brick icon that circulates on all sorts of media platforms in all kinds of imaginary worlds and narratives”. 12 60 Lori Landay

Ninjago and Chima were made after LEGO, as well as the children’s culture industries in general, had already successfully mediatized toys. Even though in the LEGO mythos, building and the brick were reasserted as the central focus of the brand and the play experience, the imaginarized, narrativized, and virtualized horse had already galloped its way out of its transmedial barn. Moreover, I would add a process of concretization, when mythic elements are made manifest in bricks and other objects; The LEGO Movie winks at this tendency with “the piece of resistance”, but perhaps the best example is in Chima, in which the transformative energy (the “Chi”) that changed beasts into the bipedal talking, culture-making, tribally-organized animals (and is the life force over which the tribes battle), is expressed narratively and visually as a physical element of fl owing water that forms into energy orbs. The animals hold the orbs to their chests so they can “Chi-up”, and temporarily become infused with tremendous physical power. Chi is concretized in the playsets as special LEGO pieces, literally myth blocks, as an elongated stud with rectangular protru- sions for chi crystals, not seen as such in the animated series or in print, where chi is represented as water or orbs. In many imaginary worlds, energy or power is manifested in objects or liquids; what is different here, the concretization, can be seen in the large fi gure that, in the description of the fi gure, affords you the ability to “Transform Laval into a buildable CHI-powered warrior!” CHI Laval (set #70200) is not a model of what the Chi-ed up lion looks like in the television series, or in the online game (see Figure 4.1 ), which are temporary energy projections of glowing blue energy represented as a second body while the character experiences the power of chi, that look and act much like the tornadoes in Ninjago. The CHI Laval set is one of the ball-and-joint “constraction” 13 action fi gures, larger (over seven inches tall) and more posable than the minifi gure, that the child assembles and then plays with like any other action fi gure, which emerged during the time LEGO was pursuing the child who wasn’t interested in building. As an object that makes the power state of the Chi-up visible and tangible, the toy concretizes an imaginary element best perhaps represented pictorially and kinetically through digital imaging rather than plastic. In manifesting what chi can do to the little minifi gure by making him a huge and fi erce creature more

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 like a mecha than an embodiment of energy, the concepts of power, chi, and transformation are also concretized, represented, and experienced as less abstract. To connect the buildable fi gure to the other parts of the transmedial world, there is a video section on the website where you can choose two opponents and watch a video of them fi ghting; they are animated versions of the toy (not how the characters look in the animated series or graphic novels), but infused with energy-laden blue light, a hybrid of the physical and digital versions. They only fi ght for 20 seconds without a narrative frame, which is often how I’ve observed boys playing with the action fi gures, enacting exciting actions with little or no story dramatization. To increase the number of toys available and Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 61

FIGURE 4.1 Lions in Chima. Left column, from top down: Legends of Chima animated series, 2013; the story of the Legend Beast, Laval riding the Legend Beast, the Legend Beast easily thwarts a Chi-ed up Croc, and the temporary Chi-up state. Middle column, top: Lion Legend Beast playset #70123, Lagravis speedor from Royal Roost #70108; middle: Laval in iPad game LEGO® Legends of CHIMA: Speedorz™ (2014); bottom: Chi-up in Chima Online; right column: choosing avatar in Chima Online, multiplayer play in Chima Online, bottom: CHI Laval (set #70200).

appeal to older kids who are more interested in the fi erce, articulated buildable action fi gures than the minifi gures, designers draw on the mythic structure of the imaginary world, but in a way that freely remixes its myth blocks. In order to better understand the transmedial experiences afforded by Ninjago and Chima, and how they are shaped by myth blocks, it is helpful to consider

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Ninjago and Chima as transmedial imaginary worlds . When we focus on imaginary worlds, world-building becomes our lens rather than storytelling, which yields more insight into how a transmedial phenomenon can be experienced when it is based on objects that also are the characters, settings, and things in the narrative. Mark J. P. Wolf carefully delineates the relationships between the process and product of world-building, what Tolkien termed “subcreation”: “Subcreation, then, involves new combinations of existing concepts, which, in the building of a secondary world, become the inventions that replace or reset Primary World defaults (for example, new ﬂ ora and fauna, new languages, new geography, and so forth)”. 14 He also develops the idea that each medium in transmedial 62 Lori Landay

world-building has distinct properties that makes it like “a window that reveals an imaginary world”. 15 The ﬁ ve windows on the world he details are words, images, sounds, interactions, and objects. In thinking through Ninjago and Chima as transmedial imaginary worlds, we can consider how the properties that those windows offer on the world—and each other—shape experiences that occur on particular media platforms that are on the one hand distinct but can also be interrelated and mutually informing. To illustrate, here is a story. When my then-ﬁ ve-year-old twin sons and I saw The Adventures of TinTin (2011) in a theater soon after its theatrical release, they had already repeatedly pored over and read the Hergé graphic novels on which it was based. The original form provided one kind of context, but Jason had an interesting response when there was a scene in the movie that was the same as a scene in the iPad game, ( The Adventures of TinTin – The Game, Gameloft, 2011), in which the player controls the characters. As he watched Snowy dig under a fence, an action from the game he had played, Jason said, with wonder and recognition, “I did that”. His transmedial experience of being a spectator of the movie in that moment was already shaped by his participatory action in the game. The plot point of Snowy digging wasn’t only familiar to him as part of the narrative, or a place in the imaginary world, but as an action to be performed, that was already part of his experience. Thinking about his response, the jolt of unexpected fusion of what he did while playing as Snowy the dog, what he made the dog do, and what the movie dog was doing on the screen, led me to think about transmedial experience as a process comprised of individual but connected media experiences; sometimes the experiences are nested, or fused, or sometimes the experiences are diachronic, adding or changing someone’s understanding of the transmedially-experienced imaginary world. As Jason and his twin brother Sammy, now eight, have continued to have transmedial experiences in imaginary worlds, especially Ninjago, which they read, play, watch, build, and sing, I’ve witnessed similar moments when the whole of the transmedial world coalesces not necessarily through the transmedial window on the world of the current experience, but because of the other windows, the other platforms, the other user functions or affordances that were part of the transmedial experience. Moreover, his focus was on his

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 actions, which is what his play with the toys he builds out of LEGO most often entails. For my children, and others I’ve observed, mostly boys, it is not so much the narrative of the imaginary world they enact, but the exciting actions and dramatic conﬂ icts from them; what the characters do in the series, what the playsets afford. 16 In order to better to describe and visualize transmedial imaginary world experiences , I embarked on my own constructionist project and built a model (out of LEGO!) It is three-dimensional, with three axes (see Figure 4.2 ). Ideally the model would be dynamic, interactive, or animated, but that will have to be a future iteration, so that the platforms could move around rather than be ﬁ xed, or pathways between the experiences could be traced. Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 63

FIGURE 4.2 Transmedial Imaginary Worlds Experience (model and photographs by Lori Landay). Ninjago images in the model (from top): Ninjago book; tornado in animated series; iPad game; cards, miniﬁ gures, and spinner. For these and other images, see http://lorilanday.com/lego.

On the ﬁ rst axis, moving vertically, are platforms or windows that indicate where the experience is made manifest; the physical world is at the bottom, the foundation, with the medium of physical LEGO bricks and objects; moving upward, we move up an axis of increasing representation and decreasing simulation (to use Gonzalo Frasca’s terms), with the second platform as interface, the third as screen, and the top as page. The second axis is a spectrum of what the person can do in that experience (affordance or user function, embellishing on Aarseth 17 ), moving from interpret- ing, to exploring, combining, remixing, transforming, and inventing. The third axis represents level of structure, the poles of which can be by Roger Caillois’s foundational terms of paidia and ludus for respectively, turbulence and rules, “a primary power of improvisation and joy” and “the taste for gra- tuitous difﬁ culty” 18 but informed by an understanding of how structure and agency can “mutually constitute each other”. 19 The model is best imagined, though, as a model of a space of performance

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 possibilities through which any transmedial experience connects different platforms and affordances. The performative aspect of transmedial imaginary worlds means that even watching Snowy dig under the fence can connect to an action, an action performed as Snowy in the game, but put another way, Snowy digging in the movie, for Jason, was not only an animated and cinematic adaptation of a character from the page, or even deinteractivation from game to ﬁ lm, 20 but an indexical representation of his experience, with his game-playing self as the referent. “I did that!” Suddenly the movie fused with his experience of agency; he recognized in Snowy’s actions his own performance. There is more to this than can be explored here, but the model offers a descriptive tool for trying to understand experiences of fusion across transmedial platforms. 64 Lori Landay

The media platforms, however, are not as distinct as perhaps they once were, with pathways forged between them to enable people to shift between or fuse them. For example, the Chima buildable fi gure web video fi ght match-ups mentioned earlier encourage a fusion of interactive screen, screen, and physical manifestations. To go from the Chima comic “TRAPPED!” in the LEGO Club Magazine to the choose your own adventure webpage, which, although the links take the reader to online PDFs that look like page proofs, are still affording exploration in that the reader is making choices among three alternatives, is not only an interactivization (to use Wolf’s term), but an entry into the website which scaffolds digital versions of every other platform. Or, to use the card that comes with Legend Beast Lion (set #71023) is to use a mixed-reality technology; instead of entering a code, as one has done in the past, to activate online content that can only be “unlocked” with a physical purchase, the card itself is pressed to the tablet screen, and we move ever more seamlessly through the loop between the actual and the virtual in the transmedial experience. The speedor races that are exciting to watch in the animated series, with the music, editing, and animated manifestations of speed and energy, are fun to enact in the iPad app LEGO Legends of CHIMA: Speedorz (Warner Bros., 2013). With the added motivation of beating the non-player character Laval, who my sons tell me, “is the best”, the competition set up in the series becomes part of gameplay. In the MMO LEGO Legends of CHIMA Online (Warner Bros., 2013, iOS app 2014), choosing a tribe (one of the “good” ones), customizing appearance, and selecting a name for the avatar, as well as being able to play with friends against the non- player characters (with different levels of chat options controlled by parents), LEGO is again creating a virtual world, although not as open as the still-missed MMORPG LEGO Universe (2010–12) (and will again with LEGO Minifi gures Online , coming in 2014). The practices of play have changed because of children’s transmedial experiences; they can easily fuse virtual, physical, textual, and screen experiences because they do not seem as disparate to them as to perhaps their parents or previous generations. The LEGO Foundation’s impressive 2009 “Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm” explores play and creativity in the context of digital media and communications, arguing that “children today see play spaces as fl uid and

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 connected between bricks and bits, or physical and virtual environments. Children know what is real and what is not, but they perceive the boundaries as more ﬂ uid and full of connecting links”. 21 They conclude: “the digital realm can augment play in different ways, and that the more compelling play scenarios are those where the virtual and physical each play a part in enriching the experience.” 22 They drew on research that studied how “young people actively juxta- posed consequences for actions in-game and in-world”. 23 Other research also makes interesting and complex connections between in- game and in-room activities. In an essay based on observations of his sons playing an in-room game shaped by their experiences playing the video game LEGO Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 65

Racers (1999), Seth Giddings ﬁ nds continuities that the boys actively created between digital and physical realms and play. Giddings writes:

Not only were the images and actions of the computer game being played out with real toys, but the ways the boys played with their actual Lego blocks was now quite different from how it had been before their experience of the computer game. The boys were not only continuing the game of racing Lego cars begun on the computer screen (its characters, scenarios, and dramas), they were also playing with actual Lego as if it were a video game. They were, on one level, playing at playing a video game . 24

He concludes:

Through play these boys shifted across these two spaces [virtual and actual] with ease, their play adapting to the different environments, environmental resources, and the capabilities and possibilities they afforded. The virtual space in this event of gameplay was neither an ideological illusion, nor a transcendence of the everyday and embodied. The virtual and the actual were each contained within the other, intertwining, each inﬂ ected by the other.

This correlates with the children who form the strongest basis for my ideas, my twin sons, now almost nine years old. Their own imaginary constructs of Ninjago and Chima are shaped by the media representations and simulations created by LEGO, although, like the Minecraft Ninjago objects, they may not have the same aesthetic or realism in their imaginations as the more fully-rendered and detailed ofﬁ cial design does. And it is in their imaginary constructs that they play when they play with the toys they’ve built, swooshing them through the air.

The Use of the Elements in Ninjago In the Ninjago imaginary world, for example, the characters, their objects, and conﬂ icts are coded through mythology, which plays a central role in Ninjago

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 and Chima, as it does in any imaginary world. The mythology of Ninjago is structured around four elements: Fire, Ice, Earth, and Lightning. Each element is connected to a “Golden Weapon”: the Dragon Sword of Fire, the Shurikens of Ice, the Scythe of Quakes, and the Nunchucks of Lightning, which were used by the First Master of Spinjitsu to create the land of Ninjago, and then hidden by his son, Sensei Wu, so that no one person could ever wield the power to create and destroy. The elements are also expressed through the design of the miniﬁ gures and playsets (with which any original LEGO IP begins) with color and symbols; red for ﬁ re, white for ice, black for earth, and blue for lightning. 66 Lori Landay

As Wolf explains in a useful framework for understanding how mythology ﬁ ts into the subcreated world as one of several “infrastructures” (along with maps, timelines, genealogies, nature, culture, language, and philosophy), in an imaginary world, mythologies “provide historical depth, explanations, and purpose to the events of a world”. 25 Wolf concludes his discussion of mythology by connecting it to philosophy:

Mythology helps to create a sense of historical depth, connecting present characters and events with ancient ones, and the juxtaposition of the two eras may reveal differences which imply changes that have taken place in a world. The hierarchy of supernatural or mythical beings, as well as the models provided by ancient ﬁ gures and the value placed on traditions of the past (or the lack of them), can also tell us something about the world- views inherent in a secondary world, as mythology becomes an embodiment of philosophy. 26

The mythic structures that underpin the world-building of Ninjago are assembled from myth blocks, disparate aspects of traditional Japanese and some Chinese mythology and folklore, reshaped into uniform sizes that can interlock with others. Ninjago freely combines Japanese and Chinese elements. The ninjas and much of the visual aesthetic of the buildings, costumes, and the iconic ninja eyes all draw from historical medieval ninjas, and the Ninjago design team took a

weeklong reconnaissance mission to Japan, where the LEGO designers and marketers traveled three hours north of Tokyo to visit the Iga Ninja Museum. As they walked through a ﬁ fteenth-century ninja dwelling, with its revolving walls and hidden compartments, the LEGO designers soaked up the telling details that might bring a ninja-related theme to life. 27

Sensei Wu is connected to Chinese cultural references: the term “wu” means “shaman” in Chinese, 28 Wu is a common Chinese family name, his clothes and long beard are like stereotypical wushu masters, and the Wu Xing is the ﬁ ve-part conceptual structure that includes, but is not limited to, the Five Elements of

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Wood, Earth, Fire, Water, and Metal. Although the four Ninjago elements are not the same as the Wu Xing movements, they seem inspired by such a structure, as well as other mythic structures. The Stone Warriors seem closely related to the Terracotta Army of the First Emperor of China (c. 200 BC ). There is an acknowledgement of the source of the Ninjago snakes, for example, in world mythology, available to fans willing to “drill” down into one of the many paratexts of the Ninjago universe. An online LEGO Club Inside Scoop story, “The Source of the Fangpyre!” details the sources of Fangpyre, the two-headed Serpentine snake villain. The feature begins, “Now the Serpentine are slithering over the World of Ninjago, we take a look at the real snakes and ancient stories that inspired their design!” and continues: Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 67

There are stories in Buddhism and Hinduism of the Naga, snake deities that often had several heads. These sculptures are echoed by the Snake tombs of Ninjago! Roman & Greek Mythology feature the Hydra, a sea- serpent with many heads that guarded the Underworld. Ancient Egyptians also believed the entrance to the afterlife was guarded by Nehebkau, a ﬁ erce two headed [ sic ] serpent. 29

Since they are located across several traditions of cultural expression rather than in one specifi c one, whether the connections to the various multi-headed snakes of different mythological traditions were the direct inspiration for the LEGO characters is impossible to say; original IP worlds have even more heads than the Fangpyre. For example, RVHM (the creative team of Ricardo Viramontes and Hector Muelas) lists LEGO Ninjago as one of the intellectual properties it developed, explaining on their website: “We named the property, built the characters and the main storylines, assisted in the product design, created the game’s mechanics, outlined a transmedia content strategy and a global launch, and generated new ways to enhance the playing experience (on- & offl ine interaction, modifi able narratives, etc).” 30 Dan and Kevin Hageman, now best known as the screenwriters for The LEGO Movie, write the animated series; according to Dan, “LEGO came to us with a very simple approach: four ninjas, Sensei Wu, and a bad guy. What LEGO did well is that they understood that this was a toy commercial, but if we’re just writing a toy commercial, there’s no fun in that.” Kevin adds,

So we came in and we wanted to bring a Star Wars quality of mysticism and magic and really make it a world, a universe. So we said, this isn’t about ninjas collecting weapons, it’s about a brother saving his sister. And we brought the emotion into the story. 31

The cultural reference points that underpin Ninjago and Chima, from the design of buildings based on Chinese and Japanese architecture to the inclusion of the concept of chi, even as concretized, may account for the appeal of those themes in the Asia-Paciﬁ c market. Although the North American and European markets remain primary to LEGO, with 72 percent of 2011 LEGO sales in 32 33 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 North America and Western Europe and 70 percent of sales in 2012, LEGO’s corporate strategy for growth includes expansion of their 30-year selling history in Asia. In 2013, LEGO sales to Asian consumers rose by 35 per cent. Sales have grown by 70 percent in China, 35 percent in South Korea, and 20 percent in Singapore. China is the world’s second-largest toy market and is likely to eclipse North America in 2014. 34 The factory LEGO is building in Jiaxing, China, is intended to supply 80 percent of the LEGO products in the Asian market when it is fully operational in 2017. 35 LEGO products have a 95 percent global stan- dardization with only a 5 percent variation in its boxes, mainly in packaging, but in 2013, LEGO “adapted an existing dinosaur set and repackaged it as a commemorative Year of the Snake special edition” only sold in China. 36 68 Lori Landay

Moreover, in an age of globalized transnational transmedia, in which media are manufactured, marketed, and consumed across cultures, cultural specifi city is not always a result, or even a goal. Koichi Iwabuchi argues that globally popular cultural exports like Pokémon are part of mukokuseki , “the unembedded expression of race, ethnicity, and culture”. 37 Despite the association of Pokémon and Japaneseness, it is not accurate “to say that this cultural infl uence and this perception of coolness is closely associated with a tangible, realistic appreciation of ‘Japanese’ lifestyles or ideas”. 38 Derek Johnson argues, “A transnational approach to the global fl ows of franchising, therefore, asks how global media institutions generate more complex forms of culture and cultural production than can be contained within a singular national frame”. 39 An approach to culture, and by extension, mythology and folklore, as material to be confi gured and transformed is a foundational idea behind much of the rhetoric from the LEGO Foundation, the research and education unit of the LEGO Group, according to the summary from the LEGO Foundation’s Cultures of Creativity website:

Cultures develop when people ﬁ nd ways to play, make, and share. This report describes how human cultures can be characterized by their similarities rather than their differences, and emphasizes the importance of recognizing playfulness and creativity to develop societies prepared to accommodate the rapid changes associated with technology and globalization. 40

Not everyone agrees with the philosophy expressed above, and perhaps another reason why there is less cultural specifi city in Ninjago and Chima may be found in the interesting backstory to the relationship between LEGO intellectual property (IP) and traditional cultural expressions that resulted in LEGO agreeing to work with the Maori to set up a code of conduct under the umbrella of the World Intellectual Property Organization, for guidelines on using traditional knowledge in making toys. Bionicle was the LEGO Group’s fi rst IP and transmedial imaginary world, and it evolved into more of an imaginary world than the LEGO designers fi rst intended. In 1999, Christian Faber, an art director for

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 the Advance Advertising Agency, set to work on background visuals for the “Voodoo Heads” action ﬁ gure advertisements (which eventually became Bionicle). “Faber was captivated by the opportunity they presented. Instead of drawing static backgrounds for ads, he decided to push beyond the Voodoo Heads characters and instead illustrate an epic, multipart adventure such as Star Wars, which would amp up his client’s revenues for many years to come”. 41 “The story played out in a microscopic world, but for its ‘part-organic, part-machine’ inhabitants, the scale was sweepingly vast. Faber provided visual depictions of the island and its inhabitants and also suggested to his colleagues at LEGO a name for the new toy: Bionicle, a combination of the words biological and chronicle”. 42 First, there Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 69

was Faber’s rich depiction of the Bionicle universe, with its tropical island topped by a massive volcano. “For me, every fantasy story starts not with the characters but with the location”, he recalled. “You’ve got to give kids a compelling place to play.” 43 Undoubtedly, understanding the importance of world-building was a key component of the success of LEGO’s fi rst IP, as well as action fi gures bigger than minifi gures that used ball-and-joint articulation, affording children more realistic movement and poses in their play. In creating the nature, culture, language, mythology, and philosophy that form the infrastructures of an imaginary world, 44 Faber and other designers drew on Maori and other South Pacifi c cultural expressions. The New Zealand Maori, represented by lawyer Maui Solomon, protested that the appropriation of the Maori language and other traditional cultural expressions like traditional tattoos, myths, clan systems, and rituals in Bionicle products trivial- ized and commercialized their culture. 45 According to a BBC News article, “Mr Solomon and the groups he represents objected to the inappropriate use of Maori words, and the way the game mixed together strands of many cultures”. 46 Although LEGO responded admirably to the Maori complaint, sending a representative to New Zealand, agreeing to stop using Maori language, and deciding to work on the code of conduct (which needed four more corporations to join LEGO and subsequently stalled), Maori activists staged a cyber attack on the fan-site BZPower.com (not offi cially affi liated with LEGO) in order to bring their concerns directly to the consumers. The denial of service (DOS) attacks resulted in a series of counterattacks on a Maori activist site, and also discussion about cultural appropriation, some of which engaged with the ideas behind the original attack, and some of which was primarily angry. Overall, the Maori/ LEGO/BZPower.com confl ict is a fascinating example of how communities have become involved in global transmedia through digital technology. Interestingly, the issue of cultural appropriation in Ninjago recently fl ared again on BZPower.com; a poster called “Octodad” raised on the LEGO Discus- sion board with a topic “The Problem with Ninjago”:

Ninjago would be nothing without the Western appropriation of Japanese culture. That’s it, plain and simple. The very concept is ripped and mangled

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 straight from Japanese history books, and molded with assorted junk into a line that seeks to please the desire for faux-Asian products in the West. . . . Ninjago has stomped upon Japanese culture and ground it into something malleable for Westerners who want to make a quick buck off of it. 47

The discussion that followed devolved (as often happens) and was summarized and mocked across the web (as often happens), but there are interesting points about intentionality and appropriation. Leaving aside the question of whether it is good or right for an individual, group, or corporation to use cultural material from a tradition not their own, and of how that material should or should 70 Lori Landay

not be used, we can certainly say that the sampling, synthesizing, and remixing that formed Bionicle is characteristic of cultural production today. The music in the Ninjago animated series echoes the cultural remix approach of myth blocks. American composers Jay Vincent and Mike Kramer combine traditional orchestral composition with what they term “ethnic colors” and modern fi lm scoring sampling techniques to create a hybrid soundscape. For example, within the overall division of wind instruments for the heroes and strings for the villains, Vincent and Kramer use the dizi and xiao, both Chinese fl utes as well as the South American quena fl ute and the Armenian duduk. The result is a soundscape that incorporates culturally-specifi c instruments and musical elements within a compositional framework familiar from established fi lm scoring conventions. The Ninjago theme song, however, is fully American pop music, aurally and thematically celebrating what Roger Caillois termed ilinx , “an attempt to momen- tarily destroy the stability of perception and infl ict a kind of voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind” 48 through vertigo. Caillois derives ilinx from the Greek word for whirlpool, which he writes is broad enough to cover “a disorder that may take organic or psychological form”. Written and performed by the Chicago band The Fold, the lyrics of the show’s theme song “Weekend Whip” exhort you to “Jump up, kick back, whip around and spin!” In the mythology of Ninjago, spinning creates a tornado of energy fueled by the Spinjitzu Master’s element. The Tornado of Creation, which combines all four elements into the power to create something out of nothing, was how the First Spinjitzu Master created Ninjago. The tornadoes also obscure violence and confl ict by making it metaphoric; as Dan Hageman explains, “What’s fun about Ninjago is that they fi ght inside these tornadoes, so you can’t really see anyone, I don’t know, tearing out a jugular”. 49 The spinning in the animated show or video games is fused transmedially with toy spinners, that have a play mechanism of their own separate from building, and that could be used for competitive gameplay based on specifi c rules in homes, on-line, and in coordinated competitions. When the development team was working on Ninjago, they wanted to incorporate an element of “schoolyard currency”, something “competitive and cool”. 50

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Competitive battles with complex systems of powers and damages were not new to kid culture, of course, any more than ninja were. Ninjago draws on the popularity of competitive spinning top toys like Beyblades as well as collectible Pokémon card battles and Disney’s Club Penguin’s Card-Jitsu, as well as previously popular boys’ transmedia like and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Dan Fleming argues that the popularity of martial arts in US and European cities coincides with the popularity of ninjas and TMNT: “The Ninjitsu system has come to epitomize this tensions [between individualism and collective discipline].” 51 Flem- ing continues, “the ninja and kung fu imagery in general, with its ideal of freely- chosen group-based discipline, condenses different ideas and sentiments according Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 71

to the context, balancing as it does the individual and the collective and allowing each to escape some aspects of the other”. 52 Spinjitzu, the spinning martial art the Ninjago ninja learn from Sensei Wu as they master their element and tap into their true potential, alludes to Ninjitsu. According to the Character Encylopedia , Spinjitzu “allows any Master of it to spin so quickly that he becomes a tornado of energy. Spinjitzu Masters usually control one of the four Elements”: Ice, Fire, Earth, and Lightning. 53 Ninjago Spinjitzu tops have objects, trading/playing cards, characters from the imaginary world who use the spinner or speeder, and codes that unlock extra content in online versions of the games. The competitive game has many shared elements with Pokémon and other kids’ transmedial worlds that organize and categorize its inhabitants and objects as knowledge and practices for kids to master, exchange, and share. As Buckingham and Sefton-Green conclude in their study of structure and agency in Pokémon as media consumption that requires activity:

The diversity of media and activities enable it to ﬁ t in isomorphically with many of the spaces and routines of children’s everyday lives. . . . the texts of Pokémon are not designed merely to be “consumed” in the passive sense of the word. On the contrary, they are designed to generate activity and social interaction. Indeed, they positively depend upon it. This is the case not only in children’s immediate encounters with the text(s), but also in what happens beyond this. The computer games are obviously designed to be “interactive”, in the sense that you have to make choices and pre- dictions, remember key information, plan ahead, and so on, if you are to succeed. However, this kind of active engagement is also required by the phenomenon as a whole: in order to be part of the Pokémon culture, and to learn what you need to know, you must actively seek out new information and new products – and, crucially, engage with others in doing so. There is a level of cognitive activity required here, but also a level of social or interpersonal activity without which the phenomenon would not exist. 54

Ninjago, and Chima, seek to engage children in similar activity in the imaginary

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 world through various transmedial platforms that span and connect experiences that occur on the page, on the screen, in an interface, and in the physical world. If we return to my model, the spinners manifest on each platform, with different properties of representation, affordances, and degrees of structure. Manifested on the physical platform with LEGO toys, if played according to the rules that accompany the spinner playsets, there is a ludic structure for the competition in which players can develop mastery of the spinners, with points and properties that feed into the kind of extensive knowledge base that made Pokémon successful. Or kids can just spin the toys, making up their own rules, in a more paidial kind of play, or can use the ﬁ gures as part of dramatic or pretense play 72 Lori Landay

that may or may not be competitive, and may or may not be based on the characters and narrative elements from the animated series; depending on how they use the toys they could explore existing frameworks, combine existing elements in different ways, or transform the toys into play objects that do something other than Ninjago. How they play with the toys would be shaped by experiences they’d had on the other platforms, whether they had narrative information, for example, from LEGO Club Magazine, or were engaged in the unfolding story in the television series, or involved in reading and writing their own fan fi ction (perhaps a gender-switching story that reimagines the ninja as female), or had played video game versions, or had spent recess spinning around themselves in a playground game. Each experience can be described in terms of where it occurs on a media platform, and how it is bounded by a level of structure and the affordances of the medium. And each could be fused with, or understood through, the transmedial window of other experiences, as if there were chutes and ladders between the platforms. And they are intended to be gateways from one experience to another; non-building toys offer “a low-intensity building experience” that, according to LEGO’s Michael McNally, “was about recruitment, and it worked, and that’s why we’re doing Chima”. 55 The myth blocks remixed in the Ninjago spinners, from cultural sources, children’s culture, and the mythos of LEGO, provide contexts in which competition, or dramatic actions or stories can be played out, but it seems like many of the themes are focused on confl ict. The willingness to foster “confl ict play”, a term for acting out aggression and hostility in play I found in a document entitled “Fighting Machines: Good vs. Evil in Confl ict Play” on the LEGO website, is a deliberate shift. The undated document can be placed around 2005–6 because it ends with a discussion of the new (and unsuccessful) IP theme EXO- FORCE, and explains that in order for a toy that facilitates confl ict play “to earn the LEGO name, it fi rst has to set a stage where children can become heroes”, and that LEGO aims “to develop confl ict play scenarios where children can experience the benefi ts of cooperation”. 56 The document explains when (developmentally) and how children differentiate between good and evil, and between television violence and real life violence, and lists skills that children develop through confl ict play, ending with reassurance, “So, go ahead, it can be

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 beneﬁ cial to let children be the heroes of their own stories—even if it requires a little rumble”. 57 I was more than skeptical when I stumbled across this document early in my research. It sounded to me like a justiﬁ cation for the aggressive faces, general pointiness, proliferation of missiles and other projectiles, and all the other post- Transformers power-crazed tendencies I see in boys’ toys. However, as I learned more about the history of boys’ culture in the American 19th and early 20th centuries (with, for example, its inclusion of hostile physical combat, throwing stones at each other, and hunting and trapping small animals and birds, 58 ) I was glad that if my boys are going to dramatize their desires to dominate in play, Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 73

FIGURE 4.3 Castle sets from 1986 and 2013.

that they do it with LEGO. It’s understandable that they want action-hero characters who have a lot of agency, who have mastery over their bodies, the environment, their circumstances, and even physics. However, when I recall the pants shooters from kindergarten, I’m not sure that they need to have such specifi c objects with which to play that out. The proliferation of representations and simulations is a part of transmedial production, and as LEGO’s commitment to action fi gures has led them away from sets based on locations and toward sets that facilitate confl ict play, more emphasis is put on characters, with accompanying props that are often weapons. We can see this in the example of two castle playsets, one from 1986 and the other from 2013 ( Figure 4.3 ). The way the 2013 fi gures are set up in opposition visually, with strong diagonal lines exacerbated by pointy spears and projectiles is in sharp contrast to the smiling minifi gures of the past, none of whom make confl ictual eye contact with each other. Yet minifi gures have also changed over time, as we can see from the castle set illustration. Instead of the generic minifi gure, which only had a yellow smiling face from its introduction in 1975 until 1989, there is an abundance of minifi gure characters with increasingly diverse facial expressions, to include negative expressions such as anger, hostility, and fear in addition to the smile. A study of mini-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 ﬁ gure facial expressions found a complex range of expressions:

Our cluster analysis shows that toy design has become a more complex design space in which the imaginary world of play does not only consist of a simple division of good versus evil, but a world in which heroes are scared and villains can have superior smile [sic ]. 59

Although it is not simply the facial expressions on the miniﬁ gures, the study does include the observation that “the themes that LEGO is producing subjec- tively appear to become increasingly aggressive”. 60 To return to my model, manifest on each platform from simulation to representation, with each instance 74 Lori Landay

shaped by the productive relationship between structure and agency, there has been ever more explicit focus on confl ict: from the minifi gures’ facial expressions, the pictorial representations on the boxes that dramatize confl ict, the interactive media in which choices are based on, for example, confl ict over Chi, to the stories represented onscreen or in print, where there is confl ict play based on action fi gures thought to appeal to boys. As Jacob Kragh, who led concept design team efforts that resulted in the Galidor action fi gures, explained, “The driving force behind the action fi gure category, more than anything, is about triggering boys’ imaginations through role-play. . . . And role-play, more than anything, is about having strong characters”. 61 The “strong” characters are placed in situations with high confl ict, which is often dramatized through aggression, competition, “battles” (to use one of LEGO’s recurrent words), and violence. Marsha Kinder, a pioneer of understanding transmedia especially in children’s culture, argued that violence functions as a “source of empowerment ” which is “linked to transformability ”.

What distinguishes the Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers from other more traditional protean superheroes (such as Batman, Superman , and Wonder Woman ) is that they provide a choice of several characters for identifi cation so that spectators can move fl uidly from one to another and thereby quadruple their own transformative power. . . . This empowering plasticity is appealing not only to youngsters as a commodifi ed form of growth but also to adults as a means of survival in a global culture that is rapidly being restructured by economic and technological changes and that increasingly puts a high premium on transformative processes like recycling, retraining and masquerade. 62

Ninjago offers a range of characters with whom to identify as well, with four original ninja, plus the Green Ninja who is younger, smaller (with shorter miniﬁ gure legs), but more powerful as the master of all four elements, and Nya, the sister of the Fire Ninja Jay, who is revealed to be a powerful samurai. There are also the teacher/father characters, an absent mother who returns, and a large number of villainous skeletons, then serpents, and now in the Ninjago 2014 Reboot, cyborg nindroids. All the main characters and many

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 of the minor ones transform; for example, from regular people into ninja, or into tornadoes of energy, and once they overcome their emotional obstacles and unlock their true potential, into Masters of their element with glowing bodies. Or in the case of Lord Garmadon, Sensei Wu’s brother, there is a transformation from bad to good; and in 2014, even Sensei Wu is captured by the Digital Overlord and turned into an evil cyborg, Tech Wu, whom the ninja must liberate. But even more speciﬁ c than the wider context of boys’ play culture and media, LEGO has its own internal mythologizing of types of boys that it uses in the development process: Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 75

The effort began when the Slizer team, working from published research on boys’ behavior and especially their play lives, created detailed proﬁ les of four different consumers, each with an alliterative name. There was Agent Anthony, who loved action movies and adventure stories. Systematic Siegfried was fascinated with technology. Artistic Arthur would probably grow up to be a craftsman. And then there was Bully Bob, easily distracted and the loudest kid in the room—hardly the typical LEGO consumer and one whom the company had never seriously pursued. Each of the archetypes informed Slizer and helped shape Bionicle, but none more so than Bully Bob. 63

Robertson and Breen explain that Bully Bob, later referred to as “Bionicle Boy, a dynamic trendsetter with a short attention span, a kid who likes to multitask and desires instant gratifi cation” was the archetype of the LEGO customer for whom the team designed, someone who is social and competitive, a focus that ultimately led to the development of the Ninjago spinning top toys, Spinjitsu. 64 Those four types of playing boys sound a lot like the four ninjas of Ninjago, with Kai as Bully Bob, Cole as Agent Anthony, Jay as Artistic Arthur, and Zane as Systematic Siegfried. The initial storyline of Ninjago is overcoming Kai’s reluctance to train to be a ninja, to delay gratifi cation, and commit to the discipline of training. The mythic structure that LEGO designers created to understand their customers became part of the mythic structure of the imaginary world they created for those boys to play in, which shapes defi nitions of character types in a popular and infl uential children’s transmedial imaginary world, undoubtedly infl uencing how boys defi ne themselves in relation to the characters. Playing with the minifi gures either as pretend play or the more ludic and ilinx - laden Spinjitzu battles means choosing a ninja to control and play as; in the web game Ninjago Rebooted (2014), in Endless Mode, the player chooses which of the four ninja to have as an avatar. The online interactive fi ction affords following Nya, Kai, Zane, or the team of Cole and Jay through the branching narrative, THE RISE OF THE NINDROIDS! 65 There are many popular Mes- sage Board posts on LEGO.com under headings like “What ninja are you?”

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 and quizzes on the topic on other boards on the web, as well as fan ﬁ ction and role-play. Chima, even more than Ninjago, celebrates transformative power through character. The concretization of Chi as energy into water, then orbs that give the characters temporary power-ups that follow system dynamics familiar from many video games, are reinscribed as game objects and behaviors in the game world, and portrayed in a dizzying ﬂ ow between different transmedial platforms of the imaginary worlds. Children are transformed into warriors, friends into enemies and then back again, beasts into self-aware culture-makers, plenty into scarcity, peace into war. 76 Lori Landay

If drama can be reduced to confl ict, then the LEGO Club Magazine effectively communicated to my kids the essence of the Chima situation before they ever saw the toys or the series: the battle over Chi. Confl ict over possession, familiar in children’s everyday life, is transformed into myth in “The Great Story” when Laval, the lion hero, has his Chi stolen by an attacking Croc. In Chima, when youngsters come of age, they receive their first orb of Chi, which they put in their chest and, like the ninja, their bodies are transformed and enhanced by an empowering energy force. There are four kinds of lions in this episode, all versions which are transformations of each other. The father, a Warrior who is the leader of the Lion tribe who allocates Chi fairly, tells the story of the Legend Beasts (who did not drink from the Chi water and become bipedal) and gives Laval his fi rst orb. Young Laval, the hero, drops his orb, which is stolen by his former friend Cragger, and almost drowns in the Gasping Creek. He is saved by the third kind of lion, the Legend Beast, strong and pure, who roars instead of talking. After Laval rides back to the Lion temple on the back of the Legend Beast, and inserts his orb into the harness on his chest, he transforms into the fourth kind of lion, when he “Chis-up”. The power-up familiar from video games becomes part of the narrative, and then is concretized in the CHI Laval buildable fi gure, as discussed earlier. The brick is also transformed, and is an item for transformation in the virtual world of Chima Online (2014), where it is currency. But it is more than only currency (although without a successful business model which includes in-game purchases and paying memberships). As in other LEGO video games, objects in the game world break apart into virtual bricks and studs, and in Chima Online, like in Minecraft , you smash stuff to get at its components. This is satisfying in an ilinctic way; it is tumult, and a kind of mastery over the environment, to be able to reduce it to parts and harvest them. Although not everything is made of bricks, many things, including houses or tents, are, and there is a building menu and ability that I’m not far enough along yet to access. It is here, where the brick is virtualized and stands for value, that the mythology of LEGO is apparent: that the brick is, like chi, what will enable a child

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 to transform; where we see how mythology has been made into bricks, which have been mediatized; and ﬁ nally, what is virtual is made manifest physically again in the brick. The mythology of LEGO is a set of myth blocks that becomes part of every build—whether it is in puns like using LEGO’s term “clutch power” (for how the bricks stick together) as the name for the hero Clutch Powers in animated movies; or the brilliant meta-narratives of productive tensions between individualism and collaboration, structure and agency, and paidia and ludus in The LEGO Movie (2014); or the chi that everyone needs to save the world—LEGO, the play system that fosters creativity, reinscribes itself in the construct. Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 77

Notes 1. Marsha Kinder, Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Video Games: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991; Maaike Lauwaert, The Place of Play: Toys and Digital Cultures, Amsterdam, Hol- land: Amsterdam University Press, 2009; Stig Hjarvard, “From Bricks to Bytes: The Mediatization of a Global Toy Industry” in Peter Golding and Ib Bondebjerg, editors, European Culture and the Media, Bristol, England: Intellect Books, 2004, pages 43–63; Stig Hjarvard, The Mediatization of Society and Culture, New York, NY: Routledge, 2013. 2. Edith Ackermann, David Gauntlett, and Cecilia Weckstrom, “Defi ning Systematic Creativity”, LEGO Learning Institute, 2009, available at http://cache.lego.com/r/ legofoundation/-/media/LEGO%20Foundation/Downloads/Foundation%20 research/Systematic%20Creativity%20Report.pdf ; Edith Ackermann, David Gauntlett, Thomas Wolbers, and Cecilia Weckstrom, “Defi ning Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm”, LEGO Learning Institute, 2009, available at http://cache.lego.com/r/ legofoundation/-/media/LEGO%20Foundation/Downloads/Foundation%20 research/Systematic_Creativity_In_The_Digital_Realm_Report.pdf. 3. Esben Karmark, “Mediatizing a Global Brand – Effects on LEGO Group’s Corporate Brand of Establishing a Media Company”, in Lilie Chouliaraki and Mette Morsing, editors, Media, Organization and Identity , London, England: Palgrave, 2010, page 118. 4. David C. Robertson and Bill Breen, Brick by Brick: How Lego Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry, New York, NY: Crown Business, 2013, Kindle Locations 1159–62. 5. Karmark, “Mediatizing a Global Brand”, 2010, page 118. 6. Lauwaert, The Place of Play , 2009, page 60. 7. Lauwaert, The Place of Play , 2009, page 61. 8. David Robertson, “Building Success: How Thinking ‘inside the Brick’ Saved Lego (Wired UK)”, Wired UK , 2013, available at www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/ 10/features/building-success. 9. Rupert Neate, “Lego Builds yet Another Record Profi t to Become World’s Top Toymaker”, The Guardian, February 27, 2014, sec. Business, available at www.theguardian.com/ business/2014/feb/27/lego-builds-record-profi t?CMP=ema_565. 10. Stiven Kerestegian, “Open Innovation at the LEGO Group”, Pioneers, November 21, 2013, available at https://web.archive.org/web/20131128195640/http://pioneers.io/ blog/open-innovation-lego-group. 11. Stig Hjarvard, The Mediatization of Culture and Society, New York, NY: Taylor & Francis, 2013, page 122. 12. Hjarvard, “From Bricks to Bytes”, 2004, page 59.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 13. “Toy of the Century”, LEGO.com, 2007, accessed 28 February, 2014, http://cache. lego.com/upload/contentTemplating/LEGOAboutUs-PressReleases/otherfiles/ download177A5FCDC839AA3548FABB89C53C45AB.pdf 14. Mark J. P. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation, New York, NY: Routledge, 2012, page 24. 15. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds, 2012, page 248. 16. In general, research upholds a difference in interest in acting out stories with toys based on gender that I’ve noticed. As one summary of LEGO’s research puts it, “Lego conﬁ rmed that girls favor role-play, but they also love to build—just not the same way as boys. Whereas boys tend to be ‘linear’—building rapidly, even against the clock, to ﬁ nish a kit so it looks just like what’s on the box—girls prefer ‘stops along the 78 Lori Landay

way,’ and to begin storytelling and rearranging. Lego has bagged the pieces in Lego Friends boxes so that girls can begin playing various scenarios without fi nishing the whole model”. Brad Wieners, “Lego Is for Girls”, BusinessWeek: Magazine, December 14, 2011, available at www.businessweek.com/magazine/lego-is-for-girls-12142011. html#p2. 17. Espen J. Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. 18. Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games , 1958; English translation, New York, NY: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961, page 27. 19. Karen Ann Brennan, Best of Both Worlds: Issues of Structure and Agency in Computational Creation, In and Out of School, Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013, page 25. 20. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds, 2012, page 250. 21. Edith Ackermann, et al., “Defi ning Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm”, 2009, page 15. 22. Ackermann, et al ., “Defi ning Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm”, 2009, page 19. 23. Reed Stevens, Tom Satwicz, and Laurie McCarthy, “In-Game, In-Room, In-World: Reconnecting Video Game Play to the Rest of Children Lives”, in Katie Salen, editor, The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008, page 64. 24. Seth Giddings, “‘I’m the One Who Makes the Lego Racers Go’: Studying Virtual and Actual Play”, in Sandra Weber and Shanly Dixon, editors, Growing Up Online Young People and Digital Technologies , New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, available at http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/handle/1892/1587. 25. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds, 2012, page 189. 26. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds, 2012, page 192. 27. Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013, Kindle Locations 4037–40. 28. Michael Ripinsky-Naxon, The Nature of Shamanism: Substance and Function of a Religious Metaphor, New York, NY: SUNY Press, 1993, page 55. 29. “The Source of the Fangpyre”, LEGO.com Inside Scoop, n.d., available at http://club. lego.com/en-us/insidescoop/the-source-of-the-fangpyre. 30. “Lego – Ninjago”, RVHM, available at http://cargocollective.com/rvhm/ Lego-Ninjago. 31. Haley Winters, “The E-List: Dan and Kevin Hageman Talk Ninjago, The LEGO Movie, and How to Write a Screenplay with Your Brother”, Deadshirt , January 3, 2014, available at http://deadshirt.net/2014/01/03/the-e-list-dan-and-kevin-hageman- talk-ninjago-the-lego-movie-and-how-to-write-a-screenplay-with-your-brother/. 32. Kim Girard, “Can LEGO Snap Together a Future in Asia?—HBS Working Knowledge”, Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Working Knowledge, May 28, 2013, available at http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7144.html. 33. S. Hollensen, “LEGO Global Marketing”, Global CMO The Community, available at www.theglobalcmo.com/lego-global-marketing/. 34. “Who Dares, Plays”, The Economist , November 16, 2013, available at www.economist. com/news/business/21589898-toymaker-taps-new-market-selling-pussycat-mums- who-dares-plays. 35. Eveline Danabruta and Laura Philomin, “How Lego Became the Second-Biggest Toy Company in the World”, Financial Post, available at http://business.fi nancialpost. com/2013/10/03/how-lego-became-the-second-biggest-toy-company-in-the- world/. Myth Blocks: The Ninjago and Chima Themes 79

36. Ted Trautman, “The Year of the Lego”, The New Yorker Blogs , November 11, 2013, available at www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/11/lego-company- asian-toy-industry-sales-in-china.html. 37. Kōichi Iwabuchi, Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002, page 33. 38. Iwabuchi, Recentering Globalization, 2002, pages 33–4. 39. Derek Johnson, Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries, New York, NY: New York University Press, 2013, Kindle Locations 3359–60. 40. The LEGO Foundation, available at www.legofoundation.com/en-us/research-and- learning/foundation-research/. 41. Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013, Kindle Locations 2235–7. 42. Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013, Kindle Locations 2244–6. 43. Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013, Kindle Locations 2373–5. 44. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds, 2012, page 189. 45. Brian Fitzgerald and Susan Hedge, “Traditional Cultural Expression and the Internet World”, in Christoph Antons, editor, Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Cultural Expres- sions, and Intellectual Property Law in the Asia-Pacifi c Region , Frederick, MD: Kluwer Law International, 2009, page 261. 46. Girard, “Can LEGO Snap Together a Future in Asia?”, 2013. 47. Octodad, “The Problem with Ninjago”, BZPower , January 27, 2014, available at www. bzpower.com/board/index.php?showtopic=11907&page=1. 48. Caillois, Man, Play, and Games , 1961, page 23. 49. Winters, “The E-List”, 2014. 50. Poul Schou, quoted in Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013, Kindle Location 4064. 51. Dan Fleming, Powerplay: Toys as Popular Culture, Manchester, England and New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 1996, pages 141–2. 52. Fleming, Powerplay , 1996, page 142. 53. Claire Sipi, LEGO Ninjago Masters of Spinjitzu Character Encyclopedia, New York, NY: DK Publishers, 2012, page 7. 54. David Buckingham and Julian Sefton-Green, “Gotta Catch ‘Em All: Structure, Agency and Pedagogy in Children’s Media Culture”, Media Culture & Society Vol. 25, No. 3, 2003, page 389. 55. Sam Thielman, “How Lego Became the Most Valuable Toy Company in the World”, AdWeek, available at www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/how-lego-became- most-valuable-toy-company-world-148578. 56. The LEGO Group, “Fighting Machines: Good vs. Evil in Confl ict Play”, available at Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 http://parents.lego.com/en-us/childdevelopment/confl ict-play. 57. Ibid. 58. E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolu- tion to the Modern Era, New York, NY: BasicBooks, 1993, pages 35–6. 59. Christoph Bartneck, Mohammad Obaid, and Karolina Zawieska, “Agents With Faces – What Can We Learn From LEGO Minifi gures?”, in Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (iHAI 2013), 2013, available at www.hitlabnz.org/administrator/components/com_jresearch/fi les/publications/III- 2-1%20(3).pdf. 60. Bartneck, et al., “Agents with Faces”, 2013. 80 Lori Landay

61. Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013, Kindle Locations 865–7. 62. Kinder, Playing with Power, 1991, page 33. 63. Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013, Kindle Locations 2401–6. 64. Robertson and Breen, Brick by Brick, 2013, Kindle Locations 2416–17. 65. The LEGO Group, “THE RISE OF THE NINDROIDS!”, LEGO.com LEGO Club: Inside Scoop, available at http://club.lego.com/en-us/insidescoop/ninjago-cyoa.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 5 CHICKS WITH BRICKS: BUILDING CREATIVITY ACROSS INDUSTRIAL DESIGN CULTURES AND GENDERED CONSTRUCTION PLAY

Derek Johnson

As a fi lm that narratively celebrates unlimited construction play, yet economically supports the sale of construction toys differentiated in the marketplace by single imagined uses, The LEGO Movie (2014) must engage in a careful ideological balancing act. The “creativity” it idealizes must account for the freedom and agency implied by that term, yet in a way compatible with the packaging and marketing campaigns that encourage users to build what they see on the box then purchase new sets instead of reconfi guring what they already have. The ideological bargain struck in the fi lm, therefore, depends on defi ning creativity in relation, rather than strict opposition, to the practices of following the instructions. The fi rst act focuses on Emmet, an animated LEGO construction worker minifi gure who dutifully follows instructions for everything from combining bricks to fi tting in socially. Although “Master Builders” like Wyldstyle and Batman shun instructions and rebuild the world around them in virtuosic ways, Emmet eventually schools these individualistic builders in the value of instructions as a platform for teamwork. And when the fi nal act shifts to a live-action struggle over use of LEGO bricks between an order-minded father and his more

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 chaotic but innovative son, the resolution of father and son learning to play together comes from a compromise between instructions and free play. While the father eventually embraces his son’s penchant for reconfi guration and foregoes a plan to use Krazy Glue to permanently fi x instruction-built models, there is little suggestion that his son’s master building will come at the cost of entirely abandoning the instructions. The creative model and father–son collaboration settled upon in the fi lm’s conclusion melds the two approaches, where builds made fi rst by the instructions can later be creatively reconfi gured. “Master building” in the fi lm is rarely the creation of something from nothing, but the rear- rangement of pre-existing, pre-designed things. 82 Derek Johnson

While this idea of creativity growing from conformity supports the pleasures of the fi lm narrative as well as LEGO’s build-by-instructions market, it takes on added cultural and political signifi cance in relationship to the company’s marketing of construction play to girls. Similar ideologies underwrote the 2012 launch of the LEGO Friends theme that targeted construction sets to young female consumers via pastel-colored bricks, feminized narrative settings, and the replace- ment of the ubiquitious four-centimeter LEGO minifi gure with new taller and slimmer “minidolls”. Here, in addition to instruction booklets, feminized frames provided LEGO consumers with what Ellen van Oost and Mary Kearney term “gender scripts”, in which differentiation of cultural technologies on the basis of gender governs and disciplines their use. 1 The creative engagement of girls with LEGO toys is limited, regulated, and essentialized through design, marketing, and packaging in accordance with gender scripts that provide de facto instructions for approaching construction play in feminine ways. And though LEGO provided these scripts, it could simultaneously suggest that creative use of the product might be enabled, rather than limited, by them. Congratulatory features in the business press offered an opportunity for LEGO to present itself as reluctantly embracing gender stereotypes in order to connect girls with the enriching possibilities of construction play. 2 This uneasy position within the marketing of popular culture calls into relief the way in which ideas about creativity, production, and “preferred use” 3 of LEGO products cohere in intersection with assumptions about gender differences and the values placed upon them. LEGO Friends offers a unique opportunity to examine how the creativity of industrial production and design at LEGO, as well as the creativity of consumers using the product through play, accrues legibility and meaning through conformity to the cultural instructions of gender scripts. LEGO Friends represents a cultural struggle over creativity and its construction through gender (and less explicitly—but no less importantly—class and race, given both the expense of the product and, as I have examined elsewhere, the post-racial politics of LEGO’s supposedly “universal” appeals). 4 Creativity is mobilized both in opposition to and defense of gender scripts in the idea of “free” play with LEGO products. At stake are concerns about who is encouraged to be and recognized as “creative”, in what ways, as determined by per-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 ceived differences between girls and boys and their play patterns. Following the initial 2011 announcement of the Friends theme, many critics responded with healthy suspicion toward its limited, binary view of gendered play, looking back nostalgically at historical marketing campaigns in which LEGO had endorsed comparatively non-segregated play and more gender-neutral (but still white, middle-class) models of creativity. A ﬁ restorm of unrest from parents, feminists, and fans contested the meanings of creativity on offer in this new product line and accompanying claims made by the LEGO Group. While concerned with the design of the new girl-targeted construction toys, many detractors also critiqued the industrial practices behind Friends, making claims about the work Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 83

worlds in which this product and beliefs about consumer creativity were produced. Meanwhile, within the LEGO Group itself, the differences with which it constructed creativity for girls shaped the strategies by which it presented the creative practices of its own designers in promotion and marketing, with the creative work of designers of differently gendered products taking on unequal meanings and values. Through this struggle over the appropriateness of gender scripts to the production of childhood creativity, industrial creativity too became a site of competing claims and meaning-making activities organized by gender. To explore this negotiation of “creativity” in relation to conformity with gender scripts and other normative instructions for consumption and production, this essay ﬁ rst reﬂ ects on studies of industrial production that understand “creativity” as a constructed site of meaning and value, proposing increased attention to the ways in which cultures of production and their constructions of creativity come under external negotiation and contestation in spheres of consumption. From this framework, the essay assesses the industrial circumstances driving the LEGO Group’s increased investment in gender-differentiated appeals, before analyzing activist responses to the LEGO Friends theme. In refuting LEGO’s insistence that conformity with gender scripts supported childhood creativity, this activism highlighted, contested, and rewrote beliefs about gender, marketing, and creativity within corporate cultures. With this in mind, the essay lastly considers the managed public statements—and silences—of LEGO designers who created gender-differentiated product, examining how their claims to creativity and creative identity in their industrial work shaped and were shaped by gendered understanding of the creativity of LEGO consumers. In the end, this study offers insight into how creative identities—in professional industrial work and childhood play alike—took shape in negotiation of tensions between conformity to the instructions of gender scripts and the potential to build other possibilities into being.

Creative Identity and the Reception of Deep Texts While LEGO’s branding outwardly frames creativity as a consumer trait, the study of production within the media industries offers a strong foundation for

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 theorizing creativity, concerned with how producers situate themselves within fi elds of power by laying claim to specifi c habituses and professional identities. Pierre Bourdieu saw cultural production as a fi eld of position-takings in which participants claim symbolic capital and struggle to legitimize their work within cultural hierarchies. 5 Creativity, in this sense, is a position taken by cultural producers to imbue work and practice with value. Relatedly, David Hesmondhalgh and Sarah Baker conceive of creative work as labor that generates expressive and symbolic products carrying social meaning. 6 Creative work, in this sense, is that which can produce meaning and thereby can be claimed as meaningful. More- over, creativity has become a signifi cant site of concern for “cultural studies of 84 Derek Johnson

fi lm/television production” that consider “the cultures, social organization, work practices, and belief systems of fi lm/video works as an alternative to and extension of traditional political economic analysis and industrial fi lm historical research.” 7 Taking up this concern for the texts, rituals, practices, and discourses that give meaning and value to the work worlds and labor of cultural production, Vicki Mayer examines cultural hierarchies in television production between “above-the-line” workers rewarded for their perceived creativity and the “below- the-line” craftspeople recognized in terms of their less privileged technical skill. Troubling this distinction, Mayer extends the idea of creativity to below-the-line labor and situates identity work in relation to creativity as central to industrial struggles. 8 Methodologically, John Caldwell calls our attention to “deep texts and rituals” such as sizzle reels, corporate retreats, and other industry artifacts that provide useful insight into the ways in which meanings, professional identities, power, and authority are constructed within production cultures (2009: 202). Beyond the embedded and semi-embedded deep texts that circulate within industry work worlds, Caldwell identifi es “publicly disclosed deep texts” like DVD commentar- ies and online websites that also make production meaningfully visible outside of its work worlds. 9 While publicly disclosed deep texts are carefully managed constructions that offer little insight into the “truth” of production, I argue here that they offer signifi cant insight into intersections between the self-refl exive discourses of industry work worlds and external realms of meaning-making outside of the professional sphere. In response to publicly-disclosed deep texts, discursive formations outside of industry proper can play productive roles in shaping, infl ecting, contesting, or rewriting claims and beliefs about creativity and creative identity made in corporate production cultures. In the same sense that Adrienne Shaw advocates the study of video games “in culture” rather than video games “as culture”, 10 the study of industrial production cultures might be conceived less as study of a bounded subculture and more in terms of forces outside of the industry that respond to deep texts, and in that way contribute to the process of framing the culture of production. By considering the gendered construction of LEGO creativity, this project pushes production studies to give greater consideration to the intersection between

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 producers and consumers and their struggle to construct meanings, values, and hierarchies around the use of and engagement with popular culture. While some might see this as a move away from “production” per se, the investment in creativity and the construction of creative identities central to production studies persists as a useful anchor to think about the claims that professionals and consumer critics alike make about the design and use of LEGO products. So in drawing from but refocusing production studies paradigms, this project considers the beliefs, rituals, and identities that underwrite the idea of creativity in the industrial work of designing and marketing gendered LEGO playsets, as well as the imagined creativity of consumers who interact with these gender-scripted Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 85

goods. By triangulating the gendered claims that LEGO circulates in deep texts with competing popular discourses about the creativity of both consumers and industry, we can understand how producers and designers at LEGO embrace and perform creative identities, how that creativity is imagined in gendered marketing practices, and how gendered users of LEGO are framed as creative themselves.

Making Friends The recent portrait painted by scholars 11 and industry analysts 12 positions the LEGO Group as having successfully recovered at the turn of the century from a period of strategic stagnation, marketing overreach, and declining sales. Among many other strategic shifts, the reformed LEGO embraced partnerships with other media brands and developed playsets based on media licenses like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings , and Batman . 13 This recovery also turned signifi cantly upon investment in hyper-masculine play patterns and narrative confl icts between good and evil perceived as appealing to boy consumers. Gender-specifi c marketing helped LEGO to a 105 percent revenue increase between 2006 and 2011, and $1 billion in 2010 sales. 14 The challenge to further growth outside of the 4-to-12-year-old-male demographic, however, was that after a decade (or more) of doubling down on appeals to boys, market experts and critics alike perceived LEGO as disinterested or even hostile to girls. As claimed by Peggy Orenstein, challenger of gender-normative marketing of princess culture in the popular book Cinderella Ate My Daughter, LEGO “might as well have a No Girls Allowed sign” accompanying its product displays.15 In recounting this economic struggle and historical failure to serve girls, friendly business reporting represented the LEGO Friends campaign as newfound commitment to progressively (and profi tably) making good upon core “characteristics of LEGO” that promised inclusion “for girls and for boys.” 16 Selling this return to past values, however, required distinguishing Friends from a long history of attempts to identify a girl-specifi c market for LEGO. Research by David Pickett traces such efforts back to the 1970s: from the “Homemaker” line of brick-built doll furniture, to the Scala Jewelry in the 1980s and Paradisa theme

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 in the 1990s that presented girls with scaled-back building requirements, to the Belville and Clikit lines of the early 2000s that offered out-of-scale minifi gures and pieces barely compatible with standard LEGO bricks. 17 Throughout, the marketing of high-skill Technic and Train playsets focused primarily on boys, and the subsequent “push toward confl ict and hyper-masculinity in classic themes (and a whole host of new ones) made LEGOLAND inhospitable for femininity”. 18 Indicative of this shift, the 1980s “Zach the Lego Maniac” ad campaign positioned a young white boy as the prototypical builder of castle, town, space, and Technic products: “I know a boy, his name is Zach, he loves to fi t, he loves to stack. Yes, construction is his knack, he’s Zach the LEGO maniac.” Later 86 Derek Johnson

1990–1 commercials for the Pirates theme introduced additional boy “maniacs” like “Jack”, with an African-American boy rapping revised maniac rhymes. Notably, the rap’s lyrics referred to Jack in the gendered third person (“he’s a LEGO maniac”, not “I’m a LEGO maniac”), with the African-American boy featured in entirely separate shots from the white boy actually playing with the toys (assumedly Jack). The African-American boy thus witnessed white LEGO mania to give it new hip-hop appeal, whereas girls remained entirely absent from the gendered and raced construction play being imagined. So while LEGO ads of the 1950s and 1960s did show girls and boys playing together, 19 that inclusivity represented a fairly brief moment in the history of the company’s marketing strategies. Since the late 1970s, LEGO has carved out segregated spaces of gendered interests and even separate building mechanics for boys and girls—ironic given that LEGO has otherwise long sold itself on the virtues of all pieces being able to fi t together, with even DUPLO bricks for toddlers marketed by their later compatibility with LEGO “system” bricks. In these marketing schemes, socially constructed gender differences have demanded more boundary work than developmental differences of age. LEGO marketing has also embraced cross-generational play more than cross-gender play, with 2000s advertising ignoring girls but emphasizing the potential for boys to build with their fathers. 20 The LEGO Movie culminates in a similar building bond between father and son, and while the fi lm’s concluding punchline suggests that the two will soon include a sister in their play sessions, she is clearly marked as a DUPLO toddler not of the older 4-to-12-year-old demographic that LEGO has historically segregated from its boys’ market. In introducing new minidolls out of scale with LEGO system minifi gures, fi guring girls’ play in gendered narratives, relying upon a different color palette of pinks, purples, and periwinkles rarely used in other LEGO sets, and most especially being stocked in “pink aisles” with Barbie instead of other “blue” LEGO products, the new LEGO Friends theme extended many of these historical strategies of gender divisiveness (see Figure 5.1 ). That is not to deny any difference. The LEGO Group put an unprecedented degree of marketing power behind Friends, spending $40 million to capture the attention of girls and parents. 21 Furthermore, while many Friends sets focused on gender norma-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 tive themes such as beauty (Butterﬂ y Beauty Shop #3187), fashion (Emma’s Fashion Design Studio #3936), domesticity ( Mia’s Bedroom #3939), cooking ( Stephanie’s Outdoor Bakery #3930), equestrian activities (Summer Riding Camp #3185), and veterinary caregiving (Heartlake Vet #3188), in contrast to the action–adventure conﬂ icts of boy-targeted themes, other Friends sets did position girls for other kinds of play (Olivia’s Invention Workshop #3933, Olivia’s Speedboat #3937, and Emma’s Karate Class #41002). Many adult consumers familiar with LEGO building techniques also acknowledged that the experience of building the Friends sets required just as much skill as LEGO sets targeted at boys of the same age. 22 Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 87

FIGURE 5.1 Gender-normative Friends product ( Butterﬂ y Beauty Shop #3187) as marketed on the online LEGO storefront.

Yet where LEGO Friends aligns most with historical strategies of gender- differentiated marketing is in allowing LEGO to take greater steps toward market inclusion of girls without necessitating a shift in existing focus on boys in marketing its other product lines. The Friends theme allows new appeal to girls, conﬁ ned to a single, insulated space. In its online storefronts, LEGO marks each of its products with a certain number of “tags” to indicate shared interests, themes, and target markets. The “girls” tag delivers 117 product offerings as of February 2014. Only 50 of those belong to the Friends theme, but the vast majority of remaining products fall outside of the 4–12 age range to which Friends is targeted. These include DUPLO products, as well as modular buildings, architecture sets, and other expensive collectible product for “12+”- and “16+”-year-old builders. Outside these, only one Spongebob Squarepants set, three Creator sets designed as domiciles ( Small Cottage #31009, Family House #31012, and Treehouse #31010), one Castle set with a miniﬁ gure explicitly described as a princess ( Kingdoms Joust #10223), and buckets of basic bricks carry the “girls” tag. No sets in Chima, Star Wars, Superheroes, The LEGO Movie, or other

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 popular themes targeted at ages 4–12 were marked for “girls”—even when focused on female characters like Princess Leia, Catwoman, or Wyldstyle. 23 LEGO thus expands its appeals to girls only in spaces that do not overlap with the core boy 4–12 market. Exemplary of this was the restructuring of LEGO Club Maga- zine in early 2012 following the release of Friends. Although LEGO previously sent its magazine to all children in its consumer database, the company began sending girls a separate version focused on Friends. Parents had to opt out of the gender speciﬁ c program for their daughters to continuing receiving what LEGO representatives referred to as the “regular” magazine. 24 Though LEGO would soon make the Friends Club content an insert within the “regular” 88 Derek Johnson

magazine, this continued to segregate girls within the overall product portfolio (if only a little more softly). The March–April 2014 issue of the “special edition” girls Club insert did pitch The LEGO Movie to girls beyond the fi lm’s segregated marketing to boys in toy aisles, but it did so by exclusive reference to the fi lm’s supporting female characters, Wyldstyle and Unikitty, zeroing in on the characters’ “outfi ts” and “cute” qualities. As I have written elsewhere, these moves to expand gendered appeals within major media brands give girls “a room of one’s own”, yet simultaneously tell girls to stay in that gender-defi ned space so fully separate (and unequal) market emphasis on boys and men can be sustained. 25 Historically speaking, cultural producers across numerous media have long reacted negatively to the idea of girls and women playing freely with and generating their own meanings from popular culture (in fandom, for example), regulating use of media and culture instead through gender conformity. LEGO’s rebooted market suggests that girls’ creativity should follow gender scripts, and simultaneously holds (or pretends) that they would not be interested in play patterns free of that governance. To sell this conservative market strategy as innovation, however, LEGO strategically publicized its gendered claims about the creative needs of children as new research discoveries. In the disclosures shared with BusinessWeek (and disseminated more broadly by outlets like National Public Radio), LEGO spokespeople emphasized the “anthropological” approach taken in designing the Friends theme, where the normative femininity of the product line only came in response to fi ndings by LEGO’s cultural anthropologists embedded in families throughout Germany, Korea, United Kingdom, and United States since 2007. 26 These so-called LEGO “anthros” could then make authoritative claims about natural differences in the creative practices of girls and boys, and thereby justify decisions like replacing minifi gures with minidolls. Marketing executive Mads Nipper drew on this research to claim knowledge of girls’ universal feelings toward the minifi gure: “Girls hate him.” Rosario Costa, a LEGO design director, suggested that girls in these studies “needed a fi gure they could identify with, that looks like them”, due to the observation that boys treated minifi gures in the third person, whereas girls adopted them as avatars. Similarly, market research manager Hanne Groth claimed “The greatest concern for girls really was beauty,” compared to boys’ interest in “mastery”. Together, these disclosures from the fi eld by LEGO representatives allowed

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 the articulation of a researched belief in natural gender differences of creative practice. BusinessWeek and NPR could then reproduce the industrial truth-claim that while both girls and boys “love to build”, boys build in a “linear fashion” directed toward building the model on the box as efﬁ ciently as possible, whereas girls “stop along the way” to role-play, inspiring LEGO’s packaging of Friends. Numbered part bags corresponded to different stages in the instructions, encouraging bouts of play between building each stage (though the use of this strategy for boy-targeted sets, too, problematizes the gendered logic claimed here). 27 The “industry lore” 28 constructed in these public disclosures thus worked to naturalize not just the idea that girls and boys embody different creativities, Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 89

but also the idea that creativity was supported, rather than limited, by the instructions and scripts provided by set design, packaging, and marketing. The designs on the box and the packaging methods would help children to arrive at different kinds of gendered creative orders, whether masculinely linear or femi- ninely modular. Both reactive to natural creative needs, and supportive of them through product design and marketing, LEGO positioned itself as a crucial mediator in gendered processes of creativity (unsurprisingly silent on the question of whether marketing might actually help to socially construct those supposedly natural needs). In providing not just instructions for pre-designed building but also gender scripts, LEGO representatives claimed to effectively nourish creativity.

Throwing Out the Instructions Concerned critics have long questioned LEGO’s reliance on instruction-based playsets that present children with the opportunity to recreate something designed by someone else (often a tie-in to some media franchise). A 2012 Forbes opinion piece exemplifi es this nostalgic sentiment: “These Legos require a level of preci- sion, and measure of patience. But no longer are they about imagination; instead, the point is replication.” 29 In the critical response to LEGO Friends, however, this notion of following the instructions and the pictures on the box extended to concerns about conforming to gender scripts, and the potential for childhood creativity to transcend normative gender identities, ideals, and expectations. In the process of opposing LEGO’s gender normativity, furthermore, activist critics made counter claims about the industrial work worlds and creative processes through which LEGO product was designed and marketed, challenging not just corporate understanding of childhood creativity, but corporate self-refl exive presentation of its own cultural work. In the mobilization against LEGO Friends in late 2011, much of the concern focused on the minidoll, particularly the body ideals suggested by her slimmer appearance and visibly raised breasts compared to the minifi gure (see Figure 5.2 ). LEGO representatives’ insistence that girls’ required a fi gure that “looks like them” could in that sense be decoded as needing conformity to aspirational

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 beauty ideals. As Pickett argued, the minidoll was limited by less dynamic movement—four points of articulation compared to the minifi gure’s seven, with the lack of hand rotation ironically curtailing the fi gures’ ability to pose with accessories, and the lack of independent leg movement preventing active poses beyond sitting, standing, or bending over. The lack of connections on the back of minidoll legs to standard LEGO bricks further made it “impossible to attach to vehicles in seated positions.” 30 Pickett did grant that the minidolls’ different skin tones offer greater racial diversity than minifi gures; while LEGO does produce minifi gures in different skin tones, it uses these colors only in themes based on media licenses, claiming that the otherwise homogeneous yellow minifi gure 90 Derek Johnson

FIGURE 5.2 Screenshot from Feminist Frequency’s “LEGO and Gender Part 1” video, through which Anita Sarkeesian argues that the minidoll is an “entirely separate species” from the miniﬁ gure.

represents the universal and raceless imagination of children. 31 Yet overall Pickett argued that the minidoll curtailed play possibilities contained in the minifi gure. For many, the minidoll represented the most problematic aspect of Friends: as feminist blogger Maia Weinstock argued, “My biggest beef with them is just their being completely separate and different from regular minifi gs. . . . Do we really want to teach our kids that girls and boys can’t play and build together?” 32 Yet the divisiveness of Friends also extended to the colors of the bricks, and the obstacle they presented to interesting boys in play themes and patterns outside of the hyper-masculine, confl ict-focused emphasis of LEGO’s other themes:

When toys are created in such colors, it’s that much less likely that boys will want to have anything to do with them. There are no veterinarian ofﬁ ces or maker-style workshops in other LEGO sets. But if a boy is

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 interested in these Friends scenes, he’s likely to be mocked for wanting to build ‘girl stuff.’ 33

Friends provided instructions for gendered play to girls, but also signaled what scripts boys should and should not follow. Activist intervention in industry practice went beyond product critique, however, challenging industry lore and reframing beliefs about creativity and practices of production within corporate culture. The SPARK Movement, a feminist activist group aimed at combating the mediated sexualization of girls, spearheaded a campaign to pressure LEGO to “commit to gender equity in Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 91

marketing”, using a Change.org petition to aggregate criticism of LEGO’s industrial practices and logics. 34 Organizers Bailey Shoemaker Richards and Stephanie Cole collected over 60,000 signatures, using the hashtag #LiberateLEGO to circulate critical dialogue via the social media platform Twitter (suggesting that perhaps the LEGO Group itself, not just children, needed emancipation from corporate beliefs about gender). 35 In its ultimate demand that the LEGO Group “Go back to advertising and offering all LEGO to boys and girls!” and claim that the company has “never sold kids out—until now”, the petitioners either misun- derstood the historical tradition of gendered marketing in which Friends operated, or else strategically offered LEGO a chance to claim gender-inclusive contradiction of that history. 36 Either way, this activism implored LEGO to adopt a different set of corporate values in its production of popular culture for children. Furthermore, the petitioners contested industry lore and extant belief systems by which marketers at LEGO (and elsewhere) organized their production work:

Marketers, ad execs, Hollywood and just about everyone else in the media are busy these days insisting that girls are not interested in their products unless they’re pink, cute, or romantic. They’ve come to this conclusion even though they’ve refused to market their products to the girls they are so certain will not like them. 37

The petition thus attempted to identify as well as intervene in hegemonic industry beliefs. The body of the petition refuted LEGO representatives’ specifi c claims about girls’ natural needs for different playthings than boys: “girls do like minfi gs”, it explained. “They also like Star Wars and Harry Potter, and they like being creative and making up stories that involve adventures and good and evil and things blowing up. But if you keep excluding them from your marketing vision, soon they will start to believe that they would rather have hot tubs and little plastic boobs.” 38 Recognizing how industry lore could become self-fulfi lling prophecy, the SPARK petition repositioned LEGO as having imposed a limited defi nition of creativity upon girls, put forward an alternative model of childhood creativity, and challenged the understanding and recognition of creative needs in LEGO’s corporate culture.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 While 60,000 signatures are certainly noteworthy, it also suggests less than a groundswell of popular support. Instead, the measure of success held up by the petition organizers was the agreement of LEGO Brand Relations Director Michael McNally to meet with SPARK representatives. This gave organizers the opportunity to frame the signiﬁ cance of an industry meeting, calling it a discussion of “how LEGO can go back to offering all LEGO toys to both boys and girls and to respect girls’ hunger and desire to play with toys that challenge them creatively and intellectually.” 39 While the nature of the actual conversation that unfolded is unknown, this activist disclosure serves in this case as a claim about LEGO’s motivations and willingness to reconsider gendered understandings of 92 Derek Johnson

creativity. Whether pure hype or wishful thinking, this victory claim acts as a counter-disclosure about the company and its priorities, imposing a competing external account of potentially shifting beliefs internal to LEGO work worlds. In line with the intervention made by SPARK, Maia Weinstock proposed ﬁ ve concrete strategies with which LEGO could “shift focus to be more inclusive of girls—and less bound by stereotypes—without losing boys in the process.” 40 Among her recommendations, Weinstock suggested that the LEGO Group include more women on the management team (all 21 of its senior execs at that time were male, with only one women on its six-member board of directors) and commit to making sets that include women and girls in “leading roles” (a problem exacerbated by media licenses like Star Wars and Superheroes with few female leads). Beyond better product design, Weinstein highlighted managerial cultures and industry licensing practices as obstacles to, and limitations upon, the creativity of girls. Similarly, on the Ms. Blog , Lisa Wade decoded LEGO’s managed self- disclosures about its “anthropological” research: “Executives are going to great lengths to explain that the line is based on research,” she explains, adding that

The frame gives the company an excuse for reproducing the same old gender stereotypes . . . They can shrug their shoulders and say ‘Well, what are we to do? This is what girls want.’ In this way they are trying to make it clear that they shouldn’t be accountable for the messages their products send.41

For his part, Pickett reread LEGO’s disclosures about research to make his own claims about knowledge and belief within the LEGO Group:

The fact that the focus groups for LEGO friends [ sic ] consisted of girls and women and the focus groups for lines like Power Miners and Atlantis consisted primarily of young boys proves that TLG fundamentally believes that boys and girls have entirely separate needs and desires. 42

The self-disclosures of LEGO and its representatives thus became an opportunity for activists to make critical, counter-disclosures about cultures and beliefs within the company.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 In the Feminist Frequency videocast series, cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian similarly reframed video sound bites from sources like Bloomberg TV in which LEGO executives stressed the necessity of extending creativity to girls, pointing out the contradictions in these industry disclosures (punctuating her exasperation with multiple “facepalms”). In response to LEGO CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp’s claim that “We focused on creating a play experience centered on the joy of creation, while heeding the way girls naturally build and play”, Sarkeesian deconstructed the idea of nature and countered that gendered preferences came from decades of marketing: “Not biological, not genetic, not natural. Made up!” 43 Challenging an ofﬁ cial LEGO press release that claimed “LEGO Friends delivers Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 93

on a girl’s desire for realistic role play, creativity, and a highly-detailed character world”, Sarkeesian spoke back to LEGO to point out that many products outside Friends already satisfi ed those supposed needs for “accessories and interior building”. “I’m slightly confused,” she deadpanned, “because all of those things are also true about the other existing LEGO sets,” like the Star Wars Death Star’s 13 interior spaces, 24 minifi gures, and numerous accessories. 44 Countering industry lore, Sarkeesian claimed that the real reason LEGO struggled to market LEGO to girls was having spent decades telling children that “bricks are for boys.” 45 Ultimately, the managed disclosures of the industry offered Sarkeesian fodder for counter-claims that represented industry cultures and gendered beliefs about creativity in oppositional ways. Another key rearticulation of industry beliefs and meaning-making practices by outside activists came in uses of social media that circulated LEGO’s historical marketing campaigns and children’s self-refl exive claims about their own creativity. Deployed across the SPARK petition, the Ms. Blog , Feminist Frequency , the #Liber- ateLEGO Twitter conversation, and elsewhere, LEGO’s 1981 print ad featuring a young girl, her freeform LEGO creation, and the copy “What it is is beautiful” became an activist rallying point, repositioned as evidence of LEGO’s historical ability to embrace alternatives to the gender-segregated creativity of Friends (see Figure 5.3 ). Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 5.3 Feminist attempts to mobilize the 1981 “What it is . . .” ad, as seen on the Women You Need to Know blog. 94 Derek Johnson

Initially posted on LEGO fan websites like The Brothers Brick in 2009, the “What it is” ad allowed LEGO fans to wax nostalgic for “the days when LEGO emphasized the basics: quality, creativity, and—as in this beautiful ad—pride in accomplishment. (There’s also something to be said about gender neutrality, but I’ll leave that for another day.)” 46 As evidenced by the smiling young girl and her unrestricted use of LEGO’s “Universal Building Sets”, the ad offered fans an opportunity to identify from the outside a different industrial understanding of creativity and gender in operation inside the early 1980s corporate culture of the LEGO Group. The “universal” quality of the product without instructions mapped on to a “universal” appeal to children regardless of gender (though predictably, the young girl in question was white). Upon the announcement of Friends, the image recirculated with new purpose. The SPARK petition drew upon it to claim that past marketing campaigns “invited girls to play with LEGO in a way that didn’t appeal to this lowest common denominator version of girl- hood, but gave us credit for being creative, smart, and imaginative.” Moreover, Anita Sarkeesian positioned the ad as proof that “LEGO already knows how to create an inclusive, universal play experience that children of all genders can participate in.” 47 On the Ms. Blog, Lisa Wade too saw the image as evidence of what the LEGO Group “somehow knew . . . back in 1981.” 48 And at the Princess Free Zone , Michele Yulo referenced the ad to admonish LEGO: “I know you are capable of making advertising that appeals to ALL children because you’ve done it before. I have the proof and so do you.” 49 Meanwhile, Rachel Giordano, the girl in the 1981 ad (now a naturopathic doctor), came forward to offer her own critique of LEGO’s gendered marketing shifts, sharing her recollection of posing for the ad. Explaining how she was presented with a LEGO set an hour before the shoot and prompted to design her own creation (what ultimately appeared in the ad), she contrasts a “gender-neutral” past in which “the creativity of the child produced the message of the toy” to a new moment in which “the toy delivers the message, and this message is weirdly about gender.” 50 Importantly, Giordano spoke of this historically speciﬁ c gendered limitation upon creativity as someone who was, in her own way, a participant in this idealized moment of gender-netural production and marketing at LEGO. As an historical artifact of marketing, the advertisement allowed activists to make

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 their own external but authoritative claims about inside corporate knowledge, countering that shared in more recent public disclosures of industry lore. Critics of LEGO Friends also countermanded LEGO’s contemporary claims about gendered creativity by circulating the counter-disclosures of child creators themselves. Circulated in December 2011 on news portals like The Hufﬁ ngton Post (oddly, under the “Comedy” heading), the viral video of 4-year-old Riley Maida railing against pink and blue toy aisles became another touchstone for activist challenges to toy industry lore. 51 Riley’s rejection of gendered industry logic refuted LEGO’s insistence that its research captured natural creative needs. Moreover, with Riley’s mother posting the video on Facebook pages for smaller Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 95

toy companies like Pigtail Pals after hearing about the announcement of Friends, 52 LEGO’s competitors could use the video to take positions in epistemological opposition to LEGO’s gendered beliefs. Riley offered activists their own empirical evidence to counter the instruction- and gender-based models of creativity endorsed in LEGO’s deep text disclosures. A similar viral image circulated in early 2014, displaying a handwritten letter to LEGO from a seven-year-old girl:

Today I went to a store and saw legos in two sections. The girls pink and the boys blue. All the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and they had no jobs but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people and had jobs, even swam with sharks. I want you to make more lego girl people and let them go on adventures and have fun ok!?! 53

Whether coached by activist parents or entirely fi ctional constructs, the self- refl exive disclosures of children about their own creativity afforded activists competing lore about creativity. Defenders of LEGO Friends were predictably dismissive of this feminist agita- tion. Many cultural commentators worked to reconcile these gendered notions of creativity with the belief that in play, children could transcend the scripts and instructions provided by marketers. In an essay on Gizmodo , Jesus Diaz made peace with Friends, despite initial disdain for the “nauseating” styling. “They were horrible and stereotyping”, he started, until pivoting: “Except they are not. Not really, after you play with them.” Diaz presented the image of a “cool space fighter . . . created with bricks from the Lego Friends’ Butterfly Beauty Shop, Olivia’s Invention Workshop, Stephanie’s Cool Convertible, and Emma’s Fashion Design Studio” (see Figure 5.4 ). Claiming that instructions, packaging, and marketing were largely irrelevant where LEGO was concerned, Diaz argued “kids don’t have to follow them” because the pieces themselves are “interchangeable, functional, fl exible. Neutral.” Despite fi nding the minidolls too similar to Bratz dolls, Diaz reversed to argue that Friends actually “is a great tool to fi ght the stupid toys, an alternative for parents to 54 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 move girls from Bratz to brains. . . . They are a backdoor.” In this response, gendered instructions, packaging, and marketing provided girls with ideal transportation and access to neutral LEGO building. Yet contradictorily, Diaz’s spaceship creation uses a standard minifi gure as its pilot instead of a minidoll; the purple pieces could be reconfi gured into a vehicle, but girl avatars could not join the adventure. Similarly, while he hoped to see LEGO City themes marketed equally to boys and girls, Brothers Brick webmaster Andrew Becraft stressed the function of Friends as a Trojan Horse that could appeal to girls and parents who want feminized product, and then “sneak in the universal appeal of being able to create whatever your imagination desires—whether it’s 96 Derek Johnson

FIGURE 5.4 Screenshot from Gizmodo.com in which the potential for supposed gender- neutral, free play with Friends is asserted.

pink and frilly or a mecha robot that just happens to be purple.” 55 Here, too, girls’ creativity took on pink and purple qualiﬁ cations. Yet these defenses resolved the tension between creativity and scripted instructions by maintaining that gendered packaging, marketing, and design were transcended by creativity, and may even have helped provide greater access to creativity. The activist energy exerted over LEGO Friends, therefore, represented the circulation of industry lore outside the bounds of industry and the attempt of critics to speak back to deep text disclosures and make counter claims about values and beliefs animating cultures of production. In this response, critiques

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 from outside of industry made industry work worlds alternatively meaningful and called different values, ideas, and identities into relief. This activist project constituted a struggle over production worlds and the discourses of creativity over which industry actors claimed authority and knowledge. Having focused so far on how managed disclosures and industry lore circulated by LEGO underwrote gender understanding of children as creative, as well as how activists attempted to reframe those industry beliefs, this essay can ﬁ nally consider how these gendered markets shaped the creative identities of LEGO workers. In the case of LEGO Friends, the unequal creative identities ascribed to LEGO users of different genders informed the access of LEGO designers to public claims of professional creative identity. Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 97

Gendered Creativity and Professional Design To make this case, this essay turns to the designer videos featured on LEGO’s offi cial website (as of early 2014), conceiving them as another set of publicly- disclosed deep texts that circulate specifi c meanings and claims about the work of the LEGO Group. Comparing designer videos for Friends to LEGO Chima—a boy-targeted theme launched concurrently in 2012—we can see how designers working in service to gendered audiences have access to different claims to creative identity in the production of knowledge about industrial work. 56 In her own audit of the LEGO website, SPARK analyst Bailey Richards noted differences in these designer videos depending on the gendered target market for the theme. Designers for Lord of the Rings “talk extensively about the fi gures and products they worked on, while the designer who worked in the LEGO Friends set wordlessly plays with the already completed set.” 57 Female LEGO designers who could role model creativity for young girls become silenced, failing to communicate their creative agency within the work culture of LEGO. In conducting my own more qualitative analysis of these designer videos, I hope to complicate these fi ndings by detailing how these imbalances in creative identity are constructed, but also to identify contradictions in the gendered creative hierarchies under construction. While the Friends videos introduce the designers of the product, they are identifi ed by fi rst name only (Adam, Benedickte, Fenella, Marta, Astrid), and only very rarely allowed the briefest of verbal utterances. The video for the Dolphin Cruiser, for example, permits Fenella a comical “Whee!” and “Splash!” as she demonstrates how children might play with the set by having minidolls slide off the ship to frolic with dolphins (see Figure 5.5 ). Fenella speaks only to Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 5.5 Fenella plays with the Dolphin Cruiser and the mini-doll while exclaiming “Whee!” and “Splash!”. 98 Derek Johnson

emphasize play features, not to communicate ideas about design practice or to make claims about her own creativity. Were it not for the heading of “designer videos”, it might not even be clear she did anything in particular to create the product in question. Unlike the Chima videos, moreover, several Friends videos intercut the footage of playset interaction with clips from the LEGO Friends of Heartlake City web series. The Friends designer videos, therefore, seek less to highlight the design cultures that produced the set and more to reassert the gendered packaging and marketing of the bricks within the Friends script. In the Chima videos, much more effort is made to present designers as authoritative creative voices with insight into the industrial work worlds from which LEGO products emerge. These designers—all men, compared to a Friends line-up that included women—do not just speak about their work, but they are also identiﬁ ed on screen with full names and the title of LEGO Designer (see Figure 5.6 ). This provides the designers with authority and opportunity to talk about their creative agency. Chima designer Adrian Florea articulates his creative practice to researched knowledge of the real animal behaviors evoked by the Chima theme; in “Worriz’ Combat Lair”, he talks about a three-section modular build as having play functions “in common with real wolf packs . . . it splits up when following its prey.” In demonstrating the combination of fold- ing wheels and propellers behind this transforming mechanic, Florea appears to be a talented designer who can turn simple LEGO bricks into complex machines. These videos also allow designers a ﬁ rst-person claim of creative ownership over Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 5.6 Screenshot from a “behind the scenes” Chima designer video in which Adrian Florea is identiﬁ ed as a designer and surrounded by lights and other self- reﬂ exive production iconography. Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 99

their designs. Daire McCabe, designer for “Wakz’ Pack Tracker” claims that “I designed it to have a real ﬁ erce wolf head and some sharp teeth and a biting function.” Similarly, in the “Laval’s Royal Fighter” video, Hand Schlömer shares “My idea when designing this vehicle was to make it look like a real lion ready to pounce on its prey.” In the Chima videos, the male designers of products marketed to boy consumers enjoy greater access to discourses of creative authority and inspiration. Many of the Chima videos are also framed as “behind the scenes” looks into work at LEGO. Each of these videos deploys the industrial iconography of ﬁ lm and video production—lights, C-stands, ladders, tool boxes, handcarts, and cables— to mark the disclosures of the designers as part of a complex work world in which ongoing production has been interrupted to enable viewers’ access to creative professionals. A quick peek at the single designer video for LEGO City reveals similar evocation of industry to make visible the creative work of designing sets for boys. While it lacks dialogue similar to the Friends videos, “Fire Truck” provides a time-lapsed view of the design process, from drawing up plans in CAD software, to traveling through the LEGO facility, and searching brick warehouses for the right physical pieces to realize the design. LEGO thus uses different video production strategies—and rhetoric about production work—to render meaningful the creative practices and identities of designers who work on themes targeted to boys. These designers enjoy a creative privilege that is not accorded work in the feminized Friends theme. Despite these affordances of personal creative agency and identity for the Chima designers, the Chima videos still function primarily to demonstrate the play features of the toys that the accompanying instructions allow boys to build—much like the Friends videos. While SPARK emphasizes the way designers for boy-marketed themes “talk endlessly”, those designers still end up playing with “the already completed set.” When Chima designers speak of their personal creativity and decision-making in designing the set, they do so to demonstrate a designed play feature—in some ways just using more words than Fenella’s “Whee!” Designer videos thus encourage a perceived audience of boys to buy the sets to replicate what professional designers have created, not to experiment on their own. Many Chima videos detail the narrative premise behind the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 themes; in “Lion Chi Temple”, for example, designer Mark Stafford talks about the challenges of trying to recreate the setting of the Chima television series. “Wakz’ Pack Tracker” sets up narrative hooks that open the door to LEGO consumers’ agency as storytellers more so than builders: “Will Akela ﬂ y to safety or will the wolves steal the ax? Only you can decide!” Only a couple videos for the competition-based Speedorz products suggest that the LEGO consumer might imagine new uses of the product beyond those suggested by the instructions. “Ultimate Challenge”, for example, encourages players to combine their LEGO Chima with ordinary household objects like paper clips and clothespins to create obstacle courses for the Speedorz to cross. Nevertheless, most of these designer 100 Derek Johnson

videos position the preferred boy users of Chima as instruction followers who will play with the set as designed. Meanwhile, the silent Friends designers nevertheless provide some guidance for the preferred girl user to learn and apply building techniques outside the context of specifi c instruction scripts. While videos like “Garden tips” and “How to build furniture” situate creativity within the sphere of domesticity, some of these dialogue-free videos teach clear design principles useful for building free of instructions. In “Bedroom building”, for example, the focus is placed not on any specifi c Friends product, but how to best engineer walls for maximum structural integrity. Instead of stacking identical bricks in a solid column, the video’s dialogue-free visuals suggest, staggering bricks in an interlocked pattern will prevent walls from easily falling over. While this fairly basic instruction in the designer video may extend from corporate assumptions that girls require more rudimentary guidance, this remains one of the only videos that acknowledge the creative child consumer as a potential designer in her own right, who might apply these principles beyond the instructions. Far short of endorsing the idea that gendered packaging, marketing, and professional design cultures do not matter and childhood creativity will transcend them all, this video is instead an anomaly in the designer video series that points to the overall emphasis on specifi c scripts—both gender norms and building instructions—in the childhood creativity constructed by the LEGO Group. As much as it provides a glimpse into an alternate way of conceiving and constructing girls as creators, its opposition to the vast majority of LEGO’s other publicly- disclosed deep texts confi rms the established norm of positioning childhood creativity and agency in relation to the preferred designs and gendered uses privileged in marketing and packaging. Despite the signifi cant differentials in recognition of professional creative identity depending on the perceived consumer target, where Chima designers gain access to creative discourses that Friends designers do not, common across constructions of boy and girl creativity in these designer videos is imagination of construction play as a creative practice that follows the designs of professionals. So rather than creativity becoming a free- for-all, these designer videos help us to see the ways in which gendered disclosures (and silences) about creative labor might reinforce the scripts that boys and girls

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 are expected to follow, both as consumer-builders and gendered subjects.

Conclusion In the controversy over LEGO Friends, the LEGO Group tries to have its cake and eat it too—investing in normative gender ideals, yet claiming the radical possibility ascribed to “creativity”. This negotiation frequently leads to the exposure of contradictions within industry cultures and discourses. When one LEGO spokesperson tells The Telegraph that “We’ve always had Lego bricks that are pink and we’ve got a wide variety of different sets”, and adds that “We don’t say ‘this Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 101

is for girls’. It’s up to the child or the parent to make the choice”, the fractures in LEGO’s ideological balancing act have required nothing less than pure disavowal of the gendered marketing practices so obviously in play. 58 By focusing on the creative agency of consumers, LEGO downplays consideration of limitations upon creativity through the gendered marketing and preferred uses of product that by its dynamic nature could take on a greater diversity of forms. I have tried to avoid endorsing a single model of “creativity” in this essay, preferring instead to frame the idea of creativity as a site of industrial and critical struggle under constant contestation and reconstruction. The LEGO Group has endorsed certain models of creativity compatible with its market needs, and in its marketing emphasis on scripting the uses of LEGO products, the company has extended that scripting to “natural” differences imagined between boys and girls. LEGO Friends is, in that respect, a gendered extension of instruction-based LEGO building, attuned to hegemonic scripts in the marketing of popular culture for children. Moreover, the ideological tug-of-war between LEGO and activists over creativity and gender normativity suggests that cultures of production are not independent subcultures disconnected from a wider cultural context. Instead, professional ideas about creativity circulate via the managed self-disclosures of deep texts and come to be negotiated and even contested by consumers and critics. The culture of production is not just deﬁ ned from the inside, but also from without when deep texts, as scripts for making sense of industry practices and beliefs, come to be contested. The case of LEGO Friends, then, is an opportunity not just to complain about the conservative, cynical marketing of creativity by the culture industries, but also to recognize the possibilities by which activists and other critics might struggle to rearticulate the logics and beliefs of those powerful institutions—where industry lore is met with counter-lore. And ﬁ nally, LEGO Friends demonstrates, in contrast to other LEGO themes, the degree to which professionals in the culture industries gain access to discourses of creativity and creative identities depending in part on the construction of the gendered consumer markets in relation to which they work. The unequal privileges accorded to different consumer groups shapes the visibilities and silences of those doing the work of designing and producing cultural goods. In sum, the struggle over LEGO Friends constituted a struggle over creativity—how creativity

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 could be constructed as meaningful and who among producers and consumers alike would have access to the gendered terms of that creativity.

Notes 1. Mary Kearney, “Pink Technology: Mediamaking Gear for Girls”, Camera Obscura 25.2, 2010, pages 1–39; Ellen van Oost, “Materialized Gender: How Shavers Conﬁ gure the Users’ Femininity and Masculinity” in Oudshoorn and Pinch, editors, How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technologies, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003, pages 193–208. 102 Derek Johnson

2. Brad Wieners, “Lego Is for Girls”, Businessweek: Magazine, December 14, 2011, available at www.businessweek.com/magazine/lego-is-for-girls-12142011.html. 3. Elizabeth Ellcessor, Access Ability: Policies, Practices, and Representations of Disability Online , Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2012, page 99. 4. Derek Johnson, “Figuring Identity: Media Licensing and the Racialization of LEGO Bodies”, International Journal of Cultural Studies 14(6), 2014, available at http://ics. sagepub.com/content/early/2013/10/16/1367877913496211.abstract. 5. Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1993, pages 47, 75, 82–3. 6. David Hesmondhalgh and Sarah Baker, Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Cultural Industries, London, England: Routledge, 2011, page 60. 7. John Caldwell, “Cultures of Production: Studying Industry’s Deep Texts, Reﬂ exive Rituals, and Managed Self-Disclosures” in Jennifer Holt and Alisa Perren, editors, Media Industries: History Theory and Method , Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pages 199–200. 8. Vicki Mayer, Below the Line: Producers and Production Studies in the New Television Economy, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011, pages 3, 35, 50–61, 179. 9. Caldwell, “Cultures of Production”, 2009, page 207. 10. Adrienne Shaw, “What is Video Game Culture? Cultural Studies and Game Studies”, Games and Culture 5(4), 2010, page 416. 11. Esben Karmark, “Challenges in the Mediatization of a Corporate Brand: Identity- Effects as LEGO Establishes a Media Products Company” in L. Chouliaraki and M. Morsing, editors, Media, Organizations and Identity, Basingstroke, England: Palgrave, 2010, pages 112–28; and Maaike Lauwaert, “Playing Outside the Box – On LEGO Toys and the Changing World of Construction Play”, History and Technology 24(3), 2008, pages 221–37. 12. Graham Pomphrey, “Rebuilding LEGO”, License! , November 1, 2006, available at www. licensemag.com/licensemag/Entertainment/Rebuilding-LEGO/ArticleStandard/Article/ detail/390961; and Andrew Ward, “A Brick by Brick Brand Revival”, Financial Times, July 17, 2011, available at www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0596a1f0-af27-11e0-914e-00144 feabdc0.html. 13. Johnson, “Figuring Identity”, 2014. 14. Wieners, “Lego Is for Girls”, 2011. 15. Quoted in Wieners, “Lego Is for Girls”, 2011. See also Peggy Orenstein, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, New York, NY: Harper, 2011. 16. Wieners, “Lego Is for Girls”, 2011. 17. David Pickett, “Part I: Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, Sociological Images, May 8, 2012, available at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/05/08/ Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 part-i-historical-perspective-on-the-lego-gender-gap/; and David Pickett, “Part II: His- torical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, Sociological Images , May 15, 2012, available at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/05/15/part-ii-historical-perspective- on-the-lego-gender-gap/. 18. David Pickett, “Part III: Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, Sociological Images, May 22, 2012, available at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/05/22/ part-iii-historical-perspective-on-the-lego-gender-gap/. 19. Pickett, “Part I: Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, 2012. 20. David Pickett, “ Part IV: Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, Sociological Images, May 29, 2012, available at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/05/29/ part-iv-historical-perspective-on-the-lego-gender-gap/. Chicks with Bricks: Building Creative Identities 103

21. Wieners, “Lego Is for Girls”, 2011. 22. Andrew Becraft, “The fi rst year of LEGO Friends – worst toy of the year?”, The Brothers Brick, December 19, 2012, available at www.brothers-brick.com/2012/12/19/ the-fi rst-year-of-lego-friends-worst-toy-of-the-year/; Pickett, “Part III: Historical Per- spective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, 2012. 23. “Girls”, Lego Shop , February 15, 2014, available at http://shop.lego.com/en-US/catalog/ productListing.jsp?_requestid=1988130. 24. Bailey Shoemaker Richards and Stephanie Cole, “Tell LEGO to stop selling out girls! #Liberate LEGO”, Change.org , available at www.change.org/petitions/tell-lego-to-stop- selling-out-girls-liberatelego. 25. Derek Johnson, “‘May the Force Be With Katie’: Pink Media Franchising the Post- feminist Politics of HerUniverse”, Feminist Media Studies 14(6), 2014. 26. Wieners, “Lego Is for Girls”, 2011 27. Wieners, “Lego Is for Girls”, 2011; NPR Staff, “With New Toys, Lego Hopes to Build Girls Market”, NPR Morning Edition , December 15, 2011, available at www.npr. org/2011/12/15/143724644/ith-new-toys-lego-hopes-to-build-girls-market. 28. Tim Havens, “Universal Childhood: The Global Trade in Children’s Television and Changing Ideals of Childhood”, Global Media Journal 6(10), 2007, http://lass.purduecal. edu/cca/gmj/sp07/gmj-sp07-havens.htm. 29. Steve Vasallo, “Parents: Buy Kids’ Legos, But Throw Away the Instructions”, Forbes , January 27, 2012, available at www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/01/27/parents- buy-kids-legos-but-throw-away-the-instructions/. 30. Pickett, “Part IV: Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, 2012. 31. Pickett, “Part IV : Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, 2012. See also Johnson, “Figuring Identity”, 2014. 32. Maia Weinstock, “My Dear Lego, You are Part of the Problem”, Annals of Spacetime, February 20, 2012, available at http://annalsofspacetime.blogspot.com/2012/02/my- dear-lego-you-are-part-of-problem.html. 33. Maia Weinstock, “Breaking Brick Stereotypes: LEGO Unveils a Female Scientist”, Scientifi c American, September 2, 2013, available at http://blogs.scientifi camerican.com/ guest-blog/2013/09/02/breaking-brick-stereotypes-lego-unveils-a-female-scientist/. 34. Farah Miller and Emma Gray, “LEGO Friends Petition: Parents, Women And Girls Ask Toy Companies To Stop Gender-Based Marketing”, The Huffi ngton Post , January 15, 2012, available at www.huffi ngtonpost.com/2012/01/15/lego-friends-girls-gender- toy-marketing_n_1206293.html. 35. “#LiberateLEGO”, Twitter, available at https://twitter.com/search?q=%23liberatelego &src=typd&f=realtime. 36. Richards and Cole, “Tell LEGO to stop selling out girls! #Liberate LEGO”. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Weinstock, “My Dear Lego”, 2012. 41. Lisa Wade, “Beauty and the New LEGO Line for Girls”, Ms. Blog, January 10, 2012, available at http://msmagazine.com/blog/2012/01/10/beauty-and-the-new-lego-line- for-girls/. 42. Pickett, “Part III: Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap, 2012. 43. Anita Sarkeesian, “LEGO & Gender Part 1: Lego Friends”, Feminist Frequency, January 30, 2012, available at www.feministfrequency.com/2012/01/lego-gender-part-1-lego- friends/. 104 Derek Johnson

44. Ibid. 45. Anita Sarkeesian, “LEGO & Gender Part 2 : The Boys Club”, Feminist Frequency, February 6, 2012, available at www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/lego-gender- part-2-the-boys-club/. 46. Andrew Becraft, “What it is . . . is Beautiful – LEGO ad from 1981”, The Brothers Brick, July 14, 2009, available at www.brothers-brick.com/2009/07/14/what-it-is- is-beautiful/. 47. Sarkeesian, “LEGO & Gender Part 2”, 2012. 48. Wade, “Beauty and the New LEGO Line for Girls”, 2012. 49. Michele Yulo “Lego Remakes a 1981 Ad, But This Time For Girls Only”, Princess Free Zone , March 5, 2013, available at http://princessfreezone.com/pfz-blog/2013/3/5/ lego-remakes-a-1981-ad-but-this-time-for-girls-only.html. 50. Quoted in Lori Day, “The Little Girl from the 1981 LEGO Ad is All Grown Up, and She’s Got Something to Say”, Women You Should Know , February 11, 2014, available at www.womenyoushouldknow.net/little-girl-1981-lego-ad-grown-shes-got- something-say/. 51. Carol Hartsell, “Pink Stuff: Little Girl in Toy Store Rails Against Gender Stereotypes”, The Huffi ngton Post, December 24, 2012, available at www.huffi ngtonpost.com/ 2011/12/24/pink-stuff-little-girl_n_1169044.html. 52. Miller and Gray, “LEGO Friends Petition”, 2012. 53. Robert T. Gonzalez, “LEGO Gets Told Off by a Sever-Year-Old Girl”, io9 , February 2, 2014, available at http://io9.com/lego-gets-told-off-by-a-seven-year-old-girl- 1514290228. 54. Jesus Diaz, “Hey Anti-Lego Feminists, ‘Lego for Girls’ Actually Kicks Ass”, Gizmodo. com, January 3, 2012, available at http://lego.gizmodo.com/5872578/hey-anti+lego- feminists-lego-for-girls-actually-kicks-ass. 55. Becraft, “The fi rst year of LEGO Friends – worst toy of the year?”, 2012. 56. LEGO Chima: Designer Videos, LEGO.com, available at www.lego.com/en-us/chima/ videos/designervideos/; LEGO Friends: Designer Videos. LEGO.com, http://friends. lego.com/en-us/videos. 57. Baily Shoemaker Richards, “A Year Later, How’s LEGO Doing”, SPARK Movement, June 19, 2013, available at www.sparksummit.com/2013/06/19/a-year-later-hows- lego-doing/. 58. Quoted in Rosa Silverman, “Is Pink Lego Deterring Girls from Science?”, The Telegraph, March 10, 2013, available at www.telegraph.co.uk/education/9920618/Is-pink-Lego- deterring-girls-from-science.html.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 6 (UN)BLOCKING THE TRANSMEDIAL CHARACTER : DIGITAL ABSTRACTION AS FRANCHISE STRATEGY IN TRAVELLER’S TALES’ LEGO GAMES

Jessica Aldred

In late 2007, Warner Brothers Interactive spent a reported USD $200 million to acquire Traveller’s Tales, the small English game developer that had excelled where countless other, better-funded game studios (and their conglomerate owners and/or investors) had failed. 1 With the 2005 release of the fi rst LEGO Star Wars video game, Traveller’s Tales had launched a series of games based on famous fi lm franchises that were consistently critically praised and commercially profi t- able, challenging the wider perception of movie-licensed games as cheap ancillary tie-ins at best, and unmitigated disasters at worst. This success continued under Time Warner’s new ownership, with Traveller’s Tales giving some of its conglomerate parent’s most notable intellectual properties—including the expansive universes of Batman , Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings —the same lauded LEGO treatment. 2 At the time of writing, Traveller’s Tales had created more than a dozen hit LEGO titles based on established fi lm franchises, with a host of other movie-licensed titles in development. In this essay, I contend that Traveller’s Tales’ success bears further examination for what it reveals about the crucial role which transmedial characters play in

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 properties that move across media. While the much-hyped technological and stylistic convergence of cinema and games has prompted certain idealistic predic- tions that fi ctional characters should now be able to “fl ow” seamlessly across media platforms with relative ease for both producers and consumers, the reality has been far more complicated. Warner Brothers Interactive learned this lesson fi rsthand with the 2010 release of The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s Quest, a hack-and-slash game based on The Lord of the Rings fi lms faulted for how its characters too slav- ishly remediated their cinematic source material; as one especially disgruntled reviewer noted of the Legolas character, “the developer clearly celebrated its likeness rights by making him look so close to Orlando Bloom it’s downright creepy”. 3 106 Jessica Aldred

Reviews like this one articulate what I’ve argued is one of the greatest challenges facing characters that move from fi lms to games—namely, that they must function as “doubled avatars”, striking a diffi cult balance between being effective player surrogates, as well as accurate stand-ins for their cinematic source material. 4 As Bob Rehak observes, our video game character provides us a sense of diegetic embodiment and involvement in the game world, making it the locus of our agency and subjectivity. But since game characters are also graphically represented objects for our scrutiny and contemplation, our relationship with them is fl uid, constantly shifting from participant to spectator and back again—at times, even occupying both roles simultaneously. 5 Game characters licensed from other media further complicate this relationship because they are obligated to serve as highly visible and recognizable franchise IP (intellectual property). When game designers prioritize creating avatars that look and behave almost identically to the fi lm characters they’re based on, players are often forced into being spectators, evaluating the character for how it remediates cinema, rather than engaging with the character through its unique abilities and affordances for action. The stars of Traveller’s Tales’ LEGO games take an alternative approach, maintaining only the most iconic visual and behavioral similarities to their big- screen selves. Building on Scott McCloud’s assessment of the crucial role of character abstraction in comics, Mark J. P. Wolf’s analysis of early video games, and Jesper Juul’s treatment of abstraction as a category that, in video games, can apply to both character appearance and action, I argue that character abstraction may ease the burden of these fi gures as “doubled” avatars of both their player and their big-screen source material. While most movie-game characters prioritize their role as franchise IP, striving to be “indistinguishable” photorealistic avatars of the fi lm characters on which they’re based (often at the expense of quality gameplay), I consider how the more abstract appearance and fi gurative behavior of LEGO video game minifi gs allows them to alternately function as effective player characters in the context of gameplay, and winsome, if somewhat mocking, representations of their cinematic selves within cut-scenes. Using the LEGO The Lord of the Rings video game (2012) as my primary case study. I closely analyze the relationship between character abstraction and crucial aspects of third-person gameplay, including its focus on puzzle solving

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 and the need for shifting player alignment across a complex network of franchise characters in order to access their unique abilities and inventories. While I’ll consider the gap between character and realist representation for how it opens a gap into which players can more readily project themselves, I’ll also examine how the iconic, easily recognizable traits of our characters—which are often strongly linked to their functionality—help us navigate and master the increasingly distributed, cross-character alignment required to complete LEGO games. I’ll then extend my consideration of abstraction beyond character appearance to a discussion of character behavior and “performance”, examining how LEGO video games mobilize what Donald Crafton terms an exaggerated, “ﬁ gurative” (Un)blocking the Transmedial Character 107

mode of cartoon performance, particularly in the context of their much-beloved cut-scenes. 6 These ﬁ gurative performances ultimately serve to parody the convergence imperatives that often link cinema and video games too closely together.

My Minifi g, My Self While Traveller’s Tales continues to modify and innovate the successful formula of their movie-licensed LEGO games with each new title, certain traits remain consistent: rather than expanding the franchise storyworld established in the fi lms they are based on according to the logic of Henry Jenkins’ infl uential theory of transmedial storytelling, 7 LEGO games tend to revel in the repetition and even parody of their source material’s most famous scenes and set pieces, often compressing multi-fi lm franchises into single games (for example, LEGO The Lord of the Rings (2012) spans the events of all three fi lms in the trilogy; LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (2008) covers Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989); LEGO Star Wars (2005), meanwhile, includes Episodes I–III.) Third-person perspective gameplay is interspersed with short, often humorous cut-scenes that bind character action to recognizable narrative context (in LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (2006) for example, Han Solo’s shot at Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina scene reduces him to a pile of LEGO rubble). Game- play prioritizes puzzle-solving that often necessitates constructing or destroying certain LEGO-built elements in the game space; the collection and use of various items needed to solve these puzzles and advance through the game; simple button- mashing combat sequences and boss battles; and the need to switch between characters in order to access the abilities and items required to progress. At the center of each title are LEGO minifi gure, or “minifi g”, versions of famous fi lm characters, their cross-media resemblance boiled down to a series of their most iconic, recognizable traits—Luke Skywalker’s blond Mark Hamill hairdo cast in hard plastic, for example, or Harry Potter’s glasses and scar, or Captain Jack Sparrow’s ludicrous beard and dreadlocks. This simplifi cation is often played for laughs, as with Indy’s rakish stubble rendered as a beard of pointillist dots, or Legolas’s golden locks, which transcend LEGO physics to have a shampoo com-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 mercial bounce as he runs. In the context of gameplay, these traits are primarily useful for telling characters apart; in the context of cut-scenes, they are often a source of broad humor. In Understanding Comics (1993), Scott McCloud points out that, in our daily conversations, we perceive a nuanced facial image of the person we’re talking to, but only possess a very basic mental sketch of our own face and self-image:

When two people interact, they usually look directly at one another, seeing their partner’s features in vivid detail. Each one also sustains a constant awareness of his or her own face, but this mind-picture is not nearly as 108 Jessica Aldred

vivid; just a sketchy arrangement . . . a sense of shape . . . a sense of general placement. 8

McCloud likens this simple self-image to cartoons, and suggests that this is why we tend to project ourselves more readily into abstracted human ﬁ gures:

When you look at a photo or realistic drawing of a face, you see it as the face of another. But when you enter the world of the cartoon—you see yourself. . . . The cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled . . . an empty shell we inhabit which enables us to travel to another realm. We don’t just observe the cartoon, we become it! 9

McCloud ascribes a kind of player or animator-like agency to the reader or viewer, suggesting that we bring these fi gures to life by “fi lling up” their iconic forms with our own identity. Mark J. P. Wolf suggests that abstract video game characters may perform a similar function for their users, creating a necessary gap between in-game character image and realist representation for players to inhabit, and thus “become” their character. 10 Indeed, as game designer Will Wright noted of his own successful application of McCloud’s theory of abstraction in The Sims , “by purposely making the Sims fairly low-detail and keeping a certain distance from them we forced players to fi ll in the representational blanks with their imaginations”. 11 As I’ve argued elsewhere, the fi rst wave of early movie-licensed game characters in the late 1970s and early 1980s were necessarily abstract because of their technical limitations, which meant players had no choice but to supplement these rudimentary forms with their own imagination and identity (plus a little help from video game packaging materials). 12 With the now-notorious exception of E.T. and his fondness for falling into inescapable pits, early movie-licensed game characters also typically functioned as effective sites of player action and meaningful game response, and tended to be quite well received as a result. 13 Unlike the necessary abstraction of early movie-game characters, however, LEGO video game characters represent a conscious aesthetic decision, setting out to attain “the illusion of life which can do without any illusion of reality”, 14 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 to borrow art historian Ernst Gombrich’s description of abstraction’s main goal. Of course, this aesthetic decision is by no means a rejection of the commercial goals of the fi lm franchise in question, but rather a choice that adds another, lucrative product and medium to the transmedial equation—that of LEGO, its sharp edges and limited capacity for realist representation prompting an often- ironic collision between all three media forms, rather the seamless translation from one to the next. LEGO artist Nathan Sawaya argues that LEGO’s representational constraints actually make it an ideal medium for artistic expression, since the artist and viewer must work together to overcome its limitations, “fi lling in” the missing curves and contours needed to produce the desired effect, and (Un)blocking the Transmedial Character 109

ultimately producing a more satisfying aesthetic experience in the process. 15 In a sense, LEGO game characters seek to impose similar limitations upon games as a representational medium, reining in the drive toward “seamless” technological convergence between fi lms and games supposedly enabled by digitization and suggesting alternate, and potentially more enjoyable, modes of player alignment and engagement. Paired with often-realistic and highly actionable game spaces, LEGO character abstraction eases player alignment by creating what McCloud calls a “masking” effect, facilitating our projection into our iconic, functional character so that we may safely enter a detailed, sensually-stimulating world. 16 While McCloud is specifi cally referring to a style of drawing in Belgian clear-line comics such as Tintin , Japanese manga, and Disney animation, when employed in games this masking effect has the added benefi t of focusing our attention on exploring and winning spaces rather than studying faces and bodies for nuanced expressions and behavior. Indeed, the worlds of LEGO video games have become more detailed, expansive, and actionable with each release, with The LEGO Movie Videogame (2014) boasting an environment made entirely of manipulable digital bricks; perhaps not surprisingly, players often cite the act of (sometimes need- lessly) destroying every LEGO-built part of the game environment as one of their favorite pastimes. This successful masking effect contrasts sharply with the impact of game characters that prioritize cinematic realism, who tend to be more readily objectifi ed and harshly scrutinized by the player. As McCloud notes, Japanese comics artists often contrast a simply-drawn protagonist with a realistic, highly-detailed antagonist in order to emphasize the latter’s “otherness” from the reader. 17 Research into the creation of believable avatars in shared virtual environments explains why this effect may also occur in video games, albeit unintentionally: Maia Garau observes that players demand a strong correspondence between visual fi delity and behavioral realism—in other words, the more photorealistic the avatar, the more realistic behavior users expect from that avatar, creating dissonance when functionality fails to match up to form. 18 We experience no such dissonance with our LEGO avatars, bringing to mind Gombrich’s assertion that we are willing to accept and even embrace simplifi ed forms because their “lack of elaboration guarantees the absence of contradictory clues”. 19

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 However, as much as it has been cited by game designers and scholars alike as a caution against excessive character realism in game design, McCloud’s assertion that we project ourselves more readily into abstract human fi gures— that “we don’t just observe the cartoon, we become it”—doesn’t wholly account for our complex relationship with video game characters, and licensed characters in particular. Our successful alignment with video game protagonists is far more complicated than simply “becoming” our character, and depends on how well these fi gures balance their dual role as both player agent and fi ctional character, belonging as they do to both the “ludic” and “representational” systems that comprise the game, to borrow Andrew Burn’s terminology. 20 Any 110 Jessica Aldred

productive analysis of video game player-characters must acknowledge this duality, and the constantly shifting relationship we experience with video game characters as a result, oscillating between our alignment with them as an extension of self, and our awareness of them a separate, fi ctional entity. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman have productively termed this duality the “hybrid consciousness” of play. 21 This hybridity becomes especially fraught when the game’s representational system is strictly obligated to uphold the often highly specifi c demands of the franchise intellectual property upon which a given character is based. Our successful alignment with movie-licensed video game characters therefore depends on far more than our willing projection “into” a simplifi ed form—it depends on our character’s abilities, the unique affordances for action they provide us as players, and how they balance these affordances with their representational obligations as franchise IP. In contrast to the more richly-developed personas of successful fi lm characters, which are staunchly tied to the ostensibly “realistic” representation of the actor playing them, successful video game characters are defi ned fi rst and foremost by their functionality within game space. James New- man contends that successful player-character alignment depends primarily on character capacity—what they are capable of within the game, and the “suite of characteristics” they provide their operator. 22 However, contrary to Newman’s belief that character appearance is irrelevant in the context of gameplay, LEGO character abstraction allows player agency and action to come to the foreground, preventing players from sliding into the kind of spectatorial mode often prompted by game characters that strive to replicate the fi lm characters they’re based on. We play LEGO games primarily from a third-person perspective that keeps the full body of our minifi g avatar in view, but rather than serving as a distracting object for aesthetic contemplation, these fi gures encourage our alignment with them as a compelling “suite of characteristics”, their unique capacities allowing our successful completion of each successive puzzle and our advancement through the game. Viewed from this perspective, the most basic iconography of character becomes key to player recognition, boiled down to one or two essential traits that can be ported across media—Indiana Jones’ hat and bullwhip, Luke Sky- walker’s skill with a lightsaber, Harry Potter’s wand. With character appearance

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 linked clearly to character capacity, the avatar’s function, not form, becomes key to guaranteeing player involvement. As Harrison Gish suggests, successful avatars facilitate player engagement by allowing some degree of “directed authorship” of their aesthetic and functional attributes, 23 and while we can’t give our LEGO characters the kind of mohawked, multi-piercing customization we might give our Fallout 3 avatar, we can cus- tomize an impressive inventory of clothing and tools that will aid in our completion of the game. Such inventories are typically modest at the outset—for example, the prologue of LEGO The Lord of the Rings uses the low stakes activity of hobbits gathering and cooking breakfast as a tutorial for ﬁ nding and placing (Un)blocking the Transmedial Character 111

objects in our inventory, so the fi rst tools we gather are suitably simple and domestic. But as we progress through the game, each character accumulates more useful items that will be indispensable to our ongoing survival and advancement, at the same time as they learn new, crucial uses for seemingly ordinary items. When Frodo lacks the requisite skill or equipment—a frying pan, for example, in the context of our breakfast-centric tutorial, as well as the tinderbox needed to light the cooking fi re—we can transfer our alignment to another member of the fellowship in order to access what we need in order to progress, in this case, the always reliable (and hungry) Samwise Gamgee, who possesses both required items. In this sense, LEGO games facilitate the sort of smooth, intuitive cognitive immersion that game designer Katherine Isbister argues is crucial to the player’s experience of our character, allowing us to synchronize our problem-solving abilities with those of our character—or in this case, characters—in order to chart an effective course of action through the game. 24 One notable modifi cation of more recent LEGO games has been the steady expansion of the number of playable characters available with each title (see Figure 6.1 , top). For example, as various elves, hobbits, humans, dwarves, and wizards join the Fellowship in LEGO The Lord of the Rings, we also gain access to their inventories and abilities, creating an increasingly complex and distributed network of character alignment that relies on our ability to identify, remember, and switch between characters and their various capacities. For example, during the “Pass of Caradhras” chapter of LEGO The Lord of the Rings , players have a total of nine playable characters from the Fellowship (Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Sam, Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, Gandalf the Grey, and Gimli) that they can change between as needed. However, the fi rst section necessitates choosing a “tall” character (Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, or Gandalf) as a kind of Sherpa for Gimli, hoisting the muscle-bound dwarf through deep snow so he can be tossed at partially-cracked bricks that can only be destroyed by his axe (see Figure 6.1 , center). Many core gameplay mechanics rely on this combination of character abilities—in this case, Aragorn’s height and strength with Gimli’s excellence as a projectile and one-dwarf demolition crew—but learning and mastering these combinations in an expedient fashion can be challenging with so many playable

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 characters gathered in the same area. Players have the option of calling up a large master inventory of playable characters and scrolling between them to choose who they’ll play next (see Figure 6.1 , bottom), but it’s far more efﬁ cient to position the character you’re playing within reach of the one you need next and press Y. So, in the context of gameplay, the iconic, easily recognizable traits of our characters—which are often strongly linked to their functionality—help us to navigate and master this distributed alignment. Jesper Juul usefully extends the discussion of abstraction beyond aesthetics to consider how, in video games, player action and character behavior are also abstracted so as to strike the appropriate balance between the game’s rules and its ﬁ ction. As we learn the game, Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 6.1 The expanded cast of playable characters in LEGO The Lord of the Rings (2012) (top); Aragorn prepares Gimli for launch (center); and the master inventory of playable characters during the “Pass of Caradhras” chapter of LEGO The Lord of the Rings (bottom). (Un)blocking the Transmedial Character 113

we identify less with individual characters than we do with the game as an overall rule system, calling to mind Juul’s observation that players who acquire profi ciency in certain games often turn down the detail level of the graphics, suggesting a shift in experienced players from treating the game as fi ction to treating it only as an opportunity to optimize strategies. 25 In LEGO games, with the graphics already “turned down” for us, we may begin to optimize our strategies almost immediately. As I played through LEGO The Lord of the Rings, I found myself creating a kind of strategic shorthand for my character abilities and inventories, most of which were boiled down to a word or two in relation to each character; short/fi re for Sam, blond/arrows for Legolas, tall/sword for Aragorn, and so forth. Thus, what may be especially powerful about digital character abstraction as a franchise strategy is not that it facilitates us “becoming” our character, but rather that it facilitates the projection of our problem- solving skills onto the game.

Lights, Camera . . . Cut-scene? In most video games licensed from movies, our characters’ promotional obligations as avatars of their franchise IP are nowhere more painfully emphasized than in cut-scenes that repeat scenes from the ﬁ lm they’re based on, often borrowing motion-captured performance data and high-resolution photographic scans of the actors from the ﬁ lm. This tactic tends to prompt especially harsh scrutiny of the characters in question and their failed attempts at realistic, emotive performance, as evidenced, for example, in this savage (but highly typical) review of Iron Man 2: The Game (2010):

(A)lmost all of the character models look like wax-museum rejects. It may be interesting to hear Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) and James Rhodes (aka War Machine) plot about how to stop a serious threat, but it’s very dif- ﬁ cult to follow the action when you’re half expecting the desiccated corpse of Don Cheadle to make a lunge for Robert Downey Jr.’s over-tanned head and try to gnaw out his tasty genius brains. 26

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 As tempting as it is to blame the problem of Don Cheadle’s corpse and Robert Downey Jr.’s over-tanned head on the inferior character modeling and animation that strand our digitized thespians squarely in the realm of the uncanny valley, part of this player unease also stems from how these ﬁ gures strive and fail to serve as avatars of their big screen selves in terms of both appearance and performance. Unlike the often-convincing character performances featured in a game such as LA Noire (2011) which utilized nuanced facial expressions in service of its gameplay mechanics of investigation and interrogation, Iron Man 2 only aspires to realistic character images and performances in order to facilitate seamless consumer transitions from one strand of the franchise to the next. 114 Jessica Aldred

By contrast, LEGO video games mobilize what Donald Crafton calls a “fi gurative” mode of cartoon performance, characterized by its extroverted style, formulaic character types, and recurrent gestures, sayings, and gags. 27 In so doing, LEGO avatars serve as recognizable and appealing transmedial characters at the same time as they parody the convergence imperatives that necessitate this service. LEGO game cut-scenes may pay loving homage to the famous fi lm scenes they’re based on, but they also feature performances that openly mock their obligations to the cinematic blockbuster, as well as the realist character aspirations of most other movie-licensed games. With their minimalist, punctuation-mark features, LEGO characters have no choice but to convey emotion through a kind of broad semaphore of expressive signs; raised eyebrows for surprise, furrowed brow and pursed mouth for anger, and so forth. Bodily performance typically relies on broad, exaggerated pantomime to convey meaning, while vocal performance was limited to a series of grunts and sighs until the addition of actor’s voices to LEGO The Lord of the Rings . As with all fi gurative performances, LEGO performances run counter to the naturalistic, Stanislavskian goals of what Crafton terms “embodied” performance, which strives to construct a complete, unique character with whom viewers will identify and empathize. 28 Empathy is for the most part irrelevant in the LEGO universe, wherein once-dramatic screen roles are typically played for laughs, and at any point, one (or all) of our heroes could be reduced to a pile of LEGO rubble. For example, while one could argue that the addition of actor’s voices to LEGO The Lord of the Rings tips the scales in favor of a more naturalistic, embodied mode of performance, the dramatic heft of dialogue provided by acclaimed thespians Ian McKellan, Christopher Lee, Viggo Mortensen, and the like is consistently subverted by sight gags that mock these attempts at “authentic” cinematic performance. There is a decided split between the “embodied” connotations of actors’ voices and the fi gurative behavioral “asides” that punctuate each cut-scene. For example, while the character dialogue surrounding Boromir’s death remains utterly solemn, the broom, banana, and rubber chicken his Uruk-hai enemies use, in ascending order of presumed deadliness, to slay him decidedly undermine its dramatic effect, as do the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 cartoon Xs that replace his eyes in the still-rubber-chicken-impaled moment of his passing. Meanwhile, the grave nature of the Fellowship’s encounter with the Riders of Rohan gets soundly upstaged by the Riders’ mid-conversation performance of an intricate LEGO horse musical ride (see Figure 6.2 ), complete with a three-steed pyramid performed by the trio of horses that lost their riders in battle. As Crafton notes, early fi gurative cartoons of the late 1920s and early 1930s distinguished themselves from the increasingly realist imperatives of fi lm performance by remediating the performance styles of comic strips, short fi lm comedies, and the vaudeville stage instead: (Un)blocking the Transmedial Character 115

FIGURE 6.2 The Riders of Rohan strut their stuff during a typically ﬁ gurative cut-scene performance.

Animators used fi guration to create the impression that cartoons were anticinema, or at least outside its rules. They mocked the movies and the movie stars and poked refl exive fun at themselves as fi lm workers. They relied on graphic conventions that put their toon’s bodies through gyra- tions to show off their nonhuman anatomical rubbery quality, their imper- viousness to physical attacks and dismemberment. 29

I want to conclude with the suggestion that, through the abstraction of character appearance and behavior, as well as a canny mobilization of fi gurative performance, LEGO characters similarly create the impression that they are outside the rules that bind games too closely to cinema. In so doing, they challenge the convergence-era tendency to erase the distinctions between media characters at a time when these distinctions remain necessary for each medium to be able to do what it does best. At the same time, Traveller’s Tales and Warner Brothers Interactive remain bound to the convergence imperatives that necessitate character transmediation across all nodes of a given franchise, and stand to benefi t greatly from them. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Notes 1. See, for example, Ben Fritz, “Warner’s approach to video games is paying off”, Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2011, available at http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/18/ business/la-fi -1018-ct-warner-interactive-20111018. 2. As Randy Nicholls observes, in good fi nancial times and when video game profi ts are up, Hollywood seeks active control and ownership of the game industry; when profi ts are down, studios are more inclined to license their fi lm content to outside game developers. Over the past decade, Hollywood has once again sought active control of the game industry, this time with an apparent effort to let the game developers it acquires teach them how to make viable movie-game spin-offs. Interactive 116 Jessica Aldred

divisions (like WBI) that were once mere subsets of conglomerates’ larger consumer products divisions, responsible solely for licensing game rights to external developers and publishers, have become legitimate producers and distributors. See Randy Nicholls, “Ancillary Markets—Video Games: Promises and Challenges of an Emerging Industry”, in Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, editors, The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry , Malden, Massachusetts; Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2008, page 133. 3. Craig Harris, “The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s Quest Review”, IGN , September 20, 2010, available at http://archive.is/dpElt. 4. Jessica Aldred, “A Question of Character: Transmediation, Abstraction and Iden- tifi cation in Early Games Licensed from Movies”, in Mark J. P. Wolf, editor, Before the Crash: Early Video Game History , Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2012, pages 90–104. 5. Bob Rehak, “Playing at Being: Psychoanalysis and the Avatar”, in Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, editors, The Video Game Theory Reader , New York, NY: Routledge, 2003, page 111. 6. Donald Crafton, Shadow of a Mouse , Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012, page 23–5. 7. Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide ,New York, NY; London, England: New York University Press, 2006. 8. Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1993, page 36. 9. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 1993, page 36. 10. Mark J. P. Wolf, “Abstraction in the Video Game”, in Wolf and Perron, The Video Game Theory Reader, 2003, page 51. 11. Will Wright, “Response: Can There Be a Form between a Game and a Story?”, in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, editors, First Person: New Media as Story, Per- formance, and Game , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004, page 13. 12. Aldred, “A Question of Character”, 2012, pages 90–104. 13. While the contributing role of the E.T.: The Extraterrestrial (1982) game in the video game industry crash of 1983 has become somewhat exaggerated, E.T.’s fl awed and infamously frustrating pit-falling gameplay mechanic found its extradiegetic analog in the now-legendary rumored burial of thousands of E.T.: The Extraterrestrial game cartridges in a New Mexico landfi ll following the game’s overwhelming critical and commercial failure. 14. Ernst Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation , 3rd edition, London, England: Phaidon Press, 1968, page 284. 15. Nathan Sawaya, “LEGO: The Imperfect Art Tool”, elsewhere in this collection. 16. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 1993, page 43. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 17. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 1993, page 43. 18. Maia Garau, “Selective Fidelity: Investigating Priorities for the Creation of Expressive Avatars”, in R. Schroeder and A. Axelsson, Avatars at Work and Play: Collaboration in Shared Virtual Environments, Dordrecht: Springer, 2006, page 23. 19. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, 1968, page 284. 20. Andrew Burn, “Playing Roles”, in D. Carr, D. Buckingham, A. Burn, and G. Schott, editors, Computer Games: Text, Narrative, and Play , Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 2006, page 72. 21. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004, pages 453–5. (Un)blocking the Transmedial Character 117

22. James Newman, “The Myth of the Ergodic Video Game: Some thoughts on player- character relationships in video games”, Game Studies, 2(1), available at www.gamestudies. org/0102/newman/. 23. Harrison Gish, “Avatar Interactivity: Modifying and Manipulating Play”, conference presentation, Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, March 6, 2013, Chicago, Illinois. 24. Katherine Isbister, Better Game Characters by Design, San Francisco, CA: Elsevier, 2006, page 205. 25. Jesper Juul, “A Certain Level of Abstraction”, in Akira Baba, editor, Situated Play: DiGRA 2007 Conference Proceedings, Tokyo, Japan: DiGRA Japan, available at www.jesperjuul.net/ text/acertainlevel/. 26. Chris Watters, “Iron Man 2”, C-Net Australia, May 12, 2010, available at www.cnet. com.au/iron-man-2-339303042.htm. 27. Crafton, Shadow of a Mouse , 2012, pages 23–5. 28. Crafton, Shadow of a Mouse , 2012, pages 36–9. 29. Crafton, Shadow of a Mouse , 2012, page 28.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 7 PLAYSET NOSTALGIA: LEGO STAR WARS : THE VIDEO GAME AND THE TRANSGENERATIONAL APPEAL OF THE LEGO VIDEO GAME FRANCHISE

Robert Buerkle

Fan Crisis: The Backdrop to LEGO Star Wars’s Release LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game—the inaugural title in Traveller’s Tales’ LEGO video game franchise—debuted in 2005, and the timing of its release is signifi cant to understanding the direction of the series. It wasn’t a particularly important year for LEGO fandom; rather, it was pivotal for the other brand in the title, as 2005 also marked the end of a long and torturous journey for a certain generation of Star Wars fans. The journey had begun in their youth, when Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983) mesmerized them with visions of Jedi knights, charismatic droids, and Star Destroyers. In the years immediately following the trilogy’s conclusion, many of these fans continued to play with their Star Wars toys for a time, but they eventually moved on with adolescence, grew out of their toys, and seemingly grew out of Star Wars as well. But this generation hadn’t just passed their time with a trilogy of science fi ction fi lms. Growing up in the late 1970s and early 1980s, these young fans spent six-plus years immersed in the Star Wars saga: not only did they watch the fi lms in Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 theaters, but they watched accompanying TV specials and read comic book spinoffs. They owned Dagobah playsets and mailed away for exclusive Boba Fett action fi gures. They spent three long years anxiously wondering whether Han Solo would ever be rescued. For many of these fans, Star Wars was a deep-seated personal investment and an indelible part of their childhood. By the early 1990s, that fi rst generation of Star Wars fans were now in their late teens and early 20s, which helps to explain how a piece of genre fi ction spun off from a nearly decade-old movie franchise somehow ended up at the top of the New York Times Best Seller List. 1 Published in 1991 by Bantam Spectra, Timothy Zahn’s Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 119

Heir to the Empire was very much the right book for the right time: a smartly-written update to the adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia which had all the hallmarks of Star Wars —lightsabers, Wookiees, epic space battles, and wide-eyed optimism—but which matured the franchise just enough for the now-young adult audience. The novel’s fi rst printing sold out in less than a week, 2 and by the time Zahn’s third book was released in 1993—a full ten years after Jedi — Star Wars was clearly back in the zeitgeist. Seemingly fueled by the renewed interest that the books had piqued (as well as advancements in CGI technology), George Lucas announced that same year that he would be producing three new Star Wars fi lms, 3 reigniting a dormant fandom that had been simmering for the better part of a decade. The fi rst hints of crisis arose with the theatrical release of the Star Wars Special Editions in 1997—digital updates of the original trilogy which not only “improved” the special effects, but made a series of changes to the content. Whether the addition of a CG Jabba the Hutt to the fi rst fi lm, the removal of the original music from the fi nale of Jedi , or the eternally controversial decision to have Greedo—not Han Solo—shoot fi rst in the cantina, these changes were perceived as sacrilege to an audience so intimately familiar with the fi lms that many could recite its dialogue word-for-word. With George Lucas’s subsequent announcement that he would be “retiring” the original edits of the Star Wars trilogy in favor of the Special Editions, a generation of fans found themselves, for the fi rst time in their lives, questioning the motives and artistry of the perceived author of the Star Wars universe. The crisis really escalated, however, with the long-awaited 1999 release of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Zahn had set the bar high with his sequel trilogy, and so perhaps it was inevitable that the prequels would be a disappointment to the now mature audience which hoped for the franchise to continue in that direction. Additionally, the success of Zahn’s novels had prompted a fl urry of further novels and comic books that were gobbled up by the most dedicated fans, increasing their investment in the franchise. And so it was that after 20 years of dedicated commitment, fans found themselves confronted with a traumatic reality upon exiting theaters in May of 1999: that the fi rst new Star Wars fi lm in 16 years was (in their minds, at least) really, really bad . Will Brooker has written extensively about this crisis in his book-length study of Star Wars fandom, Using the Force (2002). He observes a broad sense of disil-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 lusionment felt by many fans in the months and years following The Phantom Menace’s release, and describes these reactions as “everything from a vague sense of disappointment to a feeling of outright betrayal”. 4

[These fans stress] that their own lifelong involvement in the saga . . . means they have something of an emotional claim on the mythos. Their sense of rejection is heightened by their feeling that they gave themselves to Lucas’s saga, following it loyally for over two decades, only to ﬁ nd themselves knocked back by the director’s statement that his new ﬁ lm was meant primarily for kids, not adult fans. 5 120 Robert Buerkle

This was perhaps the cruelest blow—Lucas’s own public acknowledgements that The Phantom Menace was not made with fi rst-generation fans in mind. Some fans became openly hostile toward Lucas, best illustrated by the “George Lucas raped my childhood” meme that emerged from internet forums during these years. 6 Others held out hope that the saga could be salvaged, that perhaps Lucas would heed their discontent—though for many, those hopes were dashed with the 2002 release of Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones, which was met with equal derision. And so by 2005, fi rst-gen fans were alternately anticipating, bracing for, or outright dreading the end. Reactions to Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ran the gamut. Some seemed to genuinely appreciate its darker, more serious tone. Others felt the poor acting and writing left it in equal company with the prior two fi lms. But in the main, fi rst-generation fans conceded to an ambivalent resignation that at least it’s not as bad as the other two . 7 Or, as one DVD reviewer put it a few months later: “Love it or hate, at least it’s over.” 8 In the wake of the prequel trilogy’s conclusion—and the fi nal ending to the cinematic saga for the foreseeable future 9 —dissatisfi ed fi rst-generation fans found themselves coming to grips with three diffi cult revelations: First was the aforementioned realization that despite their lifetime dedication to the franchise—a full 28 years for those who had been there from the beginning— Star Wars was not being made for them any more. Whether it was the clownish antics of Jar Jar Binks, the juvenile humor, the use of a nine-year-old Anakin as protagonist, or the heavy reliance on CGI spectacle over narrative, a vast number of adult fans felt that the prequels’ greatest fault was in catering to children. And Lucas has openly acknowledged this intention, as he told a press conference ahead of Phantom Menace’s release:

What critics have failed to realize from the beginning is that the Star Wars ﬁ lms are made for young people. These ﬁ lms were intended for 12- and 13-year-olds. My intention has always been to make a Saturday afternoon serial for children. 10

Adding insult to injury was the passive aggressive manner by which Lucas seemed

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 to turn the blame for fans’ disappointment onto the fans themselves: “I am fully aware of the fact that some of the older fans have gotten themselves into a situation. . . . They’ve grown older and somehow expect the fi lms should be for them, but they're not.” 11 Compounded by the growing speculation that Lucas’s ultimate motivation was simply fi nancial 12 —that the saga was really the product of a businessman rather than an “artist”—fi rst-generation fans wrestled with a growing belief that after all their years of fandom and support, the generation that made Star Wars an international success was being thrown under the bus in favor of the new Millennial audience. Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 121

Even more troubling, however, was the second possibility, what Will Brooker identifi es as the “eyes of a child gambit”: the argument made by Lucas, and echoed by the prequels’ supporters, that those who hated the new trilogy did so because they were no longer able to view the narrative afresh as a wide-eyed 12-year-old. 13 Immanuel Kant observed that while nostalgia may manifest as a desire to return home, those who do so are frequently disappointed by the trip because what they long for is not, in fact, the place, but rather the time —the time of their childhood. 14 Similarly, Star Wars fans faced a crisis of fi nally returning to Star Wars after years of anticipation, only to fi nd the trip back to be a disappointment, perhaps because they were no longer experiencing it as their pre-adolescent self. While they thought it was the movies themselves that they loved, perhaps it was, in reality, the childhood experience of them that had fueled their adoration. And this leads to the third and most disconcerting possibility: the growing suspicion that the decline may have even preceded the Special Edition edits, and that Lucas’s aesthetic sensibilities now indicated a trend that could be traced at least as far back as Return of the Jedi, with the cute and comic Ewoks as the fi rst symptom. Once this taint has been introduced, however, one can begin questioning the entirety of the original trilogy: what of Mark Hamill’s acting or the slapstick antics of R2-D2 and C-3PO in the fi rst fi lm? What of the many toys, T-shirts, and lunchboxes that they themselves had owned as a child? At one point, fans desperately hoped that Phantom Menace was the fl uke, and that the rest of the saga would prove fulfi lling. Now that the prequels were concluded, fans wrestled with an inverse proposition: What if the darker tone and hints of maturity in The Empire Strikes Back were actually the fl uke, born not of Lucas, but rather Irvin Kershner, its internationally infl uenced director? In truth, the eyes of a child argument can lead to two conclusions: that the prequels are just as good as the originals through the eyes of a child, or—more disturbingly—that the originals are just as bad as the prequels through the eyes of an objective adult not swayed by childhood nostalgia. 15 The original trilogy had been just the right Star Wars for a wide-eyed 10-year-old. The Zahn trilogy had been just the right Star Wars for a matur- ing 20-year-old. The prequels had not been the right Star Wars for a fanatical

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 25- or 30-year-old—hence the conﬂ ict—however, the LEGO Star Wars video games would prove to be just the right Star Wars for a disillusioned 35-year- old. If the “eyes of a child” gambit was correct—that adult fans were simply no longer able to view the saga in the idealistic mindset they had as a child— then what they were really experiencing was a translation error, with their adult minds unable to process the new ﬁ lms in a properly youthful manner. LEGO Star Wars was thus a much-needed corrective for this particular moment in Star Wars fandom, as it performed the necessary task of reinterpreting the saga for adult fans. 122 Robert Buerkle

Star Wars, Abstracted LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game was released in April of 2005 and the game’s overwhelming popularity lead to some 3.8 million copies of the game being sold by year’s end, enough to rank it amongst the best-selling video games of 2005. 16 The initial game only covered the prequel trilogy, and so September 2006 saw the release of LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, which was received with equal popularity, 17 and by late 2007, with more than 7 million units already sold between the two titles, 18 LucasFilm released LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which combined the prior two games together (along with some additional features). All told, the three games have combined to sell more than 18 million copies. 19 So at the height of their popularity, the LEGO Star Wars games spanned roughly three years, coinciding with the fi rst three years in which fi rst-gen Star Wars fans were recovering from their crisis in fandom. 20 This timing would prove to be key, both for the success of those three games as well as the eventual direction of the LEGO video game franchise. Now let’s be clear—these are children’s games. Based on the LEGO Star Wars toy line that was introduced in 1999 and aimed at 6- to 14-year-olds, 21 the original game seemed to follow George Lucas’s privileging of pre- and early teens over an adult audience; this is especially evident in the choice to base the game on the loved-by-kids prequels, rather than the loved-by-adults originals. All of the games’ marketing clearly positions them as children’s or family games, their diffi culty is very forgiving—not only is the gameplay relatively simple, but players are given an infi nite number of lives by immediately respawning anytime that tragedy befalls them—and the cartoonishly reductive animations make the games suitable to any age. For the LEGO brand, LEGO Star Wars followed such earlier games as LEGO Island (1997), LEGO Creator (1998), and LEGO Racers (1999) in targeting a child audience, while for Star Wars, it offered a kid-friendly alternative to more mature titles like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003) or Star Wars: Battlefront (2004). Despite all of this, however, the games ultimately proved just as pleasurable for adult fans of the franchise, as was repeatedly indicated by reviews of the games:

And in a twist that’s unlike most other family-oriented games out there, Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 it’s just as amusing for adults as it is for kids. — IGN 22

The fact remains that it’s easily one of the best titles in the franchise in recent years. Its kiddy facade hides some terriﬁ cally fun gameplay with a lot of meat on its bones. . . . [B]y all means . . . be sure to play it with [your kids]. Just don’t be surprised if you continue playing long after they trot off to bed. — Gamespy23 Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 123

[T]he result is a game that both kids and adults can enjoy. . . . Even if you’re a hardcore fan, you should come for the Star Wars action and stay for the LEGO gooﬁ ness. — Atomic Gamer24

The basic premise of the games is simple: the Star Wars saga retold in comic fashion, acted out by animated LEGO minifi gures. Familiar Star Wars settings are depicted via LEGO pieces, with much of the landscape able to be destroyed in a shower of bricks—bricks which can sometimes be reconfi gured into new LEGO objects. Each fi lm is divided into six levels, comprised of platforming gameplay interwoven with brief cut-scenes that mimic fi lmic exposition, and after completing each level, players are able to return in “Free Play” mode, using alternate characters to further explore the world. Characters each have their own special abilities—Obi-wan Kenobi can use the Force, Jar Jar Binks can jump high, Han Solo can use a grappling hook, and R2-D2 can interface with computer terminals—such that if a player fi nds a terminal that they cannot access while playing as Luke Skywalker, they can come back in “Free Play” mode as Artoo to fi nd a hidden area beyond it. One of the prominent characteristics of the LEGO games is their cartoonish abstraction. Not only are the characters reduced to colorful minifi gures, but all dialogue has been removed from the story, leaving the characters to enact the saga in comedic pantomime—for example, the famous “Luke, I’m your father” scene is rendered by Darth Vader producing a photograph of Anakin and Amidala from beneath his cape, to which Luke emotes shock and distress. This serves multiple functions for the adult player. First, it rewards familiarity with the saga—moments like these would be incomprehensible without prior knowledge of the story (not only the original scene in Empire , but the characters from the prequels as well), thus the game presumes the player as being “in the know” and resultantly positions them not just as a player, but as a Star Wars fan. The comedic pantomime not only provides a humorous spin on the familiar story, but acknowledges the player as someone who will “get” the jokes. However this abstraction also serves an important narratological function in how it positions its audience.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Having grown up with the Star Wars trilogy, I can remember re-watching the original fi lm as a teenager, having not seen it since I was much younger, and realizing for the fi rst time why the Millennium Falcon ends up in the same place as the Death Star: because it had fl own to where the planet Alderaan should have been, and the Death Star—which had earlier destroyed the planet— was still lingering there. As a child, I could not (or cared not to) follow this exposition. For me, the second act of Star Wars began with “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for”, followed by talk-talk-talk, aliens in the cantina, talk- talk-talk, Han Solo and Chewbacca are cool, talk-talk-talk, the Millennium Falcon fl ies into space, talk-talk-talk, they end up on the Death Star. I experienced the 124 Robert Buerkle

story as an abstracted series of episodes, where my familiarity with the fi lm— having seen it numerous times already—was all the structuring logic I needed. As far as I was concerned, Luke and Han end up on the Death Star because that’s what’s supposed to happen next. So in a curious way, LEGO Star Wars provides a fair simulation of a childhood narrative experience by doing precisely this with the entire saga, prequels included. LEGO Star Wars offers a return to childhood not only by combining the LEGO and Star Wars brands, two prominent cultural signifi ers for any child of that era, but also by revising the Star Wars narrative in abstracted form and recreating the manner by which many fans experienced the originals as children. This is Star Wars as ur-experience, boiled down to the key set pieces and bare-bones story that made Star Wars so enthralling to their younger selves. Further, this abstraction strips away the specifi cs of narrative, exposition, and performance—considerations which can easily defl ate the fi lms for an adult but which have little impact on the aesthetic sensibilities of a child. As a result, the prequels suddenly weren’t so bad any more. This is best conveyed by the many fans who used their praise of the LEGO games as another platform for venting their frustrations with the prequels. One blogger comparing the two observes that “One features tacky, plasticky [sic ] characters with a lack of facial expressions and is almost impossible to take seriously. The other has everyone made out of Lego”, and goes on to note that as a result of the game’s pantomime, “the urge to lobotomise [sic ] yourself with a blunt spoon because of mushy kissy-poo love talk never arises”. 25 Similarly, another blogger’s “Ten Ways Lego Star Wars is Better Than the Prequels”, includes “8) Lego minifi gs somehow better at conveying emotion than human actors” and “1) No dialogue at all. No midichlorians, no poop jokes, and Anakin never opens his mouth”. 26 Despite their sarcastic presentation, both of these fans make clear that the games provide a more satisfying rendition of the prequel narrative than the fi lms themselves did, and others taking a less cynical tone convey similar sentiments. One forum user notes that the games “actually make you appreciate the story more than the fi lms themselves did”. 27 The Onion ’s A.V. Club states that “In many ways, the original LEGO Star Wars game (based on Episodes I through III ) was better than the fi lms. It wasn’t muddled with

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 clunky Lucas dialogue, and it managed to capture the spirit of the fi rst Star Wars trilogy”. 28 Eurogamer proclaims that “Traveller’s Tales has managed to make the game both unmistakably Lego and Star Wars. It’s like walking down two memory lanes at the same time. . . . If you’re a Star Wars fan wondering where the magic went, look no further”. 29 Signifi cantly, all of these reviews are discussing the fi rst LEGO game based on the prequel trilogy—not the later game based on the original fi lms they love—yet still indicate a return to the “spirit” or “magic” of Star Wars , even in the abstracted and parodic fashion that the game employs. Further, they suggest a pleasurable reclamation of the saga for longtime fans who had lost faith in it. Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 125

Finally, the games’ abstraction serves a fourth function, one alluded to in those references to the “spirit” and “magic” of the original fi lms, elusive terms that suggest an indefi nable something that makes the fi lms so special. Such tenuousness, Linda Hutcheon observes, is a defi ning characteristic of nostalgic media:

Nostalgia, in fact, may depend precisely on the irrecoverable nature of the past for its emotional impact and appeal. It is the very pastness of the past, its inaccessibility, that likely accounts for a large part of nostalgia’s power. . . . This is rarely the past as actually experienced, of course; it is the past as imagined, as idealized through memory and desire. 30

It is the elusiveness of the past which makes it so compelling, thus a direct return to it will likely defl ate the idealization that we place around it. It is for this reason that Fredric Jameson points to an “incompatibility” between nostalgia and histo- ricity; nostalgic media, he tells us, is the past converted into a “mesmerizing lost reality”, a simulacrum of the past, romanticized rather than examined in its actuality. 31 This provides a contradiction for nostalgic media: it must allow the audience to revisit the past while simultaneously obscuring it. LEGO Star Wars’ abstracted rendition of the saga achieves this by revisiting a childhood encounter with the simplifi ed narrative while leaving much of the details to memory—an idealized memory, as Hutcheon reminds us. And as the above reviews make clear, this can even be evoked by association. When LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game debuted, many fans lamented that, for all the appeal of the game, they wished that it covered the original fi lms instead, something they would have to wait 18 months to fi nally see. But perhaps a LEGO-fi ed prequel trilogy was precisely what fans needed in this moment, as this was the trilogy that most needed recuperating.

Gen X Appropriation and Nostalgia-by-Proxy While it would be easy to contextualize the LEGO Star Wars games only in terms of their relationship to the Star Wars brand, we should keep in mind that at the same time that the Star Wars franchise was being “desecrated” in the eyes of many die-hard fans, a great many other cultural touchstones from Generation X’s child-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 hood were being repackaged for a new audience. And many of these—superﬁ cially, at least—were also being framed as nostalgic by the pop cultural mainstream. The best and most obvious example is the nostalgia trend in reality television that arose in the early 2000s, most notably in the BBC and VH1 decade retro- spectives I Love the ’70s (2000/2003) and I Love the ’80s (2001/2002), 32 which feature yesteryear celebrities and modern-day pop culture pundits sarcastically rifﬁ ng on The Partridge Family , ABBA, Rubik’s Cube, and Pac-Man . We also see this in the explosive success of MTV’s reality sitcom The Osbournes (2002–5), in which 1970s heavy metal icon and Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne is ironically positioned as a 1950s Father Knows Best -style family patriarch, as well 126 Robert Buerkle

as The Surreal Life (2003–6), where washed-up celebrities like Corey Feldman, Emmanuel Lewis, and Erik Estrada are thrown together in a parody of The Real World . All of these programs are framed by a clear sense of nostalgia for their pop cultural referents, yet they also maintain an overt sense of irony by treating Gen X icons as quaint, silly, or idiosyncratic. While the nostalgia craze of reality TV is self-evident, however, the more telling trend is the ironically nostalgic TV-to-feature-fi lm adaptation. The past couple of decades have seen numerous examples of Baby Boomer TV series remade as dramatic fi lms without blatant overtures to nostalgia. The Untouchables (1987, series from 1959–63), The Fugitive (1993, series 1963–7), and Mission: Impossible (1996, series 1966–73) are all examples of what we might call passively nostalgic experiences: the series itself may have a nostalgic resonance for some, however the adaptation is not designed to require or presume any familiarity with the original. Someone who has never heard of television’s The Fugitive can enjoy the fi lm just as readily as anyone else. Similarly, comedic adaptations like The Addams Family (1991, series 1964–6), Dennis the Menace (1993, series 1959–63), and The Flintstones (1994, series 1960–6)—also based on Baby Boomer programs— might include a few winking nods to their source material, yet they maintain the tone and intentions of their originals. Beginning with 1995’s The Brady Bunch Movie (series 1969–74), however, we see a shift to the television on which Gen- eration X was raised, and equally, a shift in nostalgic sensibilities. Unlike those previous examples, The Brady Bunch Movie is an actively nostalgic fi lm: not only does it overtly recreate famous moments from the original series (Marcia’s nose broken by an errant football, Peter’s Cagney-esque “pork chops and applesauce”), but the fi lm’s comedy requires an awareness of the original, as the fi lm is centered on the culture clash which ensues when the 1970s TV family is transposed to 1990s America. As a result of this overt self-awareness, the fi lm is also heavily draped in irony—humor gets built around the obliviously naïve Marcia being unaware that her friend is a lesbian and the family’s unhip celebration of shopping at Sears. From beginning to end, the fi lm asks the audience to laugh at the quaintness of the characters, with the innocence and optimism of the original series recast as childlike simplicity. 2002’s Scooby Doo (various series 1969–86) continues this tactic, yet more telling is that this trend of parodic self-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 awareness also carries into adaptations based on dramatic programs, with such fi lms as Charlie’s Angels (2000, series 1976–81), Starsky & Hutch (2004, series 1975–9), and The Dukes of Hazzard (2005, series 1979–85) repurposed as action-comedies and cast with such comedic actors as Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, and Johnny Knoxville. These may not always be as overtly refl exive as The Brady Bunch Movie, yet they all feature a signifi cant degree of self-awareness as a remake, with a designed pleasure of recognition, and—most importantly—their ironic treatment presumes a camp appreciation of the originals rather than a genuine nostalgia. Irony and nostalgia have a complicated relationship. Linda Hutcheon, for example, sees irony as being “as far from ‘nostalgia’ as anyone could wish”. She Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 127

invokes Umberto Eco’s argument that irony is the result of there being no innocence left in the world, and a feeling that everything has already been said. In this context, according to Eco, irony may be the only way to be serious. With a media-savvy audience that is heavily self-aware, and resultantly cynical, genuine sentimentality becomes very diffi cult. For Eco, irony is a way of acknowledging that post-innocent, self-aware sensibility in order to knowingly access emotion. As Hutcheon puts it, “We cannot ignore the discourses that precede and contextualize everything we say and do, and it is through ironic parody that we signal our awareness of this inescapable fact”. 33 In this context, irony is an alternative to nostalgia, an opposing manner through which we might evoke a cherished past with a more skeptical eye. The ironic humor of The Brady Bunch Movie evinces this—the fi lm satirizes the very innocence and hopefulness of the original program as unrealistic and quaint in the modern day, while still acknowledging a pleasure in its artifi ce. Svetlana Boym takes an alternate approach, but arrives at similar conclusions. Rather than opposing irony and nostalgia, she instead distinguishes different manners of nostalgia—restorative and refl ective—noting that while the former “takes itself dead seriously”, the latter “can be humorous and ironic”. She suggests restorative nostalgia as our more traditional defi nition of the term, implying more solemn efforts to recover the past, while she sees refl ective nostalgia as a more modern practice in which one can be “homesick and sick of home, at once”. For Boym:

Reﬂ ective nostalgia does not pretend to rebuild the mythical place called home. . . . This type of nostalgic narrative is ironic, inconclusive and fragmentary. Nostalgics of [this] type are aware of the gap between identity and resemblance; the home is in ruins or, on the contrary, has just been renovated or gentriﬁ ed beyond recognition. This defamiliarization and sense of distance drives them to tell their story. 34

This is nostalgia as knowing escapism, and in that light, it is perhaps not surprising that the rise of the so-called “nostalgia ﬁ lm” coincides with the rise of science ﬁ ction and fantasy as dominant genres. 35 Though her terms differ, Boym

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 also echoes many of Hutcheon’s observations; Hutcheon similarly observes a “doublevoicing” that often accompanies irony, and that “one never returns to the past without distance, and in [postmodernism] that distance has been signaled by irony”. 36 This is the manner of nostalgia with which Gen X’s childhood media were being treated in the decade before LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game’s release—an ironic nostalgia that overtly acknowledges the artiﬁ ce and quaintness of those representations. Part of this may be a result of the generation from which it originates; Gen X was raised in an era of irony and cynicism, which may help to explain why most of the Baby Boomer remakes did not have such a high 128 Robert Buerkle

degree of this, while the Gen X remakes do. But this is really only half of the explanation. When Fredric Jameson fi rst spoke of the “nostalgia fi lm”, he addressed such fi lms as Chinatown (1974) and Body Heat (1981), both reminiscent of 1940s fi lm noir, as well as fi lms like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) that evoke 1930s and 1940s adventure serials. 37 But let’s consider these examples. If Star Wars and Raiders both recall the adventure serial, then a cinemagoer who was born in 1930—and thus barely old enough to remember Flash Gordon , Buck Rogers , and other “Golden Age” serials of the late 1930s—would be 47 for the release of Star Wars and 51 for the release of Raiders . Yet cinemagoers in their late 40s and beyond are clearly not the target audience for either of these fi lms. Similarly, a viewer mature enough in 1946 to have seen The Postman Always Rings Twice would be well over 50 when its remake Body Heat was in theaters. If these fi lms are nostalgic, they certainly aren’t nostalgic for the viewer’s own past. Rather, they long for a time just before the audience’s own. 38 Similarly, Charlie’s Angels would have to target a 40-year-old for that person to have been at least ten in the fi nal season of the TV show, yet that movie is clearly not designed for people in their 40s and 50s. The VH1 audience for I Love the ’70s would need to be 34 to have been at least ten years old at the end of that decade, and well over 40 to remember the beginning, yet with demographics showing that 25–34 year-olds made up half the audience, and with the nostalgia programming boom coinciding with a much larger increase in the under-35 demographic than over 35, 39 it’s clear that those who lived through the 1970s were not the primary audience for the series. As both Jameson’s nostalgia fi lms and these later Gen X appropriations demonstrate, the target audience for nostalgic media frequently does not have a direct relationship with the time being evoked, but rather a tangential relationship via the generation that came before them. This is nostalgia-by-proxy. In truth, Charlie’s Angels is not so much designed for the show’s original fanbase as it is for Millennials who are aware of the cultural capital of Charlie’s Angels — its signifi cance to their parents and older siblings. Similarly, the appeal of I Love the ’70s and I Love the ’80s wasn’t so much in remembering those decades directly, but rather vicariously enjoying the decade by having pop cultural

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 ﬁ gures remember it for us. If nostalgia does indeed rely on the elusiveness of the past, then a few years just out of reach, just beyond one’s own ken, makes an ideal target for such retrospection. This vicarious nostalgia thus appeals to the time just before one’s own as a way of further obscuring the referent. One of the reasons why irony is able to become intertwined with nostalgia, then, is that it’s not a nostalgia for something directly personal any more—rather than the desire to return home, it’s a desire to revisit your parents’ home and delight in how quaint it was. The time evoked is thus appealing in its simplicity (hence the nostalgia) but also perceived as antiquated (hence the irony). To pursue a metaphor, this is why such nostalgia can be treated as “camp”—it’s Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 129

not the viewer’s own “home” (their own childhood), but rather a temporary and artifi cial home: a manufactured memory of an abstract and intangible past. For the generation who claims ownership of those signifi ers and feels some emotional stake in their integrity, however, that camp treatment can border on blasphemy. In 2005, then, Generation X was repeatedly seeing their childhood appropriated for a nostalgic appeal that wasn’t actually designed for them , but was rather a vicarious appeal to a younger generation, making the Star Wars prequels yet another instance of their childhood culture being repurposed and commodifi ed for the sake of the Millennial audience. Some of those hallowed texts were being repackaged as ironic parodies, treating the originals as quaint and campy, while others like Star Wars were being rebuilt as CGI spectacles equally geared toward the youth audience. In many ways, the LEGO video games reverse this.

LEGO Star Wars as Sincerity Tonic First, we need to distinguish the implied audience of a narrative from the actual audience. Narrative and discursive theorists have long discussed such a ﬁ gure, with Walker Gibson among the ﬁ rst to make such a distinction, clarifying the “mock” reader of a book from the physical person with book in hand:

I am arguing, then, that there are two readers distinguishable in every literary experience. First, there is the “real” individual upon whose crossed knee rests the open volume, and whose personality is as complex and ultimately inex- pressible as any dead poet’s. Second, there is the ﬁ ctitious reader—I shall call him the “mock reader”—whose mask and costume the individual takes on in order to experience the language. The mock reader is an artifact, controlled, simpliﬁ ed, abstracted out of the chaos of day-to-day sensation. 40

Wayne Booth preferred the term “implied reader”, 41 while others may refer to the implied audience or the “textual” audience. In each case, the ﬁ gure in question is an imaginary notion of who the text is intended for, and equally, a position through which to consume the text. Gibson invokes advertisements as an example,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 where a presumed consumer is suggested by the ad’s address, though we might also consider genre audiences—a horror fi lm implies a very different audience than does a romantic comedy—or national audiences, as when Hollywood war fi lms presume a patriotic American as their spectator. We may choose to eschew these roles—such as when cult audiences for overtly “bad” movies do not consume the fi lm as intended—yet every text positions the audience in one way or another. We often presume the target audience to coincide with the implied audience, yet nostalgic media can complicate this. The inherent appeals to nostalgia of I Love the ’70s and I Love the ’80s would imply a viewer who themselves experienced those decades, yet as the demographics show, the audience for those 130 Robert Buerkle

programs frequently skewed much younger. Generation X is thus an implied audience, with the program suggesting that the viewer should experience it as such (whether the actual audience is or is not part of that demographic). This is what provides the vicarious nostalgia of such media: asking the audience to experience the text as though they are a part of the invoked generation. The many in-jokes of The Brady Bunch or Charlie’s Angels implies a viewer familiar with the original program, allowing the viewer to feel savvy and in-the-know as part of the “inside” audience who claims some degree of cultural ownership over the original. The self-aware humor of the LEGO Star Wars games does this in one capacity, yet by virtue of their being overtly designed for children, they also ask their adult audience to vicariously enjoy the games in the way kids are meant to enjoy them: without the irony and cynicism that traditionally accompanies postmodern nostalgia. In some respects, LEGO Star Wars is just another in a long line of media that complicates the traditional divisions between childhood and adulthood, following the clever yet farcical antics of The Muppets, the combined innocence and poignancy of Pixar, and the father-who-acts-like-a-child and children-who-act- like-adults of The Simpsons . These are instances of what Marsha Kinder has called “transgenerational” media 42 and Heather Hendershot has similarly called “intergenerational” media, 43 and such works have a considerable history. 44 As a children’s game that appeals to adults, LEGO Star Wars is not necessarily offering anything new. However LEGO Star Wars also appears as part of a new and more earnest wave of transgenerational media: texts that do not rely on separate pleasures for their respective audiences (slapstick humor for the kids, witty references that are presumably “over the heads” of kids for adults), but rather appeal to adults precisely for their childish sincerity. Heather Hendershot describes a similar appeal in another media property that was enjoying immense success at this time: SpongeBob SquarePants (1999–present). In describing SpongeBob ’s immense popularity with both children and adults, Hendershot points to the program’s ability to draw in adults who allow themselves to be positioned as children, and the ways in which the program reinforces ideas about what it means to be an adult versus to be a child while simultaneously blurring those same boundaries. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 [A]ccording to Nickelodeon logic, if adults are sometimes not stuffy, just as children are sometimes not innocent and naïve, it proves (or disproves) nothing about the “essential nature” of adulthood or childhood; it proves only that adults and kids can play at being each other . 45

In short: SpongeBob makes it enjoyable to be a kid for 30 minutes. The show is smartly written and engaging, such that its aesthetics do not obstruct adult entry, however it promotes a wholesome sincerity that is rarely seen in the adult world. Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 131

Hendershot credits SpongeBob ’s success, in part, to its contrast with other children’s media that preceded it: Pokémon (its immediate predecessor as the most popular children’s program on television; 1997–present) was immensely appealing to kids but had no appeal for adults. Its convoluted logic required an understanding of the games from which it was adapted, and as a result, adults found it largely indecipherable. Other programs like Pinky and the Brain (1995–8), Animaniacs (1993–8), and Tiny Toons (1990–5) had strong crossover appeal, but were all heavily laced with irony, wisecracks, and “edgy” humor. “SpongeBob , conversely, is just about the least ironic or edgy show on television”, Hendershot argues, and this, she claims, was pivotal in its appeal. 46 We could make a similar case for the LEGO Star Wars games in contrast to other nostalgic entertainment rooted in Gen X media. The Star Wars prequels, along with later adaptations like Michael Bay’s Transformers (2007), offered a strong aesthetic barrier for Gen X audiences—while younger generations enjoyed the CGI spectacle and the slapstick comedy, and had no problems with the gaps in narrative logic, many adults found the CGI off-putting (having been raised on practical effects), the comedy juvenile, and the narratives frustrating. Meanwhile, other media like The Brady Bunch Movie or Charlie’s Angeles did offer some nostalgic appeal, however the constant stream of irony and cynicism also carried an air of disillusion. In this context, the LEGO Star Wars games seemed to arrive as part of a growing trend of nostalgic sincerity—transgenerational media with appeal to both adults and children, but which explicitly position the audience as a wide- eyed and innocent child rather than a cynical and apathetic adult (or adolescent). In addition to SpongeBob , we can also think of programs ranging from The Powerpuff Girls (1998–2005) and Phineas & Ferb (2007–present) to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (2010–present) and Adventure Time (2010–present)—all programs that have signifi cant adult followings who profess to enjoy the straightforward childhood ideals that each program promotes. Similarly, we can place it alongside the many fi lms of Pixar, which have long eschewed irony for sincere optimism, as well as such animated fare as The Iron Giant (1999), a cult favorite among Gen X. In all these cases, it is the experience of childhood which fosters a sense of nostalgia, rather than the specifi c cultural signifi ers of the audience’s youth. While The Brady Bunch Movie , Charlie’s Angels , and Scooby Doo evoke

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 specifi c franchises of nostalgic value, they do not in any way evoke the feeling of being a child. If anything, they contradict such an experience by satirizing those properties as naïve and quaint, diminishing the ability to relish a sincere memory of childhood. Films such as Toy Story (1995) and The Iron Giant , on the other hand, fi nd their nostalgic value not so much in their specifi c referents— the eclectic collection of 20th-century toys in Toy Story or the 1950s setting of The Iron Giant—but in evoking the wholesome innocence of being a child. 47 LEGO Star Wars, then, is in the ideal position to offer a double dose of nostalgia: both the specifi c Gen X referents of Star Wars and LEGO as well as the childhood experience of those brands. 132 Robert Buerkle

Action Figures and the Star Wars Meta-Experience What exactly is this childhood experience? We need to keep in mind that Star Wars arrived while the home video revolution was still in its formative stages, and as a result, the fi lms were largely unavailable to children after their theatrical release. The original 1977 fi lm did not air on television until 1982 (and even then, only through pay-per-view services) and was not released on VHS cassette until 1984. As a result, the fi lms themselves could not be revisited for many years, leaving a signifi cant absence in the lives of young Star Wars fans. Imagine this: the most important and epic narrative experience of your young life being a story that you cannot see again! Star Wars, then, was not simply six hours of cinema spread across three fi lms; it was instead all the ways that one could fi nd to re-experience the trilogy and keep it alive. Star Wars was reading novelizations of the fi lms or listening to the expanded radio dramas on NPR. Star Wars was listening to the John Williams score on cassette tape. Star Wars was watching behind-the-scenes specials on how the fi lms were made and reading magazine articles to glean information on the next fi lm. Star Wars was buying the Marvel comic book tie-ins, watching The Star Wars Holiday Special, or reading the Han Solo Adventures novels. Star Wars was running around your backyard with a cardboard tube while making lightsaber noises and imitating Darth Vader’s sonorous dialogue. In short, Star Wars was not just immersion in a trilogy of fi lms, but rather a meta-experience: the larger experience of how kids revisited, expanded on, and performed the trilogy. It was an experience of youthful fandom. But more than anything else, Star Wars was the toys . Media and cultural critics have typically rejected any serious discussion of licensed toys, assuming them as a mere product of corporate synergy and ancillary marketing. But Dan Fleming has been among those who argue that such toys do not function only as an ancillary product, but rather generate their own textual signifi cance as well as feeding into the meaning of the franchise. Fleming contends that much of what goes on with such toys cannot be explained solely through their original movies and TV programs. Instead, he describes a “synchronization” that occurs between children, toys, and the media from which those toys are spun-off, in which each part “is an effect of intersecting determinations but simultaneously generates its own effects within those determining factors”, creating “a surplus over and above the object and its determinations”. 48 Star Wars toys are thus more meaningful to a Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 child because of their experience with the fi lms, while the fi lms are simultaneously more meaningful because of the child’s experience with the toys, and the entire experience of Star Wars becomes more meaningful than the simple sum of its parts. When a child plays with their Bossk action fi gure before seeing The Empire Strikes Back , that character’s brief appearance in the fi lm resultantly takes on a great deal more signifi cance. He is no longer simply a reptilian background alien; instead, he is a defi ned individual and a fully-realized character. Reminiscing of his time playing with Star Wars action fi gures, Will Brooker recalls grouping a motley collection of peripheral aliens into “Hammerhead’s Gang”, lead by a Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 133

throwaway character with only seconds of screen time—even the name “Ham- merhead” only existed in the action fi gure’s packaging. 49 For Brooker, this passing creature in the background of the Mos Eisley Cantina would possess a great deal more meaning in subsequent viewings of the fi lm. With more than a hun- dred different action fi gures, not to mention the many vehicles, playsets, and other products, Kenner’s toy line was opening up the borders of the Star Wars universe to endless creative expansion. Yet at the same time, Fleming observes, the franchise license also offered a “narrativisation” of the toys. A Luke Skywalker action fi gure arrives with a framing narrative already in place, and is meaningful to a child precisely because the fi lms have put that fi gure in context. Even the varied background characters with nary a line of dialogue are still situated diegetically, both by their brief appearance on screen and by the toy packaging’s placement of them within the Star Wars universe (“Bossk is an alien bounty hunter—one of many commissioned by Darth Vader to seek out the Rebel Alliance . . .”), thus providing a framing scenario for play. “It is important to bear in mind that there is a story”, Fleming observes. “[T]oys . . . often seem incomprehensible to adults because they fail to understand that a story makes it all very precisely meaningful for children”. 50 In contrast, the late-1970s Star Hawk and Star Raiders toy lines, despite being overtly infl uenced by Star Wars in their design, did not carry the narrative signifi cance of a Luke Skywalker action fi gure or an X-Wing Fighter— these toys were much more narratively hollow, defi ned only by their broad associations with the space opera. The toys were especially vital, however, during the three-year gap between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi , when the toys provided a means for resolving Empire ’s cliffhanger ending. Rather than waiting three years to discover whether Han Solo would ever be rescued from his carbonite tomb, or whether Darth Vader was indeed Luke’s father, young fans could use their toys to experiment with varied resolutions to the story, providing narrative reassurance during the years in which the fi lms themselves failed to do so. Once the fi lm ended, toys afforded children the opportunity to take the narrative into their own hands, and even after the saga was resolved and the fi nal credits rolled on Jedi , the many colorful aliens and droids that populate the background of

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 the Mos Eisley Cantina and Jabba’s Palace still provided for countless narrative threads that could be pursued. What happens to Bossk and Hammerhead? What do our heroes do after the credits roll? Toys allowed those questions to be answered over and over again. It is for this reason that Jonathan Gray takes Fleming’s argument about the importance of licensed toys a step further when considering the Star Wars franchise. Rather than presume the ﬁ lms as the central texts of Star Wars, and the toys as mere ancillary products, Gray contends that, for many children, the toys actually became the primary vessel for the Star Wars experience, with the ﬁ lms acting more as a contextualizer and a provider of narrative meaning. “Through 134 Robert Buerkle

play”, he says, “the Star Wars toys allowed audiences past the barrier of spectatorship into the Star Wars universe, thereby complicating the established dichotomies of the authentic text and the hollow, cash-grab paratext”. 51 In a particularly compelling example of upsetting these dichotomies, Gray argues that the cult popularity of the character Boba Fett did not descend so much from the ﬁ lms’ use of that character as it did from the mystique around the action ﬁ gure.

Fett has remarkably little screen time in the original trilogy, and all we really learn of him is that he is a highly equipped and feared bounty hunter. . . . More importantly, though, he is a really cool toy: with impressive armor, jetpack, wrist-harpoons, and various colored platings, Fett rocketed to popularity. Initially, too, one could only acquire Fett by sending in coupons, and the early Fett’s missiles could actually ﬁ re until redesigned for a safer model. From the outset, then, Fett was a rare and precious commodity, thereby solidifying his peculiarly popular role in Star Wars fandom. 52

Owning a Boba Fett action fi gure thus provided a claim to and personalization of that character for fans. In this light, both the physical ownership of the toys and the immense time committed to exploring the narrative edges of the Star Wars universe through those toys may also help to better explain the tangible sense of possession that many fans claim over the franchise, both then and now. Ultimately, the fi lms occupied a mere six hours of cinema, and without the benefi t of home video, they were not readily accessible for repeat viewing. The toys, by comparison, occupied countless hours of play across many years of childhood, and it is this , more than anything else, that characterizes the childhood experience of Star Wars for many fans. This is what LEGO Star Wars recalls in its nostalgic appeal; to create the childhood experience of Star Wars , the game translates the saga into playset logic.

Playset Logic and Playful Re-Enactment To demonstrate this, I’m going to look at the “Mos Eisley Spaceport” level from LEGO Stars Wars II: The Original Trilogy , corresponding with the Mos Eisley

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 sequence from the original 1977 ﬁ lm. The level begins with a cut-scene: Luke Skywalker recklessly drives his landspeeder through the back alleys of Mos Eisley, with Obi-wan Kenobi, R2-D2, and C-3PO as passengers, before stopping in front of a group of stormtroopers. Luke smiles broadly, but one of the stormtroopers grunts disapproval. Luke looks to Obi-wan, who cocks his eyebrow, waves a hand, and speaks a mumbled “uh-uh-uh” (there is no dialogue in the game, but characters do mumble soft monosyllables). The stormtrooper’s head wobbles dizzily while stars appear above it, and he repeats the three-toned “uh-uh-uh”. Luke smiles and guns the engine, whirling the dazed stormtrooper as he passes. A wipe transitions the scene, and Luke comes to quick stop in the street, knocking over a passerby, to which Obi-wan shakes his head disapprovingly. Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 135

Gameplay then begins on a street of Mos Eisley, where I take control of Obi-wan, accompanied by Luke, Artoo, and Threepio, and am able to switch between all four characters at the press of a button. The streets look like sand, and the buildings like adobe, however the trashcans, fl owers, barrels of fruit, and other streetside props are all built from LEGO bricks, and they can be smashed to accumulate LEGO studs, the in-game currency used to unlock various extra features. As I traverse the streets, sandtroopers attack and can be fought off using Obi-wan’s lightsaber or Luke’s blaster, with each trooper crumbling into a pile of minifi g parts. Under awnings and behind doors, I also fi nd piles of LEGO bricks which can be assembled into useful objects that will help me progress: building water harvesters rewards me with more studs, while constructing and stacking storage crates allows access to a rooftop. Some doorways prove inaccessible—one indicates that only Imperials can enter, while another is reserved for bounty hunters—so these I skip for now. I eventually reach a dead-end where the street is blocked by crisscrossing LEGO struts. Destroying two trashcans in an alcove creates a pile of LEGO blocks that I assemble into a pair of giant robotic feet. Using Obi-wan’s “Force” powers, I unearth more bricks from beneath the sand and use them to construct a leg. Having R2-D2 and C-3PO interact with two door terminals reveals more parts, and fi nally, after combining them all together, I complete a bipedal Scout Walker, a giant walking tank. I jump inside the vehicle and use the robotic walker’s cannon to blast the struts blocking the street, then proceed toward the cantina, eventually cueing a second cut-scene. The scene opens with Luke and Obi-wan entering the cantina, followed by C-3PO in a top hat and R2-D2 in a glasses-nose-and-moustache disguise. Luke looks about in boyish wonder while Obi-wan strides purposefully toward the bar. Off in a corner, Han Solo sits with the green-skinned Greedo, his legs casually resting atop the table, and as Greedo jumps from his seat to reach for his blaster, Solo shoots him in the chest, knocking his torso out from between his limbs. Greedo dejectedly looks down at the empty space below his head, then crumples into a pile of LEGO parts. At the bar, Luke knocks over a drink, angering a walrus-faced alien who pushes him down before drawing a blaster, but Obi-wan jumps between them, drawing his lightsaber and quickly slicing

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 off both of the alien’s arms. He wobbles in a daze before also collapsing in a pile of parts. The alien’s comrade hurriedly ﬁ nishes his drink and runs from the bar. After a quick fade, we see Obi-wan and Luke sitting in the back corner with Solo. Obi-wan softly mumbles and pantomimes, gesturing toward himself and Luke, to which Luke broadly smiles. A cutaway shows the Millennium Falcon in its hanger bay, followed by Solo scratching his head in contemplation with the tip of his blaster. He nods approval, gestures off-screen, and Luke and Obi-wan walk off in the indicated direction, with Luke innocently waving as he leaves. After this cut-scene ends, I continue the level, now controlling Han Solo and Chewbacca, but the rest of it plays out similarly. I leave the cantina and make 136 Robert Buerkle

my way further through the streets of the spaceport—at one point I even pass a movie theater marquee reading “LEGO Star Wars 8:30”, with several patrons waiting in line outside! Finally, the level culminates with a climactic battle in the Millennium Falcon’s hangar, where I must thwart an Imperial Spy. Once the level ends, the game informs me that I’ve unlocked the characters of Han Solo and Chewbacca, who can now be used within any other completed level in the game. Back in the game’s hub world, I’ve also unlocked the option to purchase Greedo, a Sandtrooper, or an Imperial Spy with my accumulated LEGO studs. First, notice that the emphasis here is on retelling rather than telling. The game presumes the player to already know the story—both cut-scenes evince this in that they are dialogue-driven scenes without any dialogue. The fi rst presumes that the player recognizes the famous “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for” exchange, and to mentally replace Obi-wan’s mumbled “uh-uh-uh” and the stormtrooper’s mimicked response with the fan-familiar dialogue; without knowing the fi lm, one couldn’t even deduce why they were stopped in the fi rst place. The second cut-scene takes the player through several hurried moments which would be largely nonsensical without knowing the fi lm: why are the droids suddenly wearing a top hat and Groucho Marx disguise? Because (as the movie informs us) droids aren’t allowed in the cantina. What provokes Han and Greedo’s confrontation? Greedo is collecting a debt for Jabba the Hutt, and Solo doesn’t have the money. 53 But especially indicative is the brief dialogue scene between Obi-wan and Solo, where a couple gestures and mumbles must be interpreted using all the exposition that scene carries in the fi lm. Compare this with the equivalent scene in 1992’s Super Star Wars—also a cut-scene in the middle of the game’s Mos Eisley level—where a still image of Han Solo and Chewbacca sitting in the cantina is accompanied by the text: “I’m Han Solo, captain of the Millennium Falcon. You guys got yourself a ship. We’ll leave as soon as you are ready. Let’s meet at Docking Bay Ninety-Four”, with the rest of the cantina sequence omitted. Here, the scene is condensed down for narrative understanding, providing only the necessary exposition to convey a bare- bones story, whether you’ve seen the fi lm or not. In LEGO Star Wars , on the other hand, several memorable segments from the cantina scene are included not because they are necessary, but for the pleasure of seeing them reenacted, while

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 the narrative logic and exposition remains undecipherable without foreknowledge of the ﬁ lms. Cut-scenes, then, are played for recognition rather than for dramatic impact. Modern Star Wars games like Knights of the Old Republic (2003) or The Force Unleashed (2008) generally attempt a legitimate narrative investment in plot and character, especially in their narrative passages. Even games that do not foreground narrative development, such as Rogue Squadron (1998) or Star Wars: Battlefront (2004)—both of which use arcade-style combat rather than story—still anchor their gameplay with some diegetic investment in the Star Wars universe. LEGO Star Wars , on the other hand, runs contrary to any such effect, as demonstrated Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 137

by Luke’s confrontation at the bar. In the fi lm, this scene is designed for dramatic tension, drawn out to inspire a real worry that Luke may be in trouble, yet there’s no such drama here; Obi-wan steps in immediately, curtailing any such anxiety, and the comedic presentation further defl ates any possible concern. Here, the scene’s purpose is merely reference: for the player to recognize the original from which it is adapted. Yet the gaps between the original and this reenactment are also telling. In the fi lm, Luke enters timidly, is hassled by two patrons while keeping to himself, Obi-wan tries to diffuse the situation diplomatically at fi rst, and when he fi nally draws his lightsaber, he slices off the walrus-creature’s arm at the elbow. Here, Luke strides to the bar, inadvertently initiates the confrontation by knocking over the walrus-creature’s drink, Obi-wan immediately slices off both arms at the shoulders, and the second patron—the one who does all the talking in the fi lm—quickly fl ees without ever getting involved. Rather than the timid fi sh- out-of-water farmboy that Luke embodies in this particular scene, Luke is performed as the eager apprentice that he embodies overall in the fi lm, along with the general sense of boyishness that contrasts him with Obi-wan’s experienced elder. In essence, each character is boiled down to an action fi gure persona, and they perform a general recollection of the scene’s key moments, playing up the exciting bits (he slices off two arms!) and downplaying the boring ones (the attempt at diplomacy). Compare this with the 1978 commercial for the Cantina playset, where children reenact elements of the cantina scene:

Boy playing Han Solo: I told you not to follow me, Greedo. Boy playing Greedo: You owe us money , Han Solo. Solo, as the Greedo action ﬁ gure is knocked over: You’re not going to collect this time!

Similar to the LEGO scene, the children are depicted not as adhering to the strict speciﬁ cs of the ﬁ lm, but rather recreating a general impression of it, with the central action (shooting Greedo) and the characters’ general personas (Greedo’s menace, Solo’s cockiness) overriding the details and exposition. These discrepancies, and the manner in which they are performed, thus cre-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 ate an impression of children broadly reenacting the familiar narrative. In speaking of the transgenerational appeal of SpongeBob SquarePants, Heather Hendershot points to SpongeBob’s “indeterminate status as neither adult nor child” and the show’s ﬂ uid treatment of age as essential to their adult appeal. 54 LEGO Star Wars uses age similarly, where the characters are understood as adults, yet their performance is heavily child-like. Luke is the most obvious in this regard: he drives his landspeeder recklessly (to the disapproval of his elder, Obi- wan), waves to Solo like a little boy when leaving the cantina, and constantly smiles with earnest obliviousness, seeming to be having fun at all times except when scenically required to emote otherwise. Other characters, however, are 138 Robert Buerkle

similarly childlike—Solo’s broad, self-assured grins make him appear as the cool kid on the playground; Chewbacca often cowers like a scared puppy; even the elderly Obi-wan comes across more as a child performing the elder than as a real adult. And all of this is reinforced by the childlike nature of the LEGO minifi gures—their stubby limbs, short waist, and large head all provide the proportions of a child, and their perfectly circular eyes create a literal “wide- eyed” expression. Ultimately, then, the cut-scenes provide the impression of children play-acting the most famous scenes of the Star Wars saga, putting the player into just such a role. The game doesn’t position the player as Luke Sky- walker; it positions the player as a child with a Luke Skywalker action fi gure. It recreates the playset experience. This playset logic is furthered by the game’s emphasis on paidia over ludus . Originally coined by sociologist Roger Caillois in the course of classifying types of games, these terms have become shorthand for distinguishing spontaneous and freeform play from structured and rule-based play. Caillois describes paidia as “frolicsome and impulsive exuberance”, “common to diversion, turbulence, free improvisation, and carefree gaiety”; ludus, by contrast, he describes as “dis- ciplining” such gaiety with “arbitrary, imperative, and purposely tedious conventions” in order to require “an even greater amount of effort, patience, skill or ingenuity”. 55 To be reductive, we could describe these as playfulness versus more formal gameplay, yet we could also make an association with children’s play versus adults’ play. 56 Rules and conventions make play more deliberate, give them worth in the adult world as what Johan Huizinga describes as the “higher forms” of play: “as a contest for something or a representation of something”, which is to say as game or sport, or as fi ction, theater, and other forms of make- believe. 57 These are legitimized forms of play, “disciplined” by rules, as Caillois puts it. Culturally, we associate the freeform playfulness of paidia with those childish things that we leave behind on the path to adulthood. This is partly why adults continue to play games, yet not with toys. Games, with their rules and goals, foster ludus; toys, with their open-ended uses, are designed for paidia. LEGO Star Wars is clearly bound by conventions and structure—it is, indeed, a game—thus keeping it palatable for an adult audience; whether by nature or cultural prejudice, adults do gravitate toward the deliberate and goal-oriented

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 nature of ludus. Yet the game also goes to great efforts to invoke the sense of freeform and improvised playfulness that we associate with childhood, and that adults experience much less frequently. The design of LEGO Star Wars allows for incidental paidia—it provides enough structure to always keep the game framed by a goal-driven context (whether ﬁ nishing a level, collecting minikits, or unlocking various features), yet provides a great deal of incentive to stop and “fool around” along the way to those goals. Many qualities contribute to this sense of paidia: the great deal of unexpected humor that is tucked away within the game begs the player to experiment and explore in order to discover the game’s many secrets; the humor itself is highly Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 139

playful; and the general LEGO aesthetic recalls the toys themselves, which are highly paidic. Yet paidia is most evident in the game’s appropriately titled “Free Play” mode. Games have long offered “New Game Plus” modes—the ability to replay a game a second time after completion, with added functionality or increased diffi culty. These have typically been marginal features—Metal Gear Solid (1998), for instance, allowed players to acquire an “infi nite ammo” bandana which, when equipped, offered unlimited ammunition. This made a second playthrough slightly different, but for the most part, it was treated as a minor feature, with the initial campaign foregrounded as the primary experience. On fi rst glance, the LEGO “Free Play” mode could be confused for such supplementary features: after completing a level, players can return with any unlocked character, allowing one to play through the Mos Eisley Spaceport as Boba Fett or Princess Leia rather than the “proper” characters. Indeed, many reviewers initially considered this as a peripheral feature, as evinced by the numerous reviews lamenting the relatively short length of the game, focused as they were on “story” mode. But with the LEGO video games, story mode is really only half of the experience. Returning to the “Mos Eisley Spaceport” level, I choose a stormtrooper as my character and the game assigns me a collection of other unlocked characters as well. This time, I head to the locked door reserved for Imperials, which I was unable to open the fi rst time around, and the door slides open. Inside, I fi nd a spa: an empty bath, some lounge chairs, and a pair of showers. The shower knobs glow, indicating they can be manipulated with the Force, so I switch to Darth Vader and turn them on, prompting a collectible minikit to suddenly appear in the center of the tub. Ten of these minikits are hidden in every level, and most can only be found in this fashion, by using alternate characters in Free Play mode. Elsewhere in Mos Eisley, I fi nd a car wash in a back alley; if I return to the beginning of the level, I can jump back into Luke’s landspeeder, drive it to the car wash, and give it a cleaning, or I can drive it to the used car lot next door and exchange it for a hearty supply of LEGO studs. And remember the movie theater showing Star Wars ? In Free Play, I’m able to open the door with a droid, allowing the patrons waiting in line to enter. Inside the theater, I can open the curtains and trigger the projector, resulting in a black-and-white LEGO

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 rendition of Star Wars playing on the screen, and I can also destroy the screen to fi nd another minikit hidden behind it. And these are just the tip of the iceberg—on the Death Star, I can fi nd a group of swimsuit-clad stormtroopers lounging in a hot tub; on Yoda’s swampy home planet of Dagobah, I can construct a go-kart and complete a lap on a race track; on Jabba’s sail barge, I can construct a discothèque, resulting in a couple of Gamorrean Guards dancing to a guitar-heavy rendition of the Imperial March. The LEGO games are fi lled with these sorts of unexpected and humorous secrets, and these help to foster the sense of freeform gaiety that characterizes children’s play. Certainly, the player can simply look for the solutions that will 140 Robert Buerkle

allow them to progress toward the end of the level, yet this would be to miss the larger experience. Instead, the most ludic components of the LEGO Star Wars games—the linear, narratively-driven levels—are a foundation, with much of the games’ pleasures being found in experimenting and exploring the edges of these levels, much like the Star Wars fi lms themselves provide a framework upon which the much larger childhood experience of Star Wars was built. These unexpected and at-times illogical juxtapositions are also reminiscent of the sorts of narrative experimentation that children engage in when playing with toys. In discussing the Kenner Star Wars line, Dan Fleming observes an “open- ended narrative principle” behind their success: the toys afford opportunities to recreate specifi c and familiar moments from the fi lms, yet do not limit the child to only those moments. As Fleming writes:

The narrative elements, or derived “play scenarios” as Kenner’s Star Wars toy designers thought of them, marked a substantially new development in the way children were being encouraged to interact with toys. While previous TV- or cinema-related toys encouraged children to play out scenes and stories from the originals, these new narrative contexts had multiple narrative possibilities deliberately built into them from the beginning. With clearly established teams of characters and basic story structures that would generate endless plots around those characters, children could certainly watch and read plenty of given examples, but were also being encouraged to extend those with their own variations. 58

He contrasts the success of the 3½ -inch toys and the failure of the Star Wars Micro Collection as evidence: the Millennium Falcon toy from the main Kenner line affords spaces that allow Luke to man the laser cannon or for Chewbacca and Artoo to play chess, just as in the movie, yet the posability of the toys still allow for a great deal more than only these scenarios. The Micro Collection, on the other hand, featured die-cast characters in fi xed poses, allowing very little fl exibility; they really only served to restage one particular scene. The toys thus had to be fl exible enough to offer open experimentation within the elements of the story, and this is what Free Play recalls. The level already

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 requires me to build the bipedal Scout Walker, a vehicle not introduced until Empire , and maneuver it through the streets of Mos Eisley, and Free Play greatly expands on this by allowing me to import characters like Darth Vader or Boba Fett into Mos Eisley. With LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga , I can also play the level with characters from the prequel trilogy, or even with Indiana Jones—a character from an entirely different LucasFilm franchise! And all of this is compounded by the comical insertions of “outside” toy pieces—those that clearly do not belong in the Star Wars universe, yet are recognizable from the larger world of LEGO toys, from the Mos Eisley carwash to the Dagobah go-kart track. Free Play does, of course, have a limited number of options; much of the Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 141

“experimentation” that occurs is in what the game’s creators have designed into each level. However, the very act of including such elements that are clearly not intended by the fi lms themselves recalls that imaginative pleasure of combining disparate toys—the game provides fi xed moments of “experimentation” for the player, yet the feeling of freeform paidia is still evoked, contributing to the playset aesthetic of the games. Lastly, we need consider the collectability that is emphasized by the game. Collectability played an enormous part in the Kenner toy line—12-inch dolls had been the norm prior to Star Wars, as with Kenner’s The Six Million Dollar Man and Hasbro’s original G.I. Joe line, and as a result, most kids only got one or two characters when buying such toys. However the Star Wars toys were conceived as a vehicle- and accessory-driven line, requiring much smaller 3½ -inch fi gures. This had the unexpected benefi t of fostering collectability—with action fi gures costing only $2 apiece, kids didn’t only want Luke Skywalker and Han Solo; they wanted all of the Star Wars characters. When Kenner realized this appeal, they began producing even more fi gures with the second and third fi lm, resulting in a grand total of 111 fi gures released by 1985. 59 Collectability became such an enormous part of the Star Wars toy experience that the Darth Vader Collector’s Case became an icon of the toy line—a molded plastic case in the shape of Vader’s helmet which opened up to display 31 fi gures in trophy-case fashion. While the Star Wars trilogy represented the fi rst experience of mythic heroism for many children of Generation X, it also, in a very realistic sense, marked their fi rst experience with American consumerism. This collectability is foregrounded in LEGO Star Wars, and has become a staple in all of the LEGO video games. Each game features a character menu fi lled with black silhouettes for each possible minifi gure, and as characters are unlocked, both through completing levels and purchasing characters with studs, their silhouette is replaced by their minifi g’s face, just as young Star Wars fans would use the marketing pamphlets that accompanied the Kenner toys to check off all of the characters that they already owned (and to plan their next purchase or Christmas wish list). A similar menu also allows for various Star Wars vehicles to be unlocked and collected, from Anakin’s pod racer to the Millennium Falcon. The emphasis on this collectability is so prevalent that LEGO Star Wars II: The

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Original Trilogy allowed players to import all of the prequel characters that they had already unlocked in the fi rst game, creating continuity between collections. Even outside of the minifi gs and vehicles, this collectability is also prevalent in the red bricks, minikits, and other hidden items that are scattered throughout each level, further encouraging an obsessive degree of completionism. Since the story is already known, and the levels fairly easy to fi nish, one could argue that the real goal of the game is not so much in completing the story as it is in completing your collection—after all, the reward for fi nishing each level is in being shown the minifi gs that you’ve unlocked, as well as the number of other collectibles that you still have left to mark off your list. That many of these 142 Robert Buerkle

features must not only be unlocked, but then purchased by accumulating the in-game currency of LEGO studs, only complements the collector’s experience. Further, it does not seem coincidental that some of the most “exclusive” action ﬁ gures from the Kenner line—in particular, the mail-away Boba Fett and Emperor characters—are also two of the most expensive miniﬁ gs to unlock in LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy .

Retold Stories and the Constellated Communities of Fandom Before concluding, I want to revisit my earlier point regarding the retelling of the saga, as this is also signifi cant in another regard. I’ve argued that a contributing factor in LEGO Star Wars’ appeal to a certain audience was in reaction to the irony with which Gen X nostalgia was being treated in the decade prior to the game’s release—including the use of parody in fi lms like The Brady Bunch Movie and Charlie’s Angels . Parody is an enormous part of LEGO Star Wars as well, however that parody is deployed in a signifi cantly different manner—one which celebrates rather than undermines its original—and the context in which the game retells the Star Wars narrative can help to explain how that humor fi ts alongside the game’s playset logic and nostalgic value. Neal R. Norrick has studied the phenomenon of retelling familiar stories in social settings—that is, groups co-narrating stories with which all members of the group are already familiar—and his work can be insightful here. He argues that retold stories serve communal functions that are very different from the narrative functions of an unfamiliar story. According to Norrick, retelling familiar stories serves at least three purposes: “(a) fostering group rapport, (b) ratifying group membership, and (c) conveying group values”. Such stories, he goes on to clarify, are told “not in spite of their familiarity to the participants, but because of it”. 60 Norrick distinguishes several types of narrated events: those known only to the teller (A-events), by the teller and one other (A–B events), by the culture at large (O-events), and by a family unit (F-events). But he also adds an additional category, G-events—those known by a group which are “constitutive for their identifi cation as a group”—and positions them as parallel to family events. 61 This aptly describes the texts at the heart of fandom: the familiar stories that are the basis for the fan

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 community’s very identity as a community, much as a family’s own stories help to defi ne and affi rm their identity as a family (not as a biological designation, but as a social unit). Star Wars thus becomes a common point of reference and an indica- tor of social commonality, where fans can reference favorite moments, famous lines, and obscure characters with which all are familiar, narrating such events not to inform one another, but rather to share in a mutually pleasurable recollection. Norrick makes clear that these functions can occur even with events which were not experienced together, and, signifi cantly, includes an example of two men recounting a scene from the fi lm Mr. Roberts (1955)—retelling not a shared experience, but a movie with which both men are familiar. Such an example, he observes, helps to Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 143

foster group rapport and makes “separate past experiences into common experience”. 62 Every Star Wars fan has their own individualized memories of watching the fi lms and participating in the broader Star Wars phenomenon, yet self-consciously revisiting the narrative evokes a broader childhood experience that fans recognize as more universal than their own, fostering a greater sense of fan community. How do we apply all of this to a game which can be played alone? Star Wars fans constitute what Rick Altman describes (in discussing genre spectatorship) as a “constellated community”—a dispersed group who may not know one another individually, but who bring a more generalized awareness of an extended fan community to their experience of a fi lm. When a Star Wars fan engages with the saga or the franchise’s many transmedial extensions, they bring with them an awareness of fellowship, a knowledge that this text speaks not only to them, but to a larger community of which they are a part, similar to the way in which a sitcom’s laugh track conveys an imagined sense of community viewing. Altman describes this as a manner of indirect communication between fans where the “knowledge that others are viewing similar fi lms similarly becomes a fundamental part of the fi lm-viewing experience”. 63 Fellow fans become an intangible presence in the narrative experience, creating a sense of community even outside of the physical presence of others. As such, the playing of LEGO Star Wars may not entail a direct reminiscence with other fans; however, it does abstractly evoke a sense of shared experience. Yet here, we should also acknowledge the co-op nature of the LEGO games. All of the games in Traveller’s Tales’ franchise strongly emphasize cooperative gameplay. Every level features at least two characters, and many of the game’s puzzles require two players to solve. Much of the gameplay involves one character solving a problem which only their special ability allows, then opening the way for the other to follow, or moments in which two actions must be performed simultaneously. When playing alone, the game’s AI will take the role of Player Two when necessary, yet the point total and health bar for both players always occupy the left and right corners at the top of the screen, and a “press start” message above Player Two reminds the player that a friend can pick up a controller and join in at any time. As such, while various cues may remind the player of their membership in an abstract fan community, the game also encour-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 ages a more tangible sense of enjoying the game with a fellow devotee. This is also a large part of the game’s family appeal. Not only does the forgiving dif- ﬁ culty allow both young children and non-gaming parents to enjoy the game, but the transgenerational appeal and cooperative design affords a shared enjoyment between parent and child as fellow fans. Norrick stresses the act of narration as a means of vicariously participating, yet the playing of the game can be understood as an alternative means of participation in which one chooses to be narrated to, and to actively participate in, a humorous recollection of the saga. The LEGO Star Wars games, then, become a manner of retelling this familiar story within that constellated community. 144 Robert Buerkle

Playing the game and recognizing its many narrative references validates one’s membership in the Star Wars fan community—ratifying group membership “by producing shared memories, feelings, and values”, in Norrick’s terms—and, by extension, validates one’s claim to the franchise. 64 While discussing fan cultures in his seminal book on the subject, Textual Poachers , Henry Jenkins speaks in very similar terms as Norrick when addressing “ﬁ lk” music—fan-made music which pays homage to the objects of fan obses- sion and which frequently involves considerable doses of parody and humor:

The use of humor contributes actively to the articulation of a group identity, the invocation of shared experiences, and the creation of common feelings. As ﬁ lker Meg Garrett explains, “If you ‘get’ the joke, punchline or reference and laugh when the rest of the fan audience laughs, it reinforces the sense of belonging, of ‘family,’ of shared culture.” Such songs are sung loudly and boisterously, and often end with moments of communal laughter—a laughter born of warm recognition or playful transgression, of loving parody or biting satire, but a laughter whose primary function is creating fellowship. 65

This account sounds nearly identical to the rationale which Norrick explains for retelling familiar stories: fostering group rapport, recalling common experiences, exhibiting shared values, and promoting a sense of belonging. 66 The parodic retelling in LEGO Star Wars is very much analogous to the communal experiences described by both Norrick and Jenkins—humor that is understood as being shared amongst a larger, constellated community of fans. Parody has become casually defi ned as somewhat synonymous with satire, perhaps in part due to the legal defi nitions of parody—in order to use the “fair use” exemption to US copyright law for unlicensed parody, one needs to assert some manner of “critical purpose”. Much of the early scholarship on fi lm parody used similar terms, often discussing parody as “ridiculing” or “critiquing”, with deconstructive mavens like Mel Brooks as the standard-bearer for fi lm parody. Yet this is typically not the intention behind fan parody. Rather than deconstructive, fan parody is celebratory, often something akin to a roast—a humorous

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 pastiche of the original rather than a critical mockery. Recent scholarship has more readily accommodated some degree of dual intentions, accounting for both satire and homage. Geoff King observes that “parodies mock their targets, but in doing so pay an effective form of tribute to the originals”, 67 while Dan Harries sees parody as a mixture of critical distance and intimacy. 68 Yet Wes Gehring may provide our best resource in his describing the “parody of reafﬁ rmation” as a contemporary practice separate from the more traditionally biting and satirical variation. “[T]here are essentially two kinds of ﬁ lm parodies”, Gehring observes, “the broad and obvious puncturing of a genre or auteur, and a more subdued approach Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 145

that manages comic defl ation with an eventual reaffi rmation of the subject under attack”. 69 Scott Olsen describes this latter mode as a “fuzzier breed of media that adores its object even as it mimics it”, designed “not to provoke a response of ‘Boy, is that fi lm convention stupid,’ so much as ‘Hey, I recognize that!’” 70 This is media that laughs with its target rather than laughing at it. Gehring and Olsen use such examples as An American Werewolf in London (1981) and Scream (1996), though we might also think of such recent fi lms as Galaxy Quest (1999), Shaun of the Dead (2004), and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005). Importantly, these fi lms are all understood by audiences as coming from fellow devotees—Shaun of the Dead creators Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright are both outspoken fans of zombie fi lms, while Wes Craven, the director of Scream , and Shane Black, the writer-director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang , had both been responsible for many of the very fi lms that those parodies were spoofi ng. As Gehring observes, such parody “is often comically affectionate in nature” precisely because “the artist is frequently a student of the target genre”. 71 Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that such parody has long played a role within fan communities. In fact, some of the most popular projects to come out of Star Wars fandom have been parodies, most notably Kevin Rubio’s 1997 mockumentary Troops , a send-up of the reality television program COPS which follows stormtroopers on Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine, and Joe Nussbaum’s 1999 fi lm George Lucas in Love , which tells the story of Lucas writing the original 1977 fi lm in similar fashion to Shakespeare in Love. These fi lms are enormously popular with Star Wars fans, treated as homage rather than satire, and have even received the blessing of Lucas himself. Lucas, in fact, has long supported fan parodies over dramatic fan fi ction taking place within the “legitimate” Star Wars universe, 72 and his Skywalker Sound even provided the sound design for Mel Brooks’ spoof Spaceballs , which Lucas has also professed to enjoy. In all these cases— Spaceballs, perhaps, excluded—the humor is understood within the context of fellow Star Wars loyalists, thus is not perceived as mocking or satirical, but rather as paying tribute in comedic fashion. Similarly, fans understand the humor of LEGO Star Wars as being written under the LucasFilm banner and equally meant for the fan community. Conventional wisdom has been that parody occurs at the end of a genre or 73 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 franchise’s lifecycle, signaling that the myth is no longer a viable one. In the postmodern era, however, parody has been repurposed as a rejuvenating process, a way of acknowledging a formula’s mythic nature while embracing it as a valid and pleasurable myth. This, perhaps, is why LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (2011) did not succeed as well as the Star Wars, Harry Potter, Batman , or Marvel variations—despite the prior existence of LEGO’s pirate theme, the fi lm franchise does not have the same culturally iconic status as these other hallowed brands, and did not rise to the same level of myth. Although interested in the critical aspect of parody, even Linda Hutcheon asserts that “to parody is not to destroy the past; in fact to parody is both to enshrine the past and to 146 Robert Buerkle

question it”. 74 Perhaps it is such enshrinement that makes the LEGO Star Wars games so pleasurable to those who had been disillusioned with the saga. In this moment of crisis, Star Wars fans needed a reason to celebrate, a venue through which to take pleasure in the franchise once again. Fans were already critical of Lucas in the wake of the Special Editions and the prequel trilogy; turning that critical stance into knowing in-jokes—laughing with the franchise rather than at it—thus became yet another means of recuperating their fandom. As celebratory humor, the game’s parody reafﬁ rms the saga’s signiﬁ cance as a cultural touchstone.

The Legacy of the LEGO Star Wars Games Understanding these origins of the Traveller’s Tales LEGO video game franchise is useful for understanding the direction the series has taken. As mentioned earlier, the original LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game was primarily targeted at children, much like earlier LEGO video games and like the LEGO Star Wars playsets themselves. However, Traveller’s Tales clearly struck a chord with adult gamers as well, leading to a massively successful transgenerational franchise very much unlike those earlier LEGO games. It is telling that nearly all of the features that I’ve discussed have been increased with the ensuing LEGO games. In particular, the sense of paidia and collectability has become increasingly prevalent. With each ensuing game, the hub worlds (the locations from which the levels are launched) has been expanded from a small collection of rooms to sprawling open worlds that can be explored in their own right. Whereas the LEGO Star Wars games provided a simple hub like Dexter’s Diner or the Mos Eisley Cantina, both containing a series of doorways leading into each level, LEGO Batman (2008) used a somewhat larger Batcave and Arkham Asylum, then the LEGO Harry Potter games (2010 and 2011) offered an expansive Daigon Alley and Hogwarts School, LEGO Batman 2 (2012) provided the whole of Gotham City, LEGO The Lord of the Rings (2012) included an enormous Middle-earth, and LEGO Marvel Superheroes (2013) took place on the full island of Manhattan. All of these open worlds are ﬁ lled with quirky scenes of humor, collectible objects, and hidden secrets, such that the comic juxtapositions and playset aesthetics of Free Play mode

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 have expanded into the hub world as well, and exploring that world on the way to the next level becomes a part of the game experience (the story mode levels themselves, meanwhile, have remained fairly similar to the original LEGO Star Wars games). The collectability also gets increased in these later games, where miniﬁ gs are no longer just unlocked by completing levels, but by scour- ing the open world and the hidden corners of Free Play mode, making collection and even larger part of the experience. Signiﬁ cantly, franchises with larger casts of named characters, such as Harry Potter and Marvel, have also succeeded much more than those with limited casts, such as Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean. The later games also added further discoverables, such Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 147

as the “Student in Peril” in every level of the Harry Potter games, or the “Stan Lee in Peril” of Marvel. The emphasis on retelling, forgoing dramatic investment and presuming that players already know the original, remains just as prevalent as well. I could recount many examples, but I’ll mention just one: Boromir’s death in LEGO The Lord of the Rings. Arguably one of the most poignant moments from the Peter Jackson trilogy, here, Boromir is shot fi rst with an arrow, which he pulls from his chest, them with a broom, which he also removes, then with a banana. Aragorn decapi- tates the assailant—resulting in his LEGO head landing backwards on his neck—to which Boromir cheers before noticing the banana still lodged in his chest. Much like the cantina confrontation, the scene is restaged to heighten the action and character personalities, while also evacuating any real drama. The death has all the dramatic impact of a Wile E. Coyote demise. We even get a sense of this in the games that use an original story. In discussing retold stories, Norrick notes that it is common practice to recount past experiences in more generalized form, without reference to any specifi c instance, 75 and this helps account for the more generalized parody which occurs in the Batman and Marvel games, which do not recount a specifi c story from previous comics, fi lms, or cartoons, but rather provide an overtly generic story that evokes the common tropes of those franchises. Even here, there is a communal celebration of “Batmany stuff” and a general sense that we know the story—even if we don’t actually know all the specifi cs of this one. Lastly, the nostalgic value that I’ve accounted for also continues into the later games. The franchises themselves may not have the same context as Star Wars had with its fan crisis, however they still offer varying degrees of nostalgia, both in their general playset logic and the franchise brands themselves. While the trend of ironic parody may have died down, the repurposing of Gen X brands for Millennials would continue with Transformers (2007), G.I. Joe (2009), and The Smurfs (2011), among others. As such, the ability of the LEGO games to evoke a sense of authentic childhood play while also appealing to specifi c brands of nostalgic signifi cance has remained valuable. LEGO Star Wars was an ideal brand in an ideal situation to kick off the Traveller’s Tales franchise—its transgenerational appeal was equally strong with both Generation X and Millennials, and the game’s ability to appeal to the many and varied fans of Star Wars and evoke a common love for the franchise helped to

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 establish a formula that could be readily applied to numerous fantasy brands. It’s noteworthy that aside from Harry Potter—a very recent brand that has demonstrated signifi cant transgenerational appeal—the most successful LEGO games have been based on franchises which, like Star Wars, have had a signifi cant presence in the childhoods of multiple generations: the DC and Marvel superheroes have been rebooted multiple times in various media since their comic book origins in the 1940s, 1950s, or 1960s, and the Lord of the Rings franchise was enjoyed in literary form for decades before the recent fi lms introduced the epic to a new generation. Much like Norrick’s example of Mr. Roberts creates a bond between two men who experienced the fi lm separately, the communal 148 Robert Buerkle

retelling of these transgenerational narratives fosters a sense of rapport and shared values across multiple generations: by playing LEGO Marvel Superheroes with their child, a parent creates a sense of shared experience. They may have grown up with different Spider-men, but each has an experience of Spider-man that is evoked and shared through the game. So what role does the LEGO brand play in all of this? More than anything, LEGO acts as a signifi er for childhood and toy play. LEGO certainly has nostalgic value in and of itself—the very existence of this book, and the enormous culture that it represents, speaks to this. But in the case of the Traveller’s Tales games, LEGO’s primary semiotic value is in framing all of its varied franchises, from Stars Wars and Harry Potter to the Marvel and DC superheroes, in terms of toydom. Other brands could potentially serve a comparable purpose—Matchbox or Beanie Babies, under the proper context—but the fl exibility of the LEGO brick and minifi gure to construct such varied franchises in an iconic toy style is the most valuable trait here. And this even occurs with the Harry Potter franchise, one which does not have the same toy presence as some of the other brands, yet can still be understood in such terms. Even if one does not have direct experience with Harry Potter toys, one can still imagine such a thing, and plug the franchise into an equivalent childhood experience of an epic fantasy world brought to life by playing with the toys.

Notes 1. Hawes Publications, “New York Times Best Seller List”, available at www.hawes. com/1991/1991-06-30.pdf. 2. Michael Kaminski, The Secret History of Star Wars, Kingston, ON: Legacy Books Press, 2008, page 307. 3. Andy Marx and Max Alexander, “The Force Is With Him: ‘Star Wars’ savant Lucas plans celluloid comeback”, Variety , October 4, 1993, page 1. 4. Will Brooker, Using the Force: Creativity, Community and Star Wars Fans, New York, NY: Continuum, 2002, page 79. Of particular note is his chapter “The Fan Betrayed”, focused speciﬁ cally on reactions to The Phantom Menace (1999). 5. Brooker, Using the Force , 2002, page 85. 6. The origins of this meme are uncertain, though many associate its beginnings with the backlash to the Special Editions and the forums on Ain’t It Cool News , the fan Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 gossip and news website which was just emerging as a cultural force at that time. 7. This reaction, from a 34-year-old fan’s personal blog, seems a representative example: “It’s like you’ve heard: Episode III is better than I and II, but not capital-G Good. It has a stronger narrative thread holding it together, and some really great action sequences, but the dialogue is still abysmal, and Natalie and Ewan’s acting chops can’t salvage the lines, and Hayden doesn’t even having acting chops to begin with.” Nathan Bruinooge, “The Revenge of the Sith”, Polytropos: a blog of twists and turns, May 20, 2005, available at www.polytropos.org/2005/05/20/the-revenge-of-the-sith/. 8. Michael Idato, “Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith”, The Age, October 31, 2005, available at www.theage.com.au/news/dvd-reviews/star-wars-episode-3/2005/10/31/ 1130607179366.html. Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 149

9. The announcement that Disney would be purchasing the Star Wars brand and producing new fi lms would not be made for another eight years. 10. George Lucas, quoted by Louis B. Hobson in “Lucas: ‘Get a Life!’”, Canoe.ca, May 10, 1999, available at http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/Artists/L/Lucas_George/1999/05/10/ pf-759965.html. 11. George Lucas, quoted by Liane Bonin in “‘Phantom’ Phreaks”, Entertainment Weekly , May 19, 1999, available at http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/Artists/L/Lucas_George/1999/ 05/10/pf-759965.html. 12. For example: “Lucas had some great ideas and story elements, but . . . [i]t needed to be told maturely. . . . All the crap thrown in for kids and marketing purposes ruined it.” Forum user “scule”, “Let’s Re-Write the Star Wars Prequels” discussion thread, The Straight Dope , July 22, 2006, available at http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/ showthread.php?t=376161; or “if i [ sic] had to point out one thing that really takes away the feel of the original movies it would be those one liners that get thrown in all over the fi lm as some kind of ‘comic relief’ for the 12&under demographic”. Forum user “ralph_monsters”, “Film: Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” discussion thread, Bluelight, posted May 22, 2005, (spelling and formatting preserved), available at www. bluelight.ru/vb/threads/166525-Film-Star-Wars-Revenge-of-the-Sith/page5. 13. Brooker, Using the Force , 2002, page 82. 14. Immanuel Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798), as cited by Linda Hutcheon in “Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern”, 1998, available at www.library. utoronto.ca/utel/criticism/hutchinp.html. 15. Senh Duong of review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes suggests that it may be even worse than that. He compared reviews of the two trilogies to fi nd that the prequels were actually better reviewed in their respective time than the original trilogy had been! Sehn Duong, “Critical Consensus: Star Wars Prequels Actually Better Reviewed Than Originals”, Rotten Tomatoes , May 19, 2005, available at www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ star_wars_episode_ii_attack_of_the_clones_3d/news/1645247/critical_consensus_star_ wars_prequels_actually_better_reviewed_than_originals/. 16. Ben Fritz, “‘LEGO’ hits light speed”, Daily Variety, September 26, 2006, page 3. 17. Ben Fritz, “Pix getting their game on”, Daily Variety, January 18, 2007, page 1. 18. Around 2.3 million by the end of that year alone. Ben Fritz, “Block Party”, Variety , August 6–12, 2007, page 6. 19. Jenny Williams, “LEGO and Star Wars Celebrate 10 Years Together!”, Wired , May 2, 2009, available at www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/05/LEGOstarwars10yearstogether/. 20. LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, based on the Clone Wars animated series, was later released in 2011. 21. The age ranges for the toy sets vary, though the majority of the Star Wars themed Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 sets are labeled for 6–12, 8–14, or some similar age range. 22. Jeremy Dunham, “LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game”, IGN, April 5, 2005, available at www.ign.com/articles/2005/04/05/lego-star-wars-the-video-game-2. 23. Phil Theobald, “LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy”, Gamespy, September 8, 2006, available at http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/lego-star-wars-ii-the-original- trilogy/731822p1.html. 24. Jeff Buckland, “LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy Review”, Atomic Gamer, October, 17, 2006, available at www.atomicgamer.com/articles/305/lego-star-wars-ii- the-original-trilogy-review. 25. Tim Phipps, “Lego Star Wars”, Strange Horizons, September 29, 2005, available at www. strangehorizons.com/reviews/2005/09/lego_star_wars.shtml. 150 Robert Buerkle

26. Dave Lartigue, “Lego + Star Wars = Magic!”, Dave Ex Machina, December 27, 2005, available at www.daveexmachina.com/wordpress/?p=1186. 27. Forum user “visual mechanic”, “2 player games on the Wii?” discussion thread, Ask Metafi lter , January 2, 2008, available at http://ask.metafi lter.com/79938/2-player- games-on-the-Wii. 28. Author unnamed, “Lego Star War II: The Original Trilogy”, A.V . Club, September 11, 2006, available at www.avclub.com/article/lego-star-wars-ii-the-original-trilogy- 8175. 29. Tom Bramwell, “Lego Star Wars Review”, Eurogamer , April 21, 2005, available at www. eurogamer.net/articles/r_legostarwars_ps2. 30. Linda Hutcheon, “Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern”, 1998, available at www. library.utoronto.ca/utel/criticism/hutchinp.html. 31. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991, page 18. 32. The BBC produced the original programs, while VH1 created their own American version of each series; the years listed indicate the BBC and VH1 versions, respectively. 33. Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, New York, NY: Routledge, 1988, page 39; with reference to Stefano Rosso, “A Correspondence with Umberto Eco”, Carolyn Springer, translator, Boundary 212, 1, pages 2–5. 34. Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia , New York, NY: Basic Books, 2001, pages 49–50. 35. And that fi lmmakers like George Lucas were heavily invested in both, as demonstrated by the nostalgic American Graffi ti (1973) and the nostalgic/science fi ctive Star Wars . 36. Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism , 1988, page 39. 37. Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”, The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983–1998, New York, NY: Verso, 1998, pages 7–10. Jameson fi rst presented these ideas during a talk in 1982, before publishing the essay in New Left Review in 1984. 38. And equally, just before the fi lmmaker’s own—George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan were all born in the mid-to-late 1940s, yet in these fi lms and others, they’ve shown a strong attraction to the fi lms of the 1930s and 1940s; of the writers, producers, and directors of these four examples, only Chinatown ’s Roman Polanski was actually born early enough to have experienced the fi lm’s nostalgic allusions fi rst-hand. 39. Lily Oei and Denise Martin, “VH1 Joins the Culture Club”, Variety, November 17–23, 2003, page 26. 40. Walker Gibson, “Authors, Speakers, Readers, and Mock Readers”, College English 11, February 1950, pages 265–9. 41. Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1961. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 42. Marsha Kinder, “Home Alone in the 90s: Generational War and Transgenerational Address in American Movies, Television, and Presidential Politics”, in David Buck- ingham, editor, In Front of the Children , London, England: British Film Institute, 1995, pages 75–91. 43. Heather Hendershot, “Nickelodeon’s Nautical Nonsense: The Intergenerational Appeal of SpongeBob Squarepants ”, in Heather Hendershot, editor, Nickelodeon Nation: The His- tory, Politics, and Economics of America’s Only TV Channel For Kids, New York, NY: New York University Press, 2004, pages 182–208. 44. Hendershot, for example, has shown that since its 1969 origins, Sesame Street has tried to entice parents to view with their children by including celebrities and pop cultural parodies, from “Monsterpiece Theater” to “Desperate Houseplants”. Further back, Playset Nostalgia: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 151

Lynn Spigel has observed the devoted adult following for the puppet show Kukla, Fran, and Olie in 1951. See Heather Hendershot, Saturday Morning Censors: Television Regulation Before the V-Chip, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998, page 150; and Lynn Spigel, “Seducing the Innocent”, in Henry Jenkins, editor, The Children’s Culture Reader , New York, NY: New York University Press, 1998, page 122. 45. Hendershot, “Nickelodeon’s Nautical Nonsense”, 2004, page 184. Emphasis added. 46. Ibid., pages 182–7. 47. This may also help explain why Iron Giant is more popular with Gen X than with the Baby Boomers who grew up in the 1950s: while it offers a vicarious nostalgia for the 1950s setting, its more direct nostalgic appeal is to the childhood experience of Generation X, one fi lled with comic books, sci-fi robots, and the broad 1950s nostalgia that occupied the 1970s and 1980s. 48. Dan Fleming, Powerplay: Toys as Popular Culture, Manchester, England and New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 1996, pages 15–16. 49. Brooker, Using the Force , 2002, page xii. 50. Fleming, Powerplay, 1996, page 20. 51. Jonathan Gray, Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts , New York, NY: New York University Press, 2010, page 176. Gray employs Gerard Genette’s term “paratext” to describe all the peripheral materials that surround a narrative text (advertisements, DVDs, marketing tie-ins, etc.). 52. Gray, Show Sold Separately, 2010, page 183. 53. Here, LucasFilm is able to have it both ways on the “Han shoots fi rst” debate: Han does shoot fi rst, but Greedo jumps out of his chair while reaching for his gun (which doesn’t happen in the fi lm), making it clear that he did intend to shoot him, and that it was still self-defense rather than cold-blooded murder. 54. Hendershot, “Nickelodeon’s Nautical Nonsense”, 2004, pages 188–9. 55. Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games , Meyer Barash, translator, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1958/2001, page 13. 56. Caillois, in fact, is deliberate in avoiding this association, and with good reason. 57. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens, Boston, MA: The Beacon Press, 1955, page 13. 58. Fleming, Powerplay , 1996, page 104. 59. Stephen Sansweet, Star Wars: From Concept to Screen to Collectible, San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1992, page 64. 60. Neal R. Norrick, “Twice-Told Tales: Collaborative Narration of Familiar Stories”, Language in Society, Vol. 26, No. 2, June 1997, pages 199–200. 61. Norrick, “Twice-Told Tales”, 1997, page 202. 62. Ibid., page 205. 63. Rick Altman, Film/Genre, London, England: British Film Institute, 1999, page 162. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 64. Norrick, “Twice-Told Tales”, 1997, page 207. 65. Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, London, England: Routledge, 1992, page 266, including citation of his own personal correspondence with fi lk artist Meg Garrett, 1990. 66. Norrick, “Twice-Told Tales”, 1997, page 211. 67. Geoff King, Film Comedy, London, England: Wallfl ower Press, 2002, page 112. 68. Dan Harries, Film Parody, London, England: British Film Institute, 2000, page 8. 69. Wes Gehring, Parody as Film Genre: Never Give a Saga an Even Break, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999, page 6. 70. Scott Olsen, “Foreword: Puncturing and Reaffi rmation” from Gehring, Parody as Film Genre, 1999, pages xi–xii. 152 Robert Buerkle

71. Gehring, Parody as Film Genre , 1999, page 3. 72. For its fi rst fi ve years, the Offi cial Star Wars Fan Film Awards forbid fan fi ction, allowing only for parody and documentaries. 73. For example, see John G. Cawelti, “Chinatown and Generic Transformation in Recent American Film”, Film Theory and Criticism , 2nd edition, Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, editors, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1979, pages 559–79. 74. Hutcheon, Poetics of Postmodernism, 1988, page 126. 75. Norrick, “Twice-Told Tales”, 1997, page 207. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 8 BRICK BY BRICK: MODULARITY AND PROGRAMMABILITY IN MINDSTORMS AND GAMING

Christopher Hanson

On February 28, 2008, Swedish programmer and hobbyist Hans Andersson uploaded his video entitled “Tilted Twister” to YouTube, and it has since garnered almost one and a half million views. 1 Visually, the video is rather plain: it is quite low resolution and depicts a tilted, framed triangular structure about the size of a house cat made from LEGO and several wires, located on a wooden ﬂ oor against a simple white backdrop. The scene is motionless for several seconds until a disembodied hand appears in the top left of the frame, holding a jumbled Rubik’s Cube. The hand casually places the Cube into a same-sized square plat- ter at the top of the LEGO structure, and a robotic voice is heard to say “Thank you”. The hand leaves the frame and the scene is motionless again before the self-powered LEGO devices springs to life. With no apparent human intervention, the tilted contraption rotates an arm with an eye-like appendage over the Cube and then proceeds to methodically rotate the frame holding the Cube. The device then begins to move its “eye” back and forth, alternately rotating the Rubik’s Cube, repositioning the Cube in the frame, twisting the Cube’s sections, and occasionally pausing. After less than three minutes of time (some

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 of which is sped up), the LEGO device has solved the Rubik’s Cube, arranging each side into one color, and the LEGO robot speaks once again: “Game over”. The astonishing video is mesmerizing, as watching a Rubik’s Cube be solved by a robot is rather uncanny. But it is also evident that this LEGO device is quite different than the traditional LEGO set through its automation, readily apparent capacity for processing visual data, and intentional manipulation (see Figure 8.1 ). Andersson built this remarkable robot using LEGO’s educational “MIND- STORMS” products, which invite consumers to build robotic devices and automatons which incorporate programmability as a central feature. On his website, Andersson shares the designs for this and other similar robots—which include 154 Christopher Hanson

FIGURE 8.1 Hans Andersson’s Tilted Twister robot, built from LEGO MINDSTORMS, is capable of autonomously solving a Rubik’s Cube. (Image provided by Hans Andersson, used with his permission).

those which can solve a Sudoku puzzle using a pen, and a clock which keeps time with a display that rotates LEGO bricks for its digital clock face. 2 As with traditional LEGO sets, the “hardware” of MINDSTORMS sets may be assembled into many conﬁ gurations by attaching blocks and components to one another; these modular elements may include optical sensors such as cameras or motors, which can enable movement and autonomic actions. Furthermore, MINDSTORMS kits include a “Brick” computer which may be programmed by the user to control the motors, sensors, and other such parts. This Brick and its associated electromechanical components are physically built into the hardware

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 model, but operate as a unique interface between programmable software and hardware modules. The lineage of MINDSTORMS can be directly traced through academic and computing research initiatives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as to the constructivist educational philosophy of Jean Piaget. LEGO MINDSTORMS is representative of practices of games which incorporate programming or pseudo-programming as part of a core play mechanic. Earlier games such as Robot Odyssey (The Learning Company, 1984), and Carnage Heart (Artdink, 1995) employ sequences in which the player must author simpli- ﬁ ed programming code in order to accomplish game objectives; in the case of Brick by Brick: MINDSTORMS and Gaming 155

these two games, the player must “program” robots in the game to perform specifi c tasks, such as successfully navigating hazardous arenas of play. The more contemporary game Cargo-Bot (Two Lives Left, 2012) uses a similarly simplifi ed graphical programming interface to allow the player to author “code” to indirectly control the in-game “robot” in order to solve puzzles. However, MIND- STORMS transcends these restrictive game structures by not limiting the user to preordained goals and tasks, further supporting the linkage between MIND- STORMS and constructivist pedagogy. The “programming” that a player authors in such games and in building MINDSTORMS is a highly simplifi ed form, often employing a visual mode that uses symbols such as virtual computer chips (each for a for specifi c task), which a player may place in different sequences in order to achieve distinctive goals. In the case of MINDSTORMS, the modularity of LEGO pieces is echoed in the software code which enthusiasts use to program MINDSTORMS Brick computers—the primary programming languages employed in the sets emphasize simplicity for those without backgrounds in computer programming. I will explore the programmability and modularity of MINDSTORMS and similar games which employ this play mechanic, along with the associated visual modes of representation which these software toys employ to render programming more legible and approachable, to show how MINDSTORMS allow users to craft both physical LEGO structures and their concomitant digital code one “brick” at a time.

MINDSTORMS Overview and Logo LEGO MINDSTORMS is a product line which allows users to build robots from LEGO pieces and then write programs which will control these robots’ actions. LEGO MINDSTORMS was initially launched in 1998 with a fl agship set called the “Robotics Invention System” (RIS), complementing several existing product lines, including the PRIMO line (targeted at ages between 3 and 24 months), the DUPLO line (18 months to 6 years), and the most famous and successful SYSTEM (3 to 12 years). 3 However, perhaps the most signifi cant precursor to the MINDSTORMS system is probably the TECHNIC line, which was fi rst

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 released by LEGO in 1977 and was aimed at (what were then) older LEGO consumers aged 7–16. TECHNIC sets are signiﬁ cantly more complex than those products aimed at younger children, and often feature moveable parts such as gears and even motorized components. In fact, MINDSTORMS sets, although a separate product line from TECHNIC, are compatible with many TECHNIC sets and pieces, and parts may thus be used interchangeably. MINDSTORMS kits allow the user to build complex structures from a number of interlocking plastic bricks and other parts, much like virtually all LEGO products. However, MINDSTORMS sets are differentiated from other sets by way of their programmability: MINDSTORMS feature the Brick computer—a 156 Christopher Hanson

robot “brain”—for which the user can create programs to operate and manipulate other components attached to this central controller. Users author programs or use pre-written code which can then be uploaded from a personal computer to the MINDSTORMS “brain”. Users thus use a computer to author and compile code (software), which can then be transferred to the MINDSTORMS controller (hardware) to enable the LEGO robot to act with a degree of autonomy. In essence, MINDSTORMS allow users to create a physical robot from LEGO pieces which can be controlled via software which the user loads into the robot. The moniker “MINDSTORMS” was acquired from Seymour Papert’s 1993 book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. Papert’s pioneering work at MIT, incorporating technology into educational environments, established the foundational concepts and precursors for LEGO MINDSTORMS, particularly through his contributions to creating computing environments and related educational technologies for children, and his emphasis on “self-directed learning”.4 MINDSTORMS traces its lineage through several earlier interrelated projects, primarily through the development of the programming language Logo and the LEGO/Logo and “Programmable Brick” ventures at MIT. 5 Logo is probably most familiar as the programming language that was popularized by its use in classrooms from the 1960s through the 1980s, in which students could control a “turtle” on the screen to create drawings by inputting simple programming instructions. However, as described by Harold Abelson, the lead developer of Logo for the Apple II computer, “Logo is the name for a philosophy of education and a continually-evolving family of programming languages that aid in its realization”. 6 Indeed, to its creators and developers, Logo represents far more than a single programming language; it instead characterizes a cognitive and educational philosophy strongly linked to “constructivist” pedagogy—a central component of Papert’s research, which I will discuss below. 7 The programming language Logo was ﬁ rst developed in 1967 by several researchers, primarily working at MIT, and the Logo language was designed for learning and educational settings. As Anthony Ginn argues, Logo was created with the intention of making a programming language “easy for the programmer rather than the computer”. 8 Papert describes Logo in terms of empowerment, stating that it “gives the child the possibility of exploring the computer and mastery 9 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 over it”. In its earliest implementations, Logo did not have any graphical capabilities, but allowed students to use simple code to create programs, such as those which could compose poetry or play strategy games. 10 In its later more popular iteration, the Logo language incorporated graphics and allowed student programmers to write code to direct the movements of a “turtle” on the screen of a computer. The use of this “screen turtle” in Logo is no accident. In its early usage, Logo employed a physical writing device often described as the “ﬂ oor turtle”. As personal computers became more prevalent in the late 1970s, this device would later be replicated in the more familiar digital form of the “screen turtle” found in the Logo programming language—which was far faster and Brick by Brick: MINDSTORMS and Gaming 157

more accurate than the so-called “ﬂ oor turtle”, not to mention considerably cheaper as well. 11 Logo’s shift from the expensive ﬂ oor turtle hardware to the virtual screen turtle allowed the programming language to be widely adopted into schools, as it only required a computer on which to run. In essence, this moved Logo from controlling a “real-world” physical robot to a virtual robot on the screen. However, the development of other related research projects would soon engender a shift back from virtual to physical robots.

LEGO-Logo and the Programmable Brick In the mid-1980s, MIT Media Lab researchers Mitchel Resnick and Steve Ocko developed the LEGO/Logo project, in which users could build machines out of LEGO which could then be controlled via a specialized iteration of Logo code, which serves as a clear precursor to the later development of the MINDSTORMS commercial products. 12 The LEGO/Logo project allowed children to build LEGO structures which could then be controlled via code written in Logo. 13 However, the practical applications of LEGO/Logo were limited by the need for a wire which physically connected the LEGO device to the computer running Logo. As Resnick and the other designers of the later “Programmable Brick” project observe, the LEGO/Logo project was in some sense a “throwback” to the early days of the “ﬂ oor turtle”, but instead allowed children/users to build their own device instead of the pre-built “turtle” and thus create a remarkable variety of devices (some of the earliest projects by elementary students using the LEGO/ Logo included a programmable pop-up toaster and a machine which could sort a variety of LEGO bricks based on their sizes). 14 The Programmable Brick was also developed at MIT and introduced in an article by its designers Resnick, Randy Sargent, Fred Martin, and Brian Silverman in 1995; they describe it as “a tiny, portable computer embedded inside a LEGO brick, about the size of a deck of cards. The brick is capable of interacting with the physical world in a large variety of ways (including via sensors and infrared communication)”. 15 The Programmable Brick was designed to allow users to write code which would govern its behavior, which in turn would control the actions of the LEGO device into which the Programmable Brick was installed,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 much like the earlier LEGO/Logo project. Among other goals, the Program- mable Brick project sought to address the limitations of the hard-wired connection between the computer and the controlled device in the LEGO/Logo model. The project designers also sought the capacity for the Programmable Brick to support multiple modes of input and output (such as the ability to receive input from sound or light sensors and output to a motor or an infrared transmitter), multiple bricks (namely the ability to interact with other Program- mable Bricks to create groups of robots interacting with one another), multiple processes (controlling more than one element at a time), and multiple activities (allowing users to program the Brick for a wide range of tasks). Silverman 158 Christopher Hanson

created a specialized version of Logo called “Brick Logo” which included new features such as the ability to process “multiple condition-actions”, which allowed the user to program more complex responses to stimuli from the inputs (such as instructing a robot to move forward and left to a wall when a light is turned on in the room); programs were written in Brick Logo on a computer and then downloaded onto the Programmable Brick, which could then be disconnected from the computer and placed in the LEGO model. The Programmable Brick was used in a number of workshops with both students and teachers coordinated by MIT in the early to mid-1990s, with the project designers writing in 1995 that 50 such Programmable Bricks were already in use in such workshops and activities; they expressed at this time that “We expect that the Programmable Brick will eventually become available to the educational community at large”. 16 While prescient, the designers of the Programmable Brick perhaps underestimated the success that followed, as the Programmable Brick concept would serve as the centerpiece for the MINDSTORMS product line.

Using MINDSTORMS In his Unofﬁ cial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots , Jonathan Knudsen suc- cinctly explains the simplicity of building and programming MINDSTORMS, as compared the previous technical requirements and expertise necessary for the construction of robots:

You don’t need an electrical engineer anymore because the brain, sensors, and actuators that come the RIS set are easy to hook up. You don’t need to a computer programmer anymore because the programming environment is easy to use. And you don’t need a mechanical engineer because building a body is as simple as building a LEGO model. 17

Knudsen’s remarks summarize the accessibility of MINDSTORMS; while there is some learning curve involved in initially learning the MINDSTORMS system, it is remarkably more user-friendly than construction of a robot might otherwise be. In the ﬁ rst iteration of the MINDSTORMS system, the central programmable

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 brick was called the RCX (for Robotic Command eXplorer); the RCX was replaced with a newer model called the MINDSTORMS NXT Intelligent Brick in 2006, which was later updated in 2009 with the NXT 2.0. The NXT EV3, released in late 2013, adds further features, including the ability to control a MINDSTORMS robot with a mobile device. The later versions added greater functionality, including more powerful input sensors and the ability to control more output devices. Common to all iterations of the MINDSTORMS line is the use of visual programming languages in which a user can simply drag and drop functionality to her robot. In lieu of writing out code as text to program the robot, software Brick by Brick: MINDSTORMS and Gaming 159

which comes with MINDSTORMS kits employ a graphical interface through which the robot’s commands are authored. Much like the later NXT, owners of the RCX, the ﬁ rst version of the MINDSTORMS control brick, could “write” programs using two graphical programming tools which LEGO supplied: RCX Code (also called the Robotics Invention System), intended for those with no programming experience, and ROBOLAB, which was developed by the educational products wing LEGO DACTA; ROBOLAB is a more complex language built from LabVIEW, a graphical programming environment used by scientists and engineers, including the Mars Sojourner rover mission in 1997. 18 The graphical programming environments in each of these instances allow users to author programs by dragging and dropping functions and commands, greatly simplifying the coding process. These graphical programming systems are themselves noteworthy steps from Logo toward accessibility and modularity. 19 Rather than using the text commands of Logo, the user may create and edit code by moving blocks which represent different functions and behaviors around on the screen. For example, individual blocks of code may signal the MINDSTORMS robot to move forward, rotate left, and turn on a light. By dragging these blocks of code into different sequences, the user may alternately program the robot to turn on its light, turn left, and move forward in whichever sequences she chooses. These graphical programming languages thus use the same fundamental principles of modularity which are already familiar to the builder of LEGO sets. The MIND- STORMS user builds software programs for her robot just as she has built her physical robot: brick by brick.

Programming in Games The simpliﬁ ed programming found in MINDSTORMS is remarkably similar to that found in some computer and video games which incorporate elements of programming within their gameplay. 20 One inﬂ uential precursor to these games is RobotWar , developed in the 1970s by Silas Warner of the MUSE corporation and commercially released in 1981; RobotWar is a text-based programming game which employs a language similar to BASIC to program robot actions. Like Logo, RobotWar uses text for programming the virtual robots in the game—creating

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 a substantial barrier to entry for a player unfamiliar with writing software code. Ostensibly, RobotWar could help a player learn to code through its simpliﬁ ed in-game programming language, just as Logo was designed to be more readily accessible than other extant programming languages. Like Logo and other languages, the programming language in RobotWar allows users to create subroutines which can then be performed by other parts of the program. For example, the player may write a subroutine called “MOVE LEFT” which would include the individual instructions to rotate and to move forward a designated distance. The player can then use this subroutine “MOVE LEFT” as a command anywhere in the program. In Logo, a user could write a function called “BOX” which would 160 Christopher Hanson

contain the commands for the turtle to draw a box; this BOX command could then be used elsewhere in the program to perform this subroutine. As in Logo and other languages, RobotWar and other programming games thus let users make building blocks of code which can then be used to construct more complex software. These block-like programming functions instill RobotWar —and by extension, most programming games—with a degree of modularity, as similar user-generated modular subroutines may be “plugged in” anywhere into the program. Robot Odyssey, released in 1984 by The Learning Company for the Apple II, the TRS-80, and MS-DOS machines, similarly required that players program various robots throughout the game in order to solve puzzles and make progress. 21 However, unlike the earlier (and unrelated) RobotWar , Robot Odyssey employs a simplifi ed graphical interface for creating code. In this game, the player “programs” the virtual in-game robots via a screen in which she must manipulate logic gates in the creation of a circuit; throughout the game, the player acquires other chips which add greater functionality to the in-game robots. A player of Robot Odyssey thus “writes” programs for her virtual game robots by simply moving graphical elements around the internals of each robot; the player moves her avatar into the robot she wishes to control and, once inside, she can connect the controls and sensors of the robots to logic gates and chips she has collected, by picking them up and placing them where she chooses. In connecting and re-arranging these elements within a robot, the player can program it to perform different actions based on the criteria the player chooses. In order to escape the subterranean city of Robotropolis, the players progresses upward through fi ve levels of the city by “rewiring” the brains of several robots at her disposal in order to bypass obstacles. The player does not have direct control of these robots, but instead can program their behavior by giving them simple directions via a graphical programming interface. On the fi rst level of the game, the player gains control of three robots, Checkers, Scanner, and Sparky, each of which she uses to accomplish tasks and obtain items to proceed further in the game. 22 Each of the robots may be confi gured by the player using a graphical interface, wherein the robot’s behavior can be programmed through devices for movement (such as thrusters), control (a claw-like grabber), sensors, chips, and logic gates. Using

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 combinations of these elements, a robot may be programmed to act in response to speciﬁ c conditions, such as instructing the robot to move up and down until it comes into contact with an object, and then picking up the object with its grabber. Much like MINDSTORMS, the virtual automatons of Robot Odyssey can be instructed to perform simple tasks, such as picking up objects and moving them based on the modular graphical programming that the player imple- ments by arranging on screen. However, unlike MINDSTORMS, the alterations made are only virtual and within the game; program changes made via the software for a MINDSTORMS robot directly interfaces with the physical hardware of the LEGO device. Brick by Brick: MINDSTORMS and Gaming 161

Carnage Heart furthers the modular graphical software design of Robot Odyssey and employs a play mechanic in which the player “programs” robots for the battlefi eld, where these robots behave following the player’s instructions—a framing mechanism quite similar to that of RobotWar . Just as in that earlier game, the more successful player of Carnage Heart essentially must better “program” her robots using a graphical system that is markedly similar to the ones employed in MINDSTORMS software, in order to progress in the game. A more recent example of such a programming game in which the player guides a robot’s behavior can be found in Cargo-Bot , in which the player creates programs for a simulated crane-like lifting claw in order to move and stack colored crates. Each level of the game is its own separate puzzle, challenging the player to arrange the crates on the screen into a pre-specifi ed pattern in order to complete the level. The player is given a set of simple commands for each level to be used to accomplish the task, including directions for the claw’s movement and con- ditional modifi ers to alter its behavior based on what color crate the claw is holding. The player can also employ loops and recursion to streamline and shorten her programs, allowing her to solve rather complex puzzles with elegant programs consisting of only a few commands. Cargo-Bot will allow the player to advance in the game once the player’s program successfully arranges the crates, but the game rewards the player further for writing shorter programs, so a program which uses only fi ve commands is privileged over a program of seven commands. In this way, Cargo-Bot rewards effi cient and carefully-written code: using the shortest possible program to accomplish the task of each puzzle results in a better score than do programs which use extra and unnecessary commands. 23 Just as in RobotWar, Robot Odyssey, and Carnage Heart, direct player control of the virtual robot in Cargo-Bot is shunned in favor of indirect programming of robot behavior. 24 In the case of Robot Odyssey , Carnage Heart, and Cargo-Bot , the player controls a robot entity indirectly via a graphical programming interface, much like a MINDSTORMS robot. However, each of these programming games links particular goals to the player’s programs: the correct arrangement of crates to solve puzzles in Cargo-Bot , the collection of items and navigation of hazards in Robot Odyssey , and the “defeat” of other robots in RobotWar and Carnage Heart .

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 MINDSTORMS distinguishes itself from these goal-oriented activities with its emphasis on pure experimentation. Like a regular LEGO set which can be built according to its accompanying directions or used with other interchangeable LEGO pieces to create singular structures, the graphical programming in MIND- STORMS permits the user to design and create code that does not need to accomplish a speciﬁ c goal in order to “win”, as there is no such win condition in the case of MINDSTORMS. In this capacity, MINDSTORMS is more closely positioned within Roger Caillois’s designation of paidia, the “spontaneous manifestation of play”. 25 Paidia is clearly contrasted to the ludus of more formalized game structures. MINDSTORMS, much like traditional LEGO, emphasizes the 162 Christopher Hanson

less structured mode of play of paidia, while programming games and their attendant rules and goals more squarely ﬁ t within Caillois’s notion of ludus. The focus of MINDSTORMS on paidia, experimentation, and the resultant exploratory learning experienced by the user can also clearly be traced to the Constructivist philosophical underpinnings of the educational research projects from which MINDSTORMS emerged.

Conclusion: Constructivist Teaching and Play Seymour Papert connects the creation of the Logo language and its underlying pedagogical philosophy to his work with philosopher and psychologist Jean Piaget, with whom he collaborated in Switzerland at the University of Geneva. 26 Piaget was arguably the most important ﬁ gure in the development of the constructivist pedagogical philosophy. In Papert’s words, “Piaget’s epistemology is concerned not with the validity of knowledge, but its origin and growth. He is concerned with the genesis and evolution of knowledge . . . ” 27 Piaget described his work in learning as “genetic epistemology”, which is focused on the processes of—and interrelations between—both the historical development of knowledge and its development in the individual. Papert describes genetic epistemology as being:

about how knowledge developed, sometimes focusing on the evolution of knowledge in history, sometimes on the evolution of knowledge in the individual. But it does not see the two realms as distinct: It [sic ] seeks to understand relations between them. 28

Papert’s work was heavily infl uenced by Piaget, particularly in the latter’s observation of the processes involved in children’s learning; Papert notes that Piaget’s work in children’s “spontaneous learning” relies on two steps: “[1] the child absorbs the new into the old in a process called assimilation, and [2] the child constructs his knowledge in the course of actively working with it”. 29 So, for example, when learning a new gadget, we fi rst relate this object to a device which we already know; thus, when fi rst confronted with a touch-screen device such

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 as a smartphone, we may relate it to similar screen interfaces with which we are familiar such as a touchscreen computer and, of course, a phone. We then “construct [our] knowledge” of this gadget by “actively working with it”. Constructivist approaches to teaching emphasize this very model: that learning is an active process on the part of the student that takes place through experiences of the world and the deliberation on these experiences; when encountering something previously unknown and new, the learner then compares and relates this experience to those which she has previously experienced. Piaget and other constructivist theorists thusly challenged the model of passive learning in which students would absorb information dictated to them by a teacher or via similar methods. Brick by Brick: MINDSTORMS and Gaming 163

One of Papert’s many contributions to this model of active learning was the notion of a “microworld”: a self-contained “space”, an abstracted sandbox of sorts, in which children can explore ideas and experiment with hypotheses. 30 Papert explained,

Children get to know what it is like to explore the properties of a chosen microworld undisturbed by extraneous questions. In doing so, they learn to transfer habits of exploration from their personal lives to the formal domain of scientiﬁ c theory construction. 31

In particular, Papert advocated the role of a computer in the creation of such “microworlds”, as computers allow for an “internal intelligibility” (namely, the ability to determine the behavior of a computer program based on reading the explicit instructions in its code, such as a command in Logo to send the turtle forward ten units) and thus a capacity for greater complexity than might otherwise be practically afforded a child in the physical world (think here of the example of a given city in the Maxis “software toy” SimCity (1989), compared to the modeling of such a city using physical toys and models).32 Like Logo, LEGO operates as such a “microworld”, permitting its users to experiment within a physical space of construction and design. But MINDSTORMS exceeds both Logo and LEGO to function as a fusion of abstracted software and the physical plastic elements of LEGO pieces: it constitutes an intersection between an internally intelligible microworld of playful experimentation with the physical, lived world of the plastic LEGO bricks of the MINDSTORMS robots, and all that with which they interact. The possibilities of the exchange between these worlds seems only to be constrained by the user’s imagination—as evidenced by the creations of Andersson and other MINDSTORMS enthusiasts—who each build their creations and learning experiences “brick by brick”.

Notes 1. See Hans Andersson, Tilted Twister - LEGO Mindstorms Rubik’s Cube Solver, 2008, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fAn5A0HbhU. 2. See Hans Andersson, “Tilted Twister”, available at http://tiltedtwister.com/robots. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 html. 3. See Jonathan Knudsen, The Unofﬁ cial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots, Farnham, England: O’Reilly, 1999, page 6. 4. See Jim Bumgardner, “The Origins of Mindstorms”, Wired.com: GeekDad, March 29, 2007, available at http://archive.wired.com/geekdad/2007/03/the_origins_of_/. 5. MIT played an essential role in the inception of MINDSTORMS, and the ﬁ rst MIND- STORMS kits were released in partnership with the MIT Media Lab, of which Papert was a founding faculty member. 6. Abelson continues, “Its learning environments articulate the principle that giving people personal control over powerful computational resources can enable them to 164 Christopher Hanson

establish intimate contact with profound ideas from science, from mathematics, and from the art of intellectual model building. Its computer languages are designed to transform computers into fl exible tools to aid in learning, in playing, and in exploring”. Harold Abelson, Apple Logo , Peterborough, NH: Byte Books, 1982, page xi. 7. It should be noted that other simplifi ed programming languages have been designed for the purposes of learning, such as PASCAL. 8. See Anthony Ginn, “Logo, Lego, and Logic”, The Guardian, November 21, 1985, sec. Computer Guardian. 9. See Edward B. Fiske, “Interview: Seymour Papert on Computers”, New York Times, July 2, 1985, C7. 10. See Seymour Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, 2nd edition, New York, NY: Basic Books, 1993 (1980), page 218, note 3. 11. See Randy Sargent et al., “Building and Learning with Programmable Bricks”, Logo Update , Vol. 3, No. 3, Spring 1995, available at http://el.media.mit.edu/logo-foundation/ pubs/logoupdate/v3n3.html. 12. Resnick would later go on to develop the simplifi ed programming language Scratch, fi rst launched in 2003, for use in educational environments and to facilitate student learning of programming and interactive design. 13. It should be noted that other institutions and organizations also played a fundamental role in the development of LEGO robotics, including researchers at Tufts University. 14. See Sargent et al., “Building and Learning with Programmable Bricks”, 1995. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. See Knudsen, The Unoffi cial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots, 1999, page 7. 18. See Dean Hystad, “Building LEGO Robots for FIRST LEGO League”, INSciTE: Innovations in Science and Technology Education, September 23, 2002, pages 49–50, available at www-ee.ccny.cuny.edu/www/web/jxiao/LegoManual.pdf. 19. It should be noted that a substantial “homebrew” open source community exists around the MINDSTORMS product lines, and a number of other non-graphical programming languages have been adapted for use with MINDSTORMS robots, including versions of C, Java, and Basic. 20. There are also other simplifi ed programming languages such as design tools and games which are themselves designed to make the creation of games easier, such as LittleBig- Planet (Media Molecule/Sony, 2008) and Project Spark (Team Dakota/Microsoft, 2014), but these are beyond the purview of this essay. 21. Warren Robinett was notably involved in the design of the game; he had previously designed 1979’s Adventure for the Atari Video Computer System, also known as the 2600. A hidden room in the game is dedicated to him, a reference to the similar Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 “Easter egg” which Robinett had hidden in Adventure . 22. On a later level, the player may acquire a fourth robot, the Master Computer Robot, but this is an optional challenge and is not required to fi nish the game. 23. Interestingly, Cargo-Bot itself was created using the programming tool Codea. This tool lets iPad users author programs directly on the iPad, using a combination of text and graphical elements to author code. 24. These types of games, in which the player pre-determines the movement and behavior of robots, often fi t within the generalized category of “zero-player games”, which describe games in which direct player intervention during actual gameplay is mini- mized. Programming games typically require the player to set up behavior of her Brick by Brick: MINDSTORMS and Gaming 165

avatar(s) before initiating actual gameplay. For more on zero-player games, see Rodney P. Carlisle, Encyclopedia of Play in Today’s Society , London, England: SAGE, 2009, pages 361 and 464; George Skaff Elias, Richard Garﬁ eld, and Karl Robert Gutschera, Char- acteristics of Games, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012, page 22; and Staffan Björk and Jesper Juul, “Zero-Player Games, Or: What We Talk about When We Talk about Players”, The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference , 2012. 25. See Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, Meyer Barash, translator, Urbana, IL: Uni- versity of Illinois Press, 2001, pages 27–8. 26. See “Professor Seymour Papert”, April 1, 2008, available at http://papert.org/. 27. See Papert, Mindstorms, 1980, page 163. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., page 120. 30. See Seymour Papert, “Computer-Based Microworlds as Incubators for Powerful Ideas”, in Robert Taylor, editor, The Computer in the School: Tutor, Tool, Tutee, New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 1980, pages 203–10. 31. See Papert, Mindstorms, 1980, page 117. 32. Ibid., page 118.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 9 BUILDING THE LEGO CLASSROOM

Michael Lachney

This chapter begins with the premise that LEGO toys, as technological artifacts, embody certain forms of order and power. 1 LEGO toys have become common currency for certain understandings and explanations of how the socio-technical world is built. This is to say that LEGO toys are “forms of life” 2 in some parts of the world, woven into the everyday social and technological arrangements of childhood, popular culture, and education. The LEGO Group as a multinational corporation has reached into these arrangements at global, national, and local levels. This study focuses on the LEGO Group’s role in educational governance. Speciﬁ cally, I examine how the LEGO robotics set, LEGO MINDSTORMS (including the RCX, NXT, NXT 2.0, and EV3 iterations), is situated within United States science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education reform. Through an analysis of educational discourses that advocate for the pedagogic application of MINDSTORMS in US STEM classrooms and extracurricular programs, I ask: Given that technologies can be built and arranged to “enhance the power, authority, and privilege of some over others”, 3 what are the politics of LEGO MINDSTORMS in US STEM education?

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 To answer this question I demonstrate how a fl exible network of global educational governance produces cultures of competition that surround MIND- STORMS in educational discourses between local and global levels. The relationships between these fl exible networks and offi cial government agencies act to frame MINDSTORMS as an ingredient in national concerns over STEM education. These national concerns help to fuel a larger political agenda that projects a future of socio-technical innovation to drive the US in economic competitiveness at a global scale. I argue that this political agenda draws on national anxieties over STEM “illiteracy” to confl ate technological innovation with educational innovation. The educational resources and policies that surround MINDSTORMS Building the LEGO Classroom 167

frame its uses as a means to restructure not only the materials used in STEM classrooms, but also the labor and expertise of teachers. Due to the widespread use and popularity of MINDSTORMS, careful considerations of its inﬂ uences on teacher labor, student work, the commercialization of education, and pedagogical challenges of socio-technical transparency and ethics are necessary. To clarify, I examine the politics of MINDSTORMS through its arrangements within global structures that feed into national policy and the subjection of the teacher- classroom position. To get to these critical points, I must lay the groundwork to understand how LEGO toys and MINDSTORMS as educational technologies “have politics” in the sense of Langdon Winner (1986). 4

LEGO Bricks and Politics LEGO MINDSTORMS materializes politically in the ways that LEGO bricks have become “forms of life” across the globe. Winner identifi es politics as arrangements of power and authority among human relationships and activities in settings that are institutionalized or not. For technologies to have politics they must, in part, be understood within these arrangements. While Winner describes technology as any “modern practical artifi ce”, the plural form technologies refer to specifi c sets of hardware, software, or devices. 5 LEGO bricks as technologies in the arena of education may take on political qualities through the material and discursive positions in which they are arranged in relationship to certain types of global governance, national legislation, classroom management materials, and both users and non-users. Formal education is regularly considered a political project. 6 Social and cultural research demonstrates patterns of school culture that reproduce hegemonic subject positions even as the rhetoric found in education of social mobility and freedom from such positions are actively adhered to and/or resisted. 7 The argument that technological artifacts occupy political roles within these arrangements adds layers of contention to the bureaucratic arena of education. Technology studies scholars have long recognized the political role of technologies in the classroom. With devices such as Skinner’s teaching machine 8 in the cultural background of 1950s and 1960s America, Lewis Mumford (1964)

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 disparagingly argues that as schools incorporate educational technologies, the presence of the human personality becomes disruptive to the classroom. 9 David Noble (2001) further expands upon the role of technologies in/as the classroom in late 20th-century case studies of teachers’ and students’ resistances and con- formities to the spread of online courses across university campuses. 10 Winner (2009) shows that, indeed, there is a substantial history of trying to reform education through technology; however, he argues that many techno-enthusiasts are “shrouded in a cloud of amnesia” about the decades of technological invest- ments that have pedagogically fell ﬂ at, fading from public discussion. 11 To understand how education reform is connected to technological change, Torin 168 Michael Lachney

Monahan (2005) takes a global perspective from his local level of ethnographic investigations in Los Angeles public schools to illustrate that while decisions regarding oversight and technology implementation are becoming more centralized up the bureaucratic chain, responsibility for those centralized decisions is increasingly distributed to those at lower levels of the educational hierarchy, namely teachers. 12 Social science literatures with concerns of educational governance at the global level demonstrate corporate infl uences on school systems through policy channels. Stephen J. Ball and Carolina Junemann (2012) posit a useful defi nition for governance as the “informal authority” of fl exible networks, in contrast to government as formal hierarchies and bureaucracies. 13 Anthony G. Picciano and Joel Spring (2013) describe fl exible governance networks in terms of the 21st- century “education-industrial complex” (EIC), which “is a series of networks and alliances that strive to infl uence the creation or modifi cation of policies at all levels of government consistent with views and ideas that support extensive uses of technology and are profi table to its members”. 14 Neil Selwyn (2013) provides a way to understand supranational and intergovernmental organizations within these networks. These organizations use educational technologies as forms of soft power to “infl uence the general climate and context of educational technology provision”. 15 Selwyn also shows that, while relationships between state and international institutions do continue to intensify, national governments remain the primary “architects of their determinations”. 16 With this said, the contours of education as a socio-technical system includes LEGO toys. Perhaps more than any other toy company, the LEGO Group’s products have a common sense role of acceptance in education as being educational. This attitude emerges through the LEGO “System of Play” that aligns the LEGO products with developmental models of knowledge building. It is precisely for these reasons of common sense and knowledge development that the political entanglement of LEGO toys as commodities between local and global levels of the EIC requires serious attention. To get at the politics of MINDSTORMS, I will extrapolate a broader view of LEGO bricks as “forms of life”.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 LEGO Bricks as Forms of Life Winner adopts Wittgenstein’s phrase “forms of life” to explain that, as technologies “become woven into the texture of everyday existence, the devices, techniques, and systems we adopt shed their tool like qualities to become part of our very humanity”. 17 Technologies and socio-technical systems may become such an integral part of the everyday (cars, computers, electricity grids, etc.) that it can be hard for some people to imagine life without them. MINDSTORMS are not forms of life in and of themselves. It is possible to imagine school and life in most areas of the world without their application. The plastic LEGO Building the LEGO Classroom 169

bricks, of which MINDSTORMS are in part made up, have become forms of life in ways that shape and reshape the activities and meanings of play. As forms of life, LEGO bricks give meaning to objects, relationships, and events beyond their immediate function as toys through a specialized and commodiﬁ ed System of Play that has been popularized across the globe. The LEGO Group’s previous Junior Vice President, Godtfred Kirk Chris- tiansen, conceptualized the LEGO System of Play in 1950s Denmark. Christiansen explained, “Our idea has been to create a toy that prepares the child for life, appealing to its imagination and developing the creative urge and joy of creation that are the driving force in every human being”. 18 This quote frames a move toward the research and development of a toy line that appeals to a multiplicity of children’s subjectivities. The success of such toys emerges as a modular and adaptable system that commercially drives play through increased purchases. As a System of Play, LEGOs can be mixed and matched, snapped together through the forwards-and-backwards compatibility afforded from set to set. The more LEGO pieces children have the more expansively they can build. The overt success of this System of Play to appeal to the “driving forces in every human being” is observed in the LEGO Group’s net proﬁ t of USD $969 million in 2012. 19 However, the implicit success of LEGO toys as forms of life is found in their everyday articulations of what Wittgenstein (1958) describes as “language games”. 20 Language games make up forms of life through the fact that language is always situated in larger activities and associations of human and nonhuman relationships. If LEGO toys are forms of life, then they should be found literally and analogically in speech and discourse. Like the plasticity of the material artifacts in the LEGO System of Play, LEGO in speech and discourse are adaptable to an array of interactive, modular, and imaginative arrangements where they can be meaningfully employed and understood. Take Wittgenstein’s language game, “Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements” 21 and consider the following headline: “The phones of the future are DIY! Motorola will 3D-print ‘modular’ mobiles that customers can put together like Lego”. 22 LEGO analogies have also been used in synthetic biology to describe how scientists can use “BioBricks” to re-program organisms: “Like Lego stones, BioBricks

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 can be easily assembled into larger structures and perform complex tasks in the host organism”. 23 LEGO analogies at intersections of education and technology are commonly used to judge what are and are not good “objects to think with”. 24 While scholarship on “learning objects” has not arrived at a single deﬁ nition, Wayne Hodgins with Marcia Conner (2000) suggest that the LEGO product line is a good measure for determining the value of proposed learning objects; they write:

Every LEGO piece, no matter what shape, color, size, age, or purpose can always be snapped together with any other piece because of their uniformly 170 Michael Lachney

shaped pins. This allows children of all ages to create, deconstruct, and recon- struct LEGO structures easily and into most any form they can imagine. 25

This quote exemplifi es how language games that include LEGO toys and associated building activities symbolize certain notions of children’s imaginative potential through the LEGO System of Play as forms of life in education. The LEGO Group’s initial ideas for coupling their products with children’s imaginative potential were consistent with constructivist-learning theories of the time. 26 For constructivists, children are active builders of their own knowledge frameworks, assimilating school material through their own experience and self- direction. The development of the LEGO Group’s System of Play coincides with the use of Piagetian constructivism to advance US math and science education in the post-Sputnik era. As Carol Gilligan (1987) argues, “The revival of Piaget’s work in the early 1960s provided a psychological rationale for this [educational] endeavor, since in Piaget’s view cognitive development was identical to the growth of mathematical and scientifi c thinking”. 27 Indeed, the teleology of Piagetian operative stages towards the fi nal formal stage of abstraction includes the scientifi cally-valued abilities to control variables, consider arrangements and combinations of events, understand and use correlations, reason probabilistically, and produce hypotheses. 28 Between the 1960s and 1980s, Seymour Papert, named LEGO Professor of Mathematics and Education at MIT and former pupil of Piaget, explicitly drew from and critiqued constructivist-learning theories as a way to re-think the pedagogic structure of math and science education. In his 1980 book Mind- storms (the inspiration for the name LEGO MINDSTORMS), Papert questions the theory of constructivism and argues that the Piagetian tendency to privilege formal or abstract thinking in math and science education limits children’s cognitive potential to understand the world around them in more concrete ways. 29 In the development of an alternative theory that is later called constructionism, Papert argues that computer culture and the act of programming are “able to give concrete forms to areas of knowledge that had previously appeared so intangible and abstract”. 30 Papert and the Epistemology and Learn- ing Research Group at MIT used this critique to motivate the development

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 of the object-oriented programming language Logo, which supported a new and more concrete type of math and science learning called “turtle geometry”. 31 Turtle geometry, and later “new turtle geometry”, 32 synthesized geometry and motion to promote the ideas of learning through doing and discovery. Ulti- mately, the group’s aim was to make abstract mathematical and computational ideas, such as recursion, accessible to children at earlier stages in cognitive development than Piagetian operative stages afforded. This was done in the Logo environment through the use of transitional objects called “turtles”, which were programmed by children to move in two- or three-dimensional space to create geometric patterns. Building the LEGO Classroom 171

Papert’s intellectual shift from constructivism to constructionism exemplifi es what separates the development of turtle geometry from previous endeavors. 33 Papert and other researchers revised constructivist learning theories to account for the importance of material and concrete construction of artifacts as play in knowledge building. The theory of constructionism frames children’s knowledge building as enacted and performed in the material and/or digital building of objects. Mizuko Ito (2009) explains that the “construction genre” of educational technology is well suited to brands such as LEGO due to the toy’s capitalization on an open-ended System of Play and player-driven content creation. 34 Constructionist theories were offi cially applied to LEGO in the late 1980s and 1990s with the LEGO/Logo project. The research resulted in the creation of the MINDSTORMS centerpiece, the “programmable brick”. 35 Just as Gilligan argues that constructivist theories provided a rationale for active efforts by the state and industry to develop new pedagogies of math and science in the post-Sputnik era, the shift to a constructionist focus on the materiality of learning/building provides a digital age rationale for the integration of commercial technologies in STEM classrooms throughout students’ trajectories in K-12 education. This epistemological shift tightly couples the acquisition of STEM profi ciencies through the blending of technology and instruction with commitments to material commodities as educational. Like constructivism, constructionism supports, in its temporally specifi c way, the building of citizenship and national identity through the position of education as an incubator of knowledge production in aid of global competitiveness and capital. The educational appeal of MINDSTORMS, as the updated and commodifi ed version of the LEGO/Logo programmable brick, appears in the adoption of the LEGO System of Play as forms of life in 21st-century STEM education. Indeed, the LEGO Group successfully couples the LEGO System of Play with constructionist theories in ways that bolster MINDSTORMS as one of the more profi table STEM education products on the market. In countries from around the world, youth participate, with educational commitments, in the LEGO System of Play to compete with MINDSTORMS in First Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 competitions. This non-for-proﬁ t seeks to get “children excited about science and technology – and teach them valuable employment and life skills” through educational robotics competitions. 36 Partnerships with organizations such as FIRST helps the LEGO Group secure an educational market to position its products as part of 21st-century STEM literacy development. It is at this point that the politics of MINDSTORMS are visible in its arrangements as a “speciﬁ c technological device or system [that] becomes a way of settling an issue in the affairs of a particular community”. 37 In this case, the affairs are of educational performance and the future of the knowledge workforce among nation-states. 172 Michael Lachney

The LEGO Group in the Education-Industrial Complex In the 21st century, the LEGO Group emerges as part of a global form of educational governance. As part of the EIC, the LEGO Group is in a network of foundations, non-profi ts, supranational and intergovernmental organizations, government agencies, universities, and other for-profi t educational technology providers that support the application of MINDSTORMS in classrooms and extracurricular programs. In this position, the LEGO Group becomes part of a fl exible form of educational governance that acts and is acted upon by individuals and organizations inside and outside of education systems. At the UN Global Compact Leader’s “Architects of a Better World” New York summit in 2013, former LEGO Group president and CEO and current chairman of the LEGO Foundation, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, helped to unveil the United Nations Headquarters LEGO set #21018. This event was part of a UN global sustainability effort to align business and civic societies with UN goals. Kristiansen explained, “Just as the UN is a symbol of how we can come together to try and build a better world, I hope that this model will serve as a symbol of The LEGO Foundation’s commitment to unlocking every child’s potential”. 38 This quote positions LEGO toys as symbolic keys that have the potential to unlock the role of children in the UN’s governing vision of the future. At the same time, with support from the UN, LEGO products gain global legitimacy as educational. This relationship is produced through negotiations of differences and similarities between these organizations. This is to say that as the LEGO Group secures a market for its product lines (LEGO products are distributed for educational purposes by the LEGO Foundation and on the market through LEGO Education), the UN is able to use LEGO products in its attempts to support the “modernization” of education systems in Western terms of improving students’ access to technology-rich instruction. 39 The extent to which the LEGO Group has reached into national and international organizations’ work on education and children’s affairs is made evident in consideration of the LEGO Foundation’s global initiatives. The LEGO Foundation’s educational commitments extend across fi ve continents to support early childhood education in Kenya, after school programs in Brazil, the building of LEGO Education Innovation Studios at schools in Den- Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 mark, and more. 40 One of the broadest philanthropy campaigns of the LEGO Foundation is the We Care and Share FIRST LEGO League (FLL) and Jr. FLL initiatives. 41 The LEGO Foundation supports FIRST’s mission to bolster interests in STEM subjects through equipping FLL and Jr. FLL teams with LEGO products. 42 From regional to international competitions, FIRST events model a future of competitiveness as FLL teams use MINDSTORMS to compete against each other in Robot Games and Projects. 43 As of the FIRST world festival in St. Louis in 2012, FLL had 564 qualifying events, 86 championships, 18,323 teams, and approximately 183,000 youth participants from more than 60 countries. 44 While Building the LEGO Classroom 173

the events may seek to incubate innovation for a future knowledge workforce that allows for national competitiveness, the actuality is the making and performance of national competitiveness in the present to benefi t those in control of global capital, the LEGO Group, and others. Government agendas play a signifi cant role in the mission and goals of FIRST. In the case of the US, FIRST connects its organizational goals, which seek to foster STEM profi ciencies, to national concerns over economic growth and security. The 2012 FIRST Five-Year Strategic Plan explains that FIRST’s organizational mission is needed now more than ever since,

[the] President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology explained how increasing the effectiveness of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the United States will greatly beneﬁ t the nation’s economic competitiveness and overall welfare. However, as the same report relates, the United States consistently ranks in the middle of the pack, or lower, in student performance in science and mathematics when compared with other developed nations. 45

FIRST’s goals to improve STEM education through robotics functions under the assumption that educational technologies have positive infl uences on the “economic competiveness and effi ciency of labor and knowledge production”. 46 These assumptions commonly travel in popular and academic circles despite the lack of historical and empirical evidence to support such claims. However, low US international ranking in STEM test scores, diminished movements of students into STEM-related careers via higher education, and a profound achievement gap between white and minority students and students from different socioeconomic backgrounds are issues often identifi ed by those with stakes in STEM performance in economic terms. In this context, STEM education becomes a “global challenge” to strengthen the future of the US workforce through diversity and outreach initiatives. 47 Thus, MINDSTORMS becomes politically situated between the social order and arrangements of education and economics to deal with the uncertain futures of national identity and citizenship. In turn, campaigns and public policies (re)produce national anxieties

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 over the STEM literacy rankings of other nation-states, such as China. These anxieties form as parts of Us versus Them narratives that play out in policy, popular media, documentaries, and at FIRST international competitions. Within the US economic agenda, educational technologies become a means to smooth over tensions within these narratives. Selwyn (2013) identiﬁ es 21st-century skills as a central discourse that connects national concerns with corporate educational technology providers. He explains that while descriptions of 21st-century skills may vary across contexts, the core necessity of acquisition remains the same under the mission of “changing the structures, processes and practices of schools, teachers and students along more 174 Michael Lachney

high-tech, networked and ‘innovative’ lines”. 48 In their report, for example, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology identifies that 21st-century STEM profi ciencies and literacies “should be shared with today’s students and featured via innovative technologies and STEM-focused schools”. 49 While this is not directed specifi cally at LEGO products, this does implicate MINDSTORMS as a toy marketed to improve STEM literacies. Consider the president of the North American branch of LEGO Education, Stephan Turnipseed. As a chair of the Partnership for 21st-Century Skills (P21), Turnipseed adheres to the fact that the LEGO Group seemingly recognizes the importance of including its products in 21st-century skill discourses. On the P21 website, Turnipseed explains how LEGO Education can help to bolster 21st-century STEM skills in youth by taking “the fundamental values of creativity, imagination, and learning from the LEGO® brand and apply[ing] them to in-school and out-of-school settings”. 50 Through P21’s policy efforts, the LEGO Group and other P21 corporate members help to support the federal 21st Century Readiness Act and similar initiatives at state levels. While the federal bill has only been referred to the House Education and Workforce Committee as of February 2014, 51 it advocates for a number of what Larry Cuban describes as “fi rst-order changes”, meaning incremental alterations to existing classroom structures. 52 Predominate throughout the bill are alterations to instruction, specifi cally through technology integration and professional development as means to improve student achievement and support the teaching of 21st-century skills. While these changes may appear to be incremental or fi rst-order at the policy level, an analysis of MINDSTORMS teacher training programs, outreach initiatives, theoretical history, and classroom materials reveal “second-order change” efforts, meaning fundamental modifi cations to the structure of education governance, instruction, and curriculum. 53 These fundamental changes are made explicit in how MINDSTORMS classroom management materials deal with instruction. Constructionism has a history of theory and practice that aims to restructure the role of the teacher in ways that disrupt the traditional “banking approach” 54 of the teacher–student hierarchy—that is, an approach that frames the teacher as the banker of knowledge to be deposited in the student as a

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 receptacle. Alterations to this power differential are propagated in constructionist literature as part of larger reforms to create student-centered education. While connections between international organizations and nation-states are much more complex than what is covered in this chapter, the asymmetry between incremental change in policy and fundamental changes from outside the US education system reveals how coincidences of interests can align and become distant at different levels of intervention. While policy remains conservative in its attempts to reproduce the existing structures in which decision-makers are situated, the LEGO Group, and other educational technology providers who govern simultaneously inside and outside national contexts, are better positioned Building the LEGO Classroom 175

to support fundamental change along market lines. Governance of the EIC suits agendas that aim to restructure public services into something more similar to the market industry by shifting oversight from the public to private sector. Educational discourses that support the application of MINDSTORMS are part of this shift. I will focus speciﬁ cally on how the relationship between MIND- STORMS and teachers’ expertise in classroom management materials feeds into a larger discourse about the role and legitimacy of the teaching profession in the US. Before I examine MINDSTORMS classroom management materials, it is worth noting that, while second-order changes to classroom structures have a long history of advancing student-centered pedagogy, these efforts are often beat out by classroom practices. 55 That said, the uses of MINDSTORMS are context speciﬁ c and can take many different forms. My analysis of MINDSTORMS classroom management materials should not be taken as an account of what actually happens in classrooms, but instead how actors outside the education system aim to create second-order changes through the educational governance of the EIC.

Teachers and MINDSTORMS Research and government reports on the status of STEM education in the US suggest that improving the quality of teachers and teacher preparation programs is essential for student success in the classroom. 56 Even research on the application of MINDSTORMS in classrooms suggests that teacher preparation, deep understanding of the material, and classroom performance are key to students’ problem solving with the technologies. 57 However, MINDSTORMS classroom management materials and university teacher-training programs that partner with LEGO Education often reduce the role of the teacher to that of a coach or workplace manager. As Mark Gura (2011) explains in his introduction to MIND- STORMS for K-12 teachers, “You don’t need to be an encyclopedia of experience and knowledge, but rather a learning coach who directs students to a wealth of available materials when they aren’t learning from their own trial-and-error experiments . . .” 58 Within the context of STEM education reform, such state-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 ments produce a contradiction about the teacher–subject position. On the one hand, teachers need more content preparation to prepare students for the 21st century, but on the other hand, it is acceptable for teachers to not know the content they are teaching due to students’ own self-direction and motivation. This contradiction is part of a larger debate in US education about the legitimacy of the teaching profession. In terms of technology, this contradiction often produces educational discourses that conﬂ ate technological innovation with educational innovation through techno-pedagogic “blended learning”—that is “learner-centered and learner-led modes of technology use with teacher-led, face-to-face instruction”. 59 176 Michael Lachney

In addition to comparatively low salaries, as a profession in the US, teaching receives little public praise and has become a scapegoat for failures in the education system. In the view of many politicians and mainstream news sources, teachers in the US have come to occupy the role of the villain in education reform. Conversely, administrators who issue pink slips, philanthropists who champion charter schools that do not require teachers to be licensed, and politicians that attack union bargaining rights take on roles as heroes. Teachers, unions, and university programs are often blamed for producing and protecting the “bad” teachers that fail to prepare students for success in the “real world”. While some of these critiques are not totally unfounded, in that some university programs reproduce banking approaches to education, 60 blaming teachers and pre-service education preparation has created a culture of pedagogic reductionism that strips professionalism and expertise from the teaching profession. This culture of pedagogic reductionism functions alongside national obsessions, with “high- stakes testing, turnaround-school policy, marketization and privatization of schooling, narrowing of curriculum, lessening of teacher preparation, and experimentation of school reforms by investors”. 61 While these obsessions are presented to help students to prepare for a better future, it is questionable as to whom this future beneﬁ ts and if it is really what teachers and students need to produce better forms of education in their immediate classroom situations. Papert and other constructionists have long championed second-order changes to instruction via computer culture and programming. In a discussion at the Pontiﬁ cal Catholic University of São Paulo in the 1980s with educational philosopher Paulo Freire, Papert explained his attitudes towards the teaching profession:

In the world as it is, there is a certain balance between learning and teaching, where the teaching is so over balanced compared with the importance of learning that it might become true to say that our task is to elevate learning at the expense of teaching. 62

Papert’s recommendations for restructuring the classroom position of the teacher are rooted in student-centered forms of teaching and learning. However, as Freire

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 pointed out to Papert in the discussion, learning without teaching is suspect if the conditions are to foster a more egalitarian classroom. A better alternative to re-thinking the role of the teacher is through Freire’s (1998) notion of the teacher as a “democratic authority”. 63 For Freire, teaching and learning are intimately connected. The authority of the teacher emerges through a generosity that is fostered by solidarity with students as critically engaged learners who work to confront challenges that inhibit political freedom. 64 Papert (1993) also advocates for the teacher-as-learner position, but on grounds of intellect as opposed to politics. In constructionist terms, the “mode of organization for education” is connected to the pedagogic Building the LEGO Classroom 177

theory of knowledge. 65 In other words, whether the school organization is more authoritarian or egalitarian will refl ect how teachers and administrators deal with students’ knowledge. Both Papert and Freire construct teacher–subject positions that deconstruct the teacher/learner binary. Unlike Papert however, Freirean critical pedagogy argues for the teacher-as-learner as a crucial element of a dialogic and politically- engaged classroom. The action–refl ection dialectic known as praxis fosters this type of classroom by making theory and practice inseparable. Praxis begins “with a problem or question that arises in community”, which can then be ethically considered in a dialogic form to produce material change that confronts social inequalities. 66 With Freirean praxis, the gap between theory and practice is overcome by the teachers’ role in helping students to see themselves as historical actors with political agency. This is realized through what Freire (2000) calls “problem-posing” education, in which teachers and students engage in “authentic dialogue” about actual community concerns and problems. 67 Freire explains that problem-posing education breaks down the role of the teacher as owner of the classroom: “Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-student and the student-of- the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students- teachers”. 68 The teacher must engage the world of the student as an open-learner and use the students’ words to shape the learning experience in such a way that encourages the possibility and need for politically-informed ethical considerations and social change through praxis. However, the teacher-subject position in MINDSTORMS classroom management materials upholds and deals with the teaching and learning binary in much different ways than both Freire and Papert. Instead of teacher-as-learner, teaching is reduced to the expertise of coaching and workplace managing. By “reduced”, I do not mean to imply that coaching or managing is to be valued less than teaching, only that they are different and, likewise, I would not expect the expertise of coaching or managing to be reduced to teaching. Any reduction of this kind can be problematic. The ways that teachers are positioned within discourses can have profound effects on collective perceptions and performances of the teaching profession itself. Michel Foucault (1972) explains that the rarefaction of the speaking subject is a form of prohibi- 69 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 tion, which privileges and excludes the “right to speak of a particular subject”. In this sense, the production of educational discourses through lessons, classroom materials, etc., is the creation of subject positions or the discursive position of people’s accessible utterances. Subject positions “construct us as characters and give us a psychology . . . they provide us with a way of making sense of ourselves, our motives, experiences, and reactions”. 70 As I will demonstrate, the subjection of the teacher to the position of coach and/or manager is a different type of classroom expertise than teacher-as-learner. The teacher-as-coach and teacher-as-manager positions have signifi cant overlap throughout MINDSTORMS classroom management materials. Both the coach 178 Michael Lachney

and manager position reproduce cultures of competition at the level of the classroom. The coach must prepare her team to compete against other teams and other coaches. The coach position that Gura supports as part of the LEGO classroom likely appears across MINDSTORMS materials in the US due to the popularity of building FLL teams in schools and extracurricular programs. The FLL Coaches’ Handbook explains, “Do not worry if you are not an expert on some skill or aspect of the [FLL] Challenge. You can work through it with your team. In fact, it may beneﬁ t your team. Children love to solve problems that befuddle adults”. 71 The FLL coach is like a general manager who oversees that day-to-day practices run smoothly to prepare for competition. The manager role is also explicitly competitive, but much more in the way of economic competitiveness. Thus, the manager is closely tied with the discourses of 21st-century skills at the intersection of education and economy. Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Academy teacher training program helps STEM educators to teach beyond the traditional curriculum in ways that foster new pedagogical subjectivities for 21st-century workplaces. They deﬁ ne four roles that students can rotate between: 1) “Engineer (builder)”, 2) “Software Specialist (programmer)”, 3) “Information Specialist (gets the necessary information for the team to move forward)”, and 4) “Project Manager (whip-cracker)”. 72 These roles structure the MINDSTORMS classroom in a way that resembles the workplace problem-solving environment of a high-tech company. Ross Higashi, senior curriculum developer for Robotics Academy explains these choices in a promotional video that cuts between talking heads and black and white footage of students in classrooms and workers in factories:

People have compared the current model of education, where students come in, get knowledge, walk out with knowledge, to a model that was developed for, and designed for, and really suited for the industrial age, where the purpose of the educational system was to make sure that people were prepared for factory work. And what is factory work? Factory work means working very much like a machine. That is absolutely not what people’s role is today. We have machines to do the machine work, so educating people to do machine work is both not interesting to them and 73 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 largely an unproductive use of time.

MINDSTORMS teachers become representatives for STEM education as a way to construct students’ subject positions in the classroom as proﬁ cient 21st-century employees. Similarly, STEMRobotics out of Portland State University’s “First Day of School” classroom resource for K-12 educators states that, “Since Robotics is a STEM class, the career environment presented here is that of a professional working in a high-tech company”. 74 Contrasting the teacher-as-learner and teacher-as-coach/manager with the traditional teacher position as a banker of knowledge reveals shifts in the Building the LEGO Classroom 179

teacher–subject position, which alter expectations of pedagogic expertise and labor. These are productive shifts to theorize, in that the dominant banking approach to pedagogy frames information transfer as acts of depositing “dead morsels of knowledge into passive and subservient students”. 75 However, the types of expertise of the coach and manager differ from teacher-as-learner. It can be argued that the expertise of the coach or manager is “interactional”, while the teacher-as-learner is a form of “contributory expertise”. 76 The differences and similarities between these forms of expertise is a matter of where an expert is located in the knowledge and language production of a given activity. In this case, these differences hinge on whether a teacher-as-learner can be realized in an active-reﬂ ective praxis of educational robotics. Contributory expertise is the “internalization” or “embodiment” of skills for performance efﬁ cacy. 77 Teachers as contributory experts have the abilities to participate in both the production of knowledge and language of their subject and pedagogic domain. Those with contributory expertise also have a certain level of interactional expertise; for example, an artist would have contributory and interactional expertise in relation to art, but an art critic would only have interactional expertise. Harry Collins and Robert Evans (2007) explain how interactional expertise provides a useful description for how coaches and manag- ers with shared linguistic skills of their team or employees, “can transfer mutually understood tacit meaning that would be unavailable to those with levels of expertise below interactional”. 78 Interactional skills are essential for teachers. Teachers must be able to share a language with their students to be effective at their profession. However, unlike contributory expertise, in the case of interactional expertise there exists a gap between language and practice. This gap between language and practice renders problematic for a realization of teacher-as-learner in terms of Freirean praxis. Instead of educator, the teacher- as-coach/manager takes on the task of training. David Noble (2001) distinguishes between education and training in terms of knowledge and self. 79 Training has a divorce between knowledge and self. This divorce leads to restrictive sets of ideas that can load MINDSTORMS with Western ideology through reductive and shallow factoids. For example, MINDSTORMS and other constructionist technologies have great potential to help teach evolutionary biology. 80 However,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 this is problematic when MINDSTORMS is used to teach evolution with the outdated model of “survival of the fi ttest”, 81 which has a history and underlying association with Social Darwinism. Because the teacher has been reduced to a coach, reductive sets of factoids fi ll in for contributory guidance. It is possible to teach current evolutionary concepts, artifi cial selection and adaptation for example, using MINDSTORMS but the odds of actually achieving this diminishes with a divorce between knowledge and self. Conversely, education affi rms the teachers’ own knowledge in the information transfer process. With education, “knowledge and the knowledgeable person are basically inseparable”. 82 This speaks to the embodiment and internalization of 180 Michael Lachney

knowledge in practice that signifi es the contributory expertise of teacher-as- learner. While interactional expertise is certainly important, training as a form of teaching STEM through MINDSTORMS confl ates technological innovation with pedagogic innovation. It is not improvements in teaching practices that are being innovated to change the learning environment, which can be imagined by class size reduction or through knowledge-based professional development. Instead, innovation in education is a form of techno-pedagogic blending that locates change at the intersection of student and technology. There are three areas of concern that arise out of this confl ation and shift in expertise. First, the divorce between knowledge and self in training risks alienating teachers from their labor. This should be of concern in consideration of high teacher turnover rates, 83 quality of internalized information, and use of shallow and reductive factoids. Second, research suggests that in technology classrooms MINDSTORMS may only be effective for some groups of students. 84 If this is the case, a variety of techno-pedagogic blending types may need to be considered for MINDSTORMS to be used as effective classroom tools. It may be that not all students benefi t from the reproduction of cultures of competition at the level of the classroom. Research advises that teacher attitudes towards MINDSTORMS and other educational robotics systems will infl uence students’ own understandings and uses of these technologies. 85 Third, the coach/manager subject position may increase the likelihood that teachers will overlook two major issues of 21st-century media and technology education: 1) “the transparency problem” and 2) “the ethical challenge”. 86 As Henry Jenkins et al . (2009) explain, the transparency problem arises out of a laissez-faire assumption that children are naturally refl exive about their media and technology experiences. It assumes that children can critically articulate what they have learned from their experiences as users. The ethical challenge assumes that children can develop “ethical norms needed to cope with the complex and diverse social environment” of media and technology without adult intervention. 87 As a way to think through these concerns, I work from a Freirean teacher-as-learner approach to propose the development of critical robotics pedagogies .

Toward Critical Robotics Pedagogies

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 I deﬁ ne critical robotics pedagogies as forms of educational robotics that frame technologies as political, foster the action–reﬂ ection dialectic (praxis), and engage in forms of community-based problem-posing education. These forms of educational robotics can support students’ and teachers’ views of themselves as historical actors with agency in socio-technical change. To understand educational robotics in this way requires that learners (teachers and students) are able to know what to preserve, deconstruct, and re-build in their immediate linguistic and material world. Commitments to social movements, taking seriously the threats made by Western consumerism against cultural heritage, and challenging inequalities is central to this understanding. I present two interrelated ways to Building the LEGO Classroom 181

think about critical robotics pedagogies that challenge the traditional banking approach to education: Social Justice Engineering Education , and Literacies of Appro- priation . Alternatively, these pedagogies should support the contributory expertise of the teacher-as-learner, foster inclusive, diverse, and alternative forms of educational robotics, and confront the transparency problem and ethical challenge in MINDSTORMS classrooms. My goal in presenting alternative approaches to the classroom application of MINDSTORMS is to support the idea that STEM education can begin with praxis, as the reﬂ ective-action of engaging social, political, and economic concerns and issues. Ultimately, this move aims to refocus governance from the global EIC to local communities and learners.

Social Justice Engineering Education While social justice engineering educators regularly speak to and about teachers and students in higher education, 88 ethical and analytical considerations about how engineering design is situated in local communities are applicable to the ethical challenge of educational robotics in K-12. Engineering education literature concerned with social justice provides opportunities to connect community needs with design processes. To a certain extent, confronting community problems is already part of FLL Challenges. The 2013 FLL Challenge was called “Nature’s Fury”, which challenged teams to “identify a community that could experience a natural disaster” and develop projects to help that community. 89 However, just as the reductive position of the teacher-as-coach leads to factoids of “survival of the ﬁ ttest” in place of biology education, the Nature’s Fury challenge implies that natural disasters are simply unforeseen quirks of nature: “Think about the technology that allows people to study natural events, predict when they might happen, predict the risk of harm to people and property”. 90 In contrast, social scientists demonstrate that there is little that is purely “natural” about these events. Indeed, the disaster of Katrina, for instance, is shown to be a product of political, social, and economic factors. 91 Framing disasters as human products allows learners to engage in problem-posing education. Issues of race, class, and geography, for instance, can become part of the ethical considerations that go into design praxis for the FLL Nature’s Fury Challenge.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Donna Riley (2008) explicitly connects Freirean problem-posing education and praxis to the engineering design process. 92 Riley identifi es three features that are important for social justice engineering praxis. First, problems arise from communities. Understanding how problems produce inequalities can be part of the ethical challenge of learning to navigate the socio-technical make up of a community. This is in contrast to common engineering projects that begin with a design idea that will later be marketed to communities; “this kind of artifi cial need inducement is most certainly not praxis”. 93 Second, the problem is considered in the context of ethics. Figuring out what the right design choices are depends on learners’ abilities to fi gure out how their choices will infl uence 182 Michael Lachney

people of different ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and geographical locations. Third, the design should remain open, without assumptions about following a linear process. Teachers can help students to articulate what the design problem means to them, why it may mean different things to different people, and how to talk to different people about design problems throughout the process. These differences can open a space for learners to feel comfortable in making changes, based on a diversity of community feedback. In this sense, critical robotics pedagogies can slow down the design process to provide conceptual tools to think about relationships of technology and society, rather than just assuming that students can invent all the tools they need on their own. MINDSTORMS design offers a way to pose questions, not merely supply answers.

Literacies of Appropriation Literacies of appropriation are skill-sets that help learners to confront the material affordances and limitations of MINDSTORMS as a commercial product in the context of social power and resistance. Literacies of appropriation can map onto the critical pedagogies of social justice engineering education. A common defi nition of appropriation is the re-purposing of semiotic and/or material culture. Ron Eglash (2008) provides a useful model that defi nes appropriated technologies as movements along axes of social power and production-consumption. 94 A third dimension to the axes of high–low social power and production-consumption is an uphill slope that signifi es the struggle of artifacts, people, and ideas to resist the downward fl ow from high-social power/production that “keeps disenfranchised groups away from such production”. 95 This helps to confront the transparency problem and acknowledge the dynamics of social power across communities with different levels of material access. To understand how this might be useful for the MINDSTORMS classroom, consider Ellen Foster’s (2013) work with a New York middle school science teacher in the E-Waste-to-Makerspace after school program. 96 While the project does not use MINDSTORMS, the general idea of appropriating technologies is clear. In the program, students learn to manipulate and re-purpose e-waste in ways that explicitly combines the (de)construction of technologies with social

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 and political reﬂ ection. Foster explains:

Teaching [students] the basics of component parts (what is a resistor, capacitor, motor, circuit, etc.) by looking at E-Waste was a helpful foundation for them to think about what parts are salvageable from E-Waste, and which are potentially dangerous immediately or to the environment. 97

This quote models how praxis can potentially deepen learners’ understandings of technologies as, in this case, environmentally political, while also fostering agency in socio-technical change through appropriation. Building the LEGO Classroom 183

I propose that MINDSTORMS can be analogously used to confront the transparency problem of learners’ active-refl ection on technological experiences as users. The introduction of MINDSTORMS into the E-Waste-to-Makerspace program would yield a different set of expectations about its uses than traditional educational robotics. Questions about how to build and program MIND- STORMS in standard ways could be asked alongside questions about the affordances of the programmable brick and what materials (hazardous and not) make up the brick itself. Learners could compare and contrast the programmable brick as proprietary hardware to open-source programmable hardware such as Arduinos, to develop critiques about how MINDSTORMS positions users along the producer–consumer continuum. Central to these examples is the acknowledgement that MINDSTORMS includes commercial LEGO products with specifi c confi gurations of users and political implications. Teachers can work to actively refl ect on designers’ and developers’ expectations and how students as producers, as opposed to consumers, can deviate from these expectations. Building opportunities to hack MINDSTORMS and remix it with other materials as art and/or social commentary, as opposed to a tool for competition, is a basic example of how critical robotics pedagogies can widen learners’ political understandings of the socio-technical world and foster greater agency over accessible technologies.

Conclusion MINDSTORMS, as a technological artifact, emerges from layers of competition that reach between global and local levels of educational governance. As part of the EIC, the LEGO Group is in a network of foundations, non-proﬁ ts, government agencies, international organizations, etc., that make up global forms of educational governance beyond, though not separate from, traditional government models. Within this network, the LEGO Group is able to position its products as part of national education agendas. In the US, MINDSTORMS is situated between concerns over the future of national identity and citizenship at intersections of education and economy. Shifts in the expertise of teachers in MINDSTORMS classroom materials and

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 teacher training programs prove problematic for better STEM education. Teachers can be re-conceptualized as learners to attend to the transparency problem and ethical challenges that must be confronted as part of technology education. I propose a move towards critical robotics pedagogies to overcome these issues. This study is far from a complete overview of the politics of MINDSTORMS. I have not shown actual practices of teachers and students who use MIND- STORMS in schools and extracurricular programs. Moving forward, ethnographic methods can provide useful information to ﬁ ll in the empirical gaps of this study. Speciﬁ cally, what asymmetries exist between the educational discourses that surround MINDSTORMS and classroom practice? An answer to this 184 Michael Lachney

question will highlight how teachers are active users who accommodate and resist the techno-pedagogic blending that educational governance seeks to foster as part of 21st-century US STEM classrooms.

Notes I would like to express appreciation to Dr. Ron Eglash, Ellen Foster, Colin Garvey, Elizabeth Schewe, and Dr. Langdon Winner for their support and critical feedback of this chapter, and to acknowledge NSF grant DGE-0947980 in support of this work.

1. See Langdon Winner, The Whale and The Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1986. 2. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, G. E. M. Anscombe, translator, 2nd edition, Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1958 (1953). 3. See Winner, The Whale and The Reactor, 1986, page 25. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., page 22. 6. See Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, New York, NY: Harrow Books, 1971; Paulo Freire, Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000. 7. See Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America: Education Reform and the Contradiction of Economic Life , New York, NY: Basic Books, 1976; Paul Willis, Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1977; and Bradley A. Levinson and Dorothy Holland, editors, The Cultural Production of the Educated Person: Critical Ethnographies of Schooling and Local Practice, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996. 8. According to Ludy T. Benjamin, the Skinner teaching machine’s “pictorial scroll at the top of the apparatus was moved by a hand crank, a series of pictures . . . thus providing the unit of information” that was designed to help teach students spelling. See Ludy T. Benjamin, “A History of Teaching Machines”, American Psychologist 43, No. 9, 1988, page 701. 9. See Lewis Mumford, “The Automation of Knowledge”, AV communication review 12, No. 3, 1964, page 268. 10. See David Noble, Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education . New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2001. 11. See Langdon Winner, “Information Technology and Educational Amnesia”, Policy Futures in Education 7, No. 6, 2009, page 588. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 12. See Torin Monahan, Globalization, Technological Change, and Public Education, New York, NY: Routledge, 2005. 13. See Stephen J. Ball and Carolina Junemann, Networks, New Governance and Education, Chicago, IL: The Policy Press, 2012, page 3. 14. See Anthony G. Picciano and Joel Spring, The Great American Education-Industrial Complex: Ideology, Technology, and Proﬁ t, New York, NY: Routledge, 2013, page 8. 15. See Neil Selwyn, Education in a Digital World: Global Perspectives on Technology and Education, New York, NY: Routledge, 2013, page 61. 16. Ibid., page 17. 17. See Winner, The Whale and The Reactor, 1986, page 12. Building the LEGO Classroom 185

18. Quoted in David C. Robertson and Bill Breen, Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry, New York, NY: Crown Business, 2013, page 23. 19. See the LEGO Group, Annual Report 2012 , Billund, Denmark: Corporate Finance, Group Finance, and Corporate Communications, 2012. 20. See Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1958. 21. Ibid., page 11. 22. See Ted Thornhill, “The phones of the future are DIY! Motorola will 3D-print ‘modular’ mobiles that customers can put together like Lego”, Mail Online , November 29, 2013, available at www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515747/Motorola- start-3D-printing-modular-mobiles-customers-like-Lego.html#ixzz2obSb3O29. 23. See European Commission, “Advances in Synthetic and Designer Biology”, available at http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/futurium/en/content/advances-synthetic-and- designer-biology. 24. See Seymour Papert, “Computer Criticism vs. Technocentric Thinking”, Educational Researcher, 17.1, 1987, pages 22–30. 25. See Wayne Hodgins with Marcia Conner, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Learning Objects but Were Afraid To Ask”, Line Zine , Fall 2000, available at www. linezine.com/2.1/features/wheyewtkls.htm. 26. See John Dewey, Education and Experience, New York, NY: Collier Books, 1938; and Jean Piaget, “The Construction of Reality in the Child”, Journal of Consulting Psychol- ogy 19, 1955, page 77. 27. See Carol Gilligan, “Adolescent Development Reconsidered”, New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 37, 1987, page 57. 28. See George E. DeBoer, A History of Ideas in Science Education: Implications for Practice , New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 1991, page 232. 29. See Seymour Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, New York, NY: Basic Books, 1980. 30. See Seymour Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, 2nd edition, New York, NY: Basic Books, 1993, page 23. 31. See Harold Abelson and Andrea A. diSessa, Turtle Geometry: The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics, 2nd edition, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981. 32. See Mitchel Resnick, Turtles, Termites, and Trafﬁ c Jams. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. 33. See Seymour Papert, The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer , New York, NY: Basic Books, 1993. 34. See Mizuko Ito, Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009, pages 153–4. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 35. See Randy Sargent, Mitchel Resnick, Fred Martin, and Brian Silverman, “Building and Learning with Programmable Bricks”, in Yasmin Kafai and Mitchel Resnick, editors, Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking and Learning in a Digital World , Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1996, pages 161–73; and Mitchel Resnick, Amy Bruckman, and Fred Martin, “Creating New Construction Kits for Kids”, in Allison Druin, editor, The Design of Children’s Technology , San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 1999, pages149–68. 36. See “Support Our Mission”, FIRST LEGO League, available at www.ﬁ rstlegoleague. org/mission/support. 37. See Winner, The Whale and the Reactor, 1986, page 22. 186 Michael Lachney

38. See the LEGO Foundation, “First Ever Offi cial LEGO® Model of the UN Completed by Ban Ki-Moon”, available at www.legofoundation.com/en-us/newsroom/articles/ ban-ki-moon/. 39. See Selwyn, Education in a Digital World, 2013, page 48. 40. See “Project Map”, the LEGO Foundation, available www.legofoundation.com/en-us/ programs-and-partnerships/project-map/. 41. The FIRST LEGO League is part of FIRST international competitions for middle school students from around the world. Junior FIRST LEGO League is for youth from ages six to nine. Both use LEGO products. 42. See the LEGO Foundation, Fact Sheet FLL Global, Billund, Denmark: the LEGO Group, 2012. 43. FLL Challenges are broken up into two parts: 1) Robot Game—race against the clock to complete tasks against other teams, and 2) Project—present a project based on the year’s Challenge theme. 44. See FIRST, “FIRST 2012 Annual Report”, available at www.usfi rst.org/annual-report/ index.html#/2-3/. 45. See FIRST, “FIRST Five-Year Strategic Plan (2013–2017)”, available at www3.usfi rst. org/uploadedFiles/Who/Leadership/BOD/FIRST_Strategic_Plan.pdf. 46. See Selwyn, Education in a Digital World, 2013, page 73. 47. See Rising Above the Gathering Storm Committee, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 , Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2010. 48. See Selwyn, Education in a Digital World, 2013, page 58. 49. See President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (US). Prepare and Inspire: K-12 Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) for America's Future: Executive Report . Washington DC: Executive Offi ce of the President, President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2010, page 79. 50. See Partnership For 21st Century Skills, “Driving Question: STEM Learning Is Criti- cal, But Are We Losing Sight Of What Is Even More Important – Creativity?”, available at www.p21.org/news-events/p21blog/1067stephanturnipseed. 51. See H.R. 347–113th Congress: 21st Century Readiness Act. (2013), available at www. govtrack.us/congress/bills/113. 52. See Larry Cuban, Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice: Change Without Reform in American Education, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2013, page 3. 53. Ibid., page 3. 54. See Freire, Pedagogy Of The Oppressed , 2000. 55. See Cuban, Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice, 2013. 56. See David E. Drew, STEM the Tide: Reforming Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education in America, Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2011; and US Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Department Of Education, A Blueprint for R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Recognizing Education Success, Professional Excellence And Collaborative Teaching , Washington, DC: US Department of Education, 2013. 57. See Shakir Hussain, Jörgen Lindh, and Ghazi Shukur, “The Effect of LEGO Training on Pupils’ School Performance in Mathematics, Problem Solving Ability and Attitude: Swedish Data”, Educational Technology & Society 9, No. 3, 2006, pages 182–94. 58. See Mark Gura, Getting Started With LEGO Robotics: A Guide for K-12 Educators, Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education, 2011, page 16. 59. See Neil Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates, New York, NY: Continuum, 2011, page 134. Building the LEGO Classroom 187

60. See Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren, “Teacher education and the politics of engagement: The case for democratic schooling”, in Pepi Leistyna, Arlie Woodrum, and Stephen A. Sherblom, editors, Breaking Free: The Transformative Power of Critical Pedagogy , Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review, 1996, pages 301–31. 61. See Kevin K. Kumashiro, Bad Teacher!: How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture , New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2012, page 79. 62. See “Freire and Papert”, Vimeo Video, posted by Gary Stager, February 28, 2011, available at http://vimeo.com/20497106. 63. See Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy and Civic Courage, Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littleﬁ eld, 1998. 64. Ibid., pages 86–7. 65. See Papert, The Children’s Machine, 1993, page 61. 66. See Donna Riley, “Engineering and Social Justice”, Synthesis Lectures on Engineers, Technology, and Society 3, No. 1, 2008, pages 1–152. 67. See Freire, Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, 2000; and Ernest Morrell, Critical Literacy and Urban Youth: Pedagogies of Access, Dissent, and Liberation , New York, NY: Routledge, 2008, page 108. 68. See Freire, Pedagogy Of The Oppressed , 2000, page 80. 69. See Michel Foucault, The Archeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language, New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1972, page 216. 70. See Margaret Wetherell, “Themes in Discourse Research: The Case of Diana”, in Margret Wetherell, Stephanie Taylor, and Simeon J. Yates, editors, Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader , Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2001, page 24. 71. See FIRST LEGO League, FIRST LEGO League Coaches Handbook, Manchester, NH: FIRST and the LEGO Group, 2012, page 14. 72. See Cornell Cooperative Extension, Steps To Starting a LEGO Robotics Program, available at http://nys4h.cce.cornell.edu/about%20us/Documents/Steps%20to%20starting%20 a%20LEGO%20robotics%20program.pdf. 73. See “Changing the Classroom with Robotics”, YouTube Video, posted by “Robotics Academy” November 20, 2012, available at www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=pjWckRnHAiY. 74. See STEMRobotics, “First Days of School”, available at http://stemrobotics.cs.pdx. edu/node/1010?root=1010. 75. See Eric Gutstein, Reading and Writing the World with Mathematics: Toward a Pedagogy for Social Justice , New York, NY: Routledge, 2006, page 89. 76. See Harry Collins and Robert Evans, Rethinking Expertise, Chicago, IL: The Chicago University Press, 2007. 77. Ibid., page 24. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 78. Ibid., page 30. 79. See Noble, Digital Diploma Mills, 2001. 80. See Resnick, Turtles, Termites, and Trafﬁ c Jams, 1994. 81. See “ZAP Camp at South Central College”, Community Education and Recreation, available at https://ssl.dwebsite.com/secure2/ce_maps/php/public.php?action= classDetail&is_ongoing_event=0&classId=11589&programId=52&categoryId=133&sl iding_fee_id=0&from=. 82. See Noble, Digital Diploma Mills, 2001, page 2. 83. See Kacey Guin, “Chronic Teacher Turnover in Urban Elementary Schools”, Education Policy Analysis Archives 12, No. 42, 2004, pages 1–30. 188 Michael Lachney

84. See Jörgen Lindh and Thomas Holgersson, “Does Lego Training Stimulate Pupils’ Ability to Solve Logical Problems?”, Computers & Education 49, No. 4, 2007, pages 1097–1111. 85. See Fabiane Barreto Vavassori Benitti, “Exploring the Educational Potential of Robotics in Schools: A Systematic Review”, Computers & Education 58, No. 3, 2012, pages 978–88. 86. See Henry Jenkins, with Ravi Purushotma, Margaret Weigle, Katie Clinton, and Alice J. Robinson, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. 87. Ibid., page 15. 88. See Wendy Marie Cumming-Potvin and John Currie, “Towards New Literacies and Social Justice for Engineering Education”, International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace 2, No. 1, 2013, pages 21–37; and Dean Nieusma and Donna Riley, “Designs on Development: Engineering, Globalization, and Social Justice”, Engineering Studies 2, No. 1, 2010, pages 29–59. 89. See FIRST LEGO League, Nature’s Fury: Topic Guide, Manchester, New Hampshire: FIRST and the LEGO Group, 2013, available at www.ﬁ rstlegoleague.org/sites/default/ﬁ les/ Challenge/NaturesFury/NATURE%27S%20FURY%20Topic%20Guide.pdf, page 2. 90. Ibid., page 5. 91. See Chester W. Hartman and Gregory D. Squires, editors, There Is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina, New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. 92. See Donna Riley, “Engineering and Social Justice”, Synthesis Lectures on Engineers, Technology, and Society 3, No. 1, 2008, pages 1–152. 93. Ibid., page 108. 94. See Ron Eglash, “Appropriating Technology: An Introduction”, in Ron Eglash, Jennifer L. Croissant, Giovanna Di Chiro, and Rayvon Fouché, editors, Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis, 2004, pages vii–xxi. 95. Ibid., page xv. 96. See “E-Waste to Makerspace”, available at http://e-wastetomakerspace.wikispaces.com/ home. 97. See Ellen Foster, “After School Re-Use Technology Club – Working with E-Waster”, Triple Helix: A NSF GK-12 Program at Rensselaer, available at www.3helix.rpi. edu/?p=3686. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 10 THE LEGO SYSTEM AS A TOOL FOR THINKING, CREATIVITY, AND CHANGING THE WORLD

David Gauntlett

This essay looks at LEGO as a tool for supporting creative thinking, developing creative cultures, and contributing to processes which might make a difference in how the world works. My thoughts about these ambitious themes are not plucked from nowhere, nor are they those of a passive observer, but they might be treated cautiously for a different reason, because they draw upon my experience of several years of close collaboration with the LEGO Group in Billund, Denmark. I am an academic, a Professor in the Faculty of Media, Arts and Design at the University of Westminster in London, UK, but this means I have also—very happily, for me—been able to work with LEGO on a number of projects, as part of their ongoing collaboration with selected academic researchers. From 2005, I worked with the LEGO Group on the development of the consultancy process, LEGO Serious Play, and since 2008, I have worked with the LEGO Learning Institute and the LEGO Foundation exploring play, creativity, and learning. 1 In this essay, I will begin by considering the LEGO System, and its reach as a cultural system. Then I will look at LEGO as a tool to support thinking and collaboration. I will introduce a model of creative cultures, which will be applied

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 to LEGO communities, and then maker culture more generally, and consider how individual imagination and collaborative creativity can work together. Finally, I will consider some ways in which LEGO products and communities might be said—as in the title of this chapter—to be “changing the world”.

The LEGO System The LEGO System, as commonly understood, refers to the idea that any LEGO element, or any LEGO set, is not an isolated or complete object, but comes with the potential, and the promise, that it is part of a much larger whole. The system 190 David Gauntlett

of interconnecting studs and tubes, patented by the LEGO Group in 1958, means that any LEGO object can be connected with others and almost endlessly extended. The system is good for users, because the value of their LEGO collection is increased as it grows—because they are able to do more diverse and more interesting things—and obviously this works well for the company too, providing customers with a rational motivation to make more purchases from the same range of products. It was Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, the third son of LEGO founder Ole Kirk Christiansen, who developed the idea of a “System of Play”, rather than one-off toy products. The idea had been suggested to him by a buyer from Copenhagen’s department store, Magasin du Nord, on a North Sea ferry, as they made their way to London’s Toy Fair in January 1954. 2 Captivated by the idea of a system, Godfred spent several weeks working out the attributes of the system, arriving at six core features: 3

1. Limited in size without setting limitations for imagination 2. Affordable 3. Simple, durable, and offer rich variations 4. For girls, for boys, fun for every age 5. A classic among toys, without the need of renewal 6. Easy to distribute

These features refer to the product, but also suggest a human dimension which is not contained in the bricks themselves, with notions such as “imagination”, “classic”, and “fun”. Inevitably, of course, the system is not just about objects but about what humans do with the objects. But I would argue that we can take this much further. Today, it seems fair to say that LEGO bricks are just one part of a complex and dynamic set of relationships, where LEGO products and the LEGO Group are clearly central, but are only as important as the numerous communities of LEGO users and fans, of all ages, and the broader elements of the ecosystem including parents, educators, retailers, and the many cultural contexts in which LEGO is to be found. Flowing around the relationships in this system are the shared meanings and collective ethos fostered by use of LEGO 4 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 products. Research by Yun Mi Antorini and colleagues has explicated the ways in which an ecosystem has developed around LEGO products—and in a sense, LEGO ideals—in which the signiﬁ cant actors include all users, young and old, but especially LEGO fans and their communities; parents, educators, retailers, licensing partners, journalists, and, of course, the LEGO Group itself. The LEGO System is a system which includes all of these materials, and people, and online networks. Furthermore, the LEGO System is built around ideas and principles, in a way that other creative or construction materials, such as modeling clay, are not. If the heart of the LEGO System is the notion that “everything connects to The LEGO System as a Tool for Thinking 191

everything else”, which begins with the studs and tubes system, we can see that this then extends out across the broadly understood system to embody a democratic philosophy of things fi tting together, and empowering people to build. This is found in the values that people associate with LEGO products—an ethic of thoughtfulness, caring, and playing together. 5 This philosophy also accounts for the strong relationships between LEGO fans and the broader “maker culture”, discussed below. These values and networks are unusual—most other tools or toys or creative materials cannot claim them (perhaps the community of Linux developers comes closest, but is rather different)—so this notion of a LEGO System is actually both meaningful and distinctive. In the very fi rst of the LEGO Learning Institute projects that I was involved with, Defi ning Systematic Creativity , written with Cecilia Weckstrom and Edith Ackermann, 6 we set out a ten-point description of the LEGO system, which begins with physical attributes of LEGO bricks and pieces, but broadens out to include the system’s ethos, which is just as important, although less tangible.

1. An interconnecting set of parts: connections come easily and sometimes in unexpected ways. 2. A low entry level for skills : so that anyone can pick up LEGO bricks and make something satisfactory. 3. A medium for mastery: a developed level of expertise is also rewarded as the system can be used to create both very simple and very complex constructions. 4. The ability to create something where previously there was nothing : imagination coupled with the lack of need for preparation and planning; as they say in LEGO Serious Play, “If you start building, it will come”. 5. An open system with inﬁ nite possibilities : it can grow in all directions and the parts can be combined in limitless ways. 6. A belief in the potential of children and adults and their natural imagination: anyone can make and express whatever they want to, through the system. 7. A belief in the value of creative play : a respect for play as a powerful vehicle for learning and exploration. 8. A supportive environment: different ideas can be tried out and experimented with, with no negative consequences. On the contrary, it is common that one

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 good idea leads to another. 9. The LEGO System grows with the person: from the youngest child to the adult user. 10. The LEGO System also grows beyond the person : at all levels of engagement with LEGO products, from DUPLO to the world of the AFOL [Adult Fan of LEGO], LEGO bricks are a social tool, fostering connection and collaboration.

This ten-point list proved to be really valuable for later projects. When we produced later studies such as The Future of Play (2011), The Future of Learning 192 David Gauntlett

(2012), and Cultures of Creativity (2013), the list offered a clear path to link our fi ndings back to the LEGO System. 7 A number of these points refl ect the notion of “low fl oor, high ceiling, and wide walls”. 8 The LEGO system has a low fl oor, which means it is easy for newcomers to get started, whilst the high ceiling means that more experienced users can work on increasingly complex projects. Most important of all are the wide walls, which mean that creativity and imagination can take a project in innumerable directions. Our ten-point list takes this further by including the social—going “beyond the person” to foster “connection and collaboration”. But really it doesn’t go far enough. The greatest strength of LEGO today is its place in networks of people with shared passions and values. LEGO before the Internet was rather like computers themselves before the Internet. In the 1980s, we had home computers and had great fun tinkering with them and programming. They weren’t connected to the Internet—most people had not really heard about the Internet at that point. Today, of course, the idea of a computer that doesn’t link you to the Internet is inconceivable. Similarly, LEGO toys have always been great fun, but today, the whole idea of LEGO is fantastically boosted by its visible online interconnection with cultures of enthusiasm, learning, and support.

A Tool for Thinking Before we proceed to discuss the LEGO System as an expansive and thriving culture, this section pauses at the individual and small-group level to consider LEGO as a tool for thinking. Clearly, LEGO bricks offer huge opportunities for imaginative play, which is what children normally do with them, and can be used to build cool or complex models of things—vehicles, buildings, or whatever—or they can form the basis for machines and robots, which is often the adult domain. Here, though, our focus is on using LEGO bricks to support the representation of ideas, and the organization of thinking. As the psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist Merlin Donald 9 has shown, a central component of human evolution has been our ability to make tools and to externalize thoughts. Being able to communicate and store ideas, through

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 innovations such as drawing and writing, has been a crucial plank in evolution. The individual human brain may be remarkable, but it becomes much more powerful through the use of tools which enable us to set out and review our thoughts and ideas. It can be diffi cult to hold all the parts of a complex argument or situation in mind at once, but once thoughts are put into “external storage”—such as writing, a diagram, or a model—they can be shared, developed and worked on. Donald writes that “We can arrange ideas in the external memory fi eld”—by which he means, in the physical realm, when we have represented them somehow—“where they can be examined and subjected to clas- sifi cation, comparison, and experimentation”. He continues: The LEGO System as a Tool for Thinking 193

In this way, externally displayed thoughts can be assembled into complex arguments much more easily than they can in biological memory. Images displayed in this fi eld are vivid and enduring, unlike the fl eeting ghosts of imagination. This enables us to see them clearly, play with them, and craft them into fi nished products, to a level of refi nement that is impossible for an unaided brain. 10

It was this idea, that abstract meanings, feelings, or concepts could be physically represented, and then manipulated and tinkered with, that was embraced within LEGO Serious Play. LEGO Serious Play was a consultancy process developed by the LEGO Group, from the mid-1990s, and was an activity for groups of adults, guided by a facilitator, in which participants would build metaphorical models using LEGO bricks (see Figure 10.1 ). The models would typically represent their experiences of activities, structures and communications within their organizations, and then—having externalized these things, by building them in LEGO—they would go on to combine and review their built meanings, and then to build ideas for initiatives or strategies, in response to this construction. Unusually, LEGO Serious Play invited people to build in metaphors —everything in metaphors. So, for example, a school would not be constructed as a building with doors and Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 10.1 Participants in a LEGO Serious Play workshop. (Photo by David Gauntlett). 194 David Gauntlett

windows, but would be represented with interconnected metaphors such as an owl representing knowledge, fl owers refl ecting emotional support, a tower for leadership, and a staircase representing personal growth. The central idea of LEGO Serious Play is not uniquely tied to business consultancy. It can be used to represent all kinds of experiences and feelings, and responses to things. From 2005, I worked with the LEGO Group on researching some aspects of this process, and I developed it as a social-science research tool. (My project, which used LEGO Serious Play to explore how people thought about their own identities, was published as Creative Explorations. 11) In 2007–8, Anna-Sophie Trolle Terkelsen, a concept developer in LEGO Education, took the principles of LEGO Serious Play and created a self-facilitated version, which dispensed with much of the apparatus that had been built up around LEGO Serious Play. Her adaptation had the appearance of a board game—although it was not exactly a game as such— which prompted participants to move through a sequence of activities, picking up cards that would tell them what to do next. Different sets of cards could be used to prompt people to explore different concepts, themes, or issues. This innovation made LEGO Serious Play much more portable and less labor-intensive. Others, including myself, also modifi ed the process in different ways—often in response to the previously-established “prescribed” version of LEGO Serious Play, which made heavy demands in terms of materials (specifi c collections of LEGO bricks in huge boxes), time (one or two day sessions), and people (a fully trained facilitator required for every session). When Trolle Terkelsen and I were asked to produce the “open source” release of LEGO Serious Play in 2010—the LEGO Group had basically decided not to continue trying to make money from the process in any direct way, and was happy to release it “into the wild” instead—we included a lot of the very good and thoughtful original scripting and etiquette of LEGO Serious Play sessions from the original manuals, but sought to balance this with a more fl exible and “lightweight” approach to its implementation. In any case, these details about the complicated life of LEGO Serious Play are less important than the very different-to-normal use of LEGO bricks which it demonstrated. The process showed that LEGO could be used to represent abstract experiences, feelings or ideas—and then could be used to think through the implications of those things, and to build alternatives or solutions to what was 12 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 shown, either as an individual process, or in groups. Having a physical thing — representing, say, an organization, a relationship, or a challenging situation—means that its creator and others can examine, review and discuss the concerns that are represented, often raising provocative issues (“Wouldn’t you expect [x] to be closer to [y]?” “The whole thing seems to be dominated by [z], and there is very little substance when you look round the back”—or whatever). The physical building of such non-physical phenomena means that LEGO bricks can be a genuinely helpful tool for thinking, and is rather distinct from what you could do with other materials. Of course, it might seem that a similar process could be conducted with modeling clay, or pen and paper, but, having The LEGO System as a Tool for Thinking 195

tried such alternatives, I can say that they are less pleasing and much less efﬁ cient for most participants. With LEGO, most people can assemble a range of meanings, and revise and combine them, rather easily. With other materials, I found, participants were much more anxious about their abilities—embarrassed that they could “not draw” or could not make their model “look right”—and everything was much slower, with single representations taking a long time to produce. 13 So although LEGO is not totally unique as a tool for representing ideas and concepts, and collaborating on their development, it certainly has affordances which make it signiﬁ cantly more useful than anything else I’ve seen.

A Cultural Model—Applied to LEGO Cultures LEGO Serious Play is, of course, a little-known fragment of the LEGO universe. The culture of LEGO products and users is broad and diverse. In the LEGO Foundation Cultures of Creativity report we adapted a model of culture (see Figure 10.2 ) which was proposed by Anne Scott Sørensen et al. (2010) as a way of thinking about creative cultures. 14 (The LEGO Foundation does work around the themes of play, learning, and creativity—clearly, very “LEGO” themes—but it is independent from the company, and is not primarily concerned with LEGO products). The model is useful for thinking about the culture of LEGO, and LEGO within cultures—both of which this book is about—as well as creative cultures more generally. 15 The model by Anne Scott Sørensen and colleagues, which we adapted, had itself drawn upon a number of previous models or perspectives on culture. This model recognizes that culture always signifi es both a context for experiences, and actual experiences themselves. So on the one hand, culture is a given—the culture, largely made by others, which we inhabit—and on the other hand, culture is being created and recreated, right now, through individual and social meaning-making and experiences, including our own. To put it another way, the model shows culture both as the already-existing site within which people are creative, and simultaneously as the “live” space which infl uences, and is infl uenced by, their creativity. The model suggests that culture is a system through which people build meanings, and develop community, through the four dimensions of having , doing , being ,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 and knowing . The creative mindset is supported when there are stimulating environments and resources (having ), when there is a lot of inspirational activity and the engaging support of peers and mentors (doing ), when there is an ethos which supports the passions of makers (being ), and where there is a solid body of expertise and knowledge, and support for learning (knowing ). These dimensions are all parts of culture, continuously in play together, and so they should not be considered as separate things. These four dimensions are driven by playing , sharing , making , and thinking —the active processes through which people learn and form meanings together—and so these processes appear in between the four dimensions in our diagram, driving this windmill of continuous cultural creation. 196 David Gauntlett

HAVING Environments Materials Media SHARING

DOING Activities Relationships MAKING Practices CULTURE Building meanings, KNOWING developing community PLAYING Knowledge Experiences Meaning BEING THINKING Identities Traditions Roles

FIGURE 10.2 A model of culture.16

If we consider the model in relation to the LEGO System itself, we can see that it maps on quite straightforwardly —underlining the sense in which the LEGO System is a kind of culture in its own right. The having dimension is about actual things, and so has the most straightforward connection to LEGO

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 products. A culture is more likely to thrive if it has democratic, easy-to-use tools with which cultural meanings and understandings can be built and shared. Looking beyond the present—beyond just describing how things are—this dimension encourages us to consider how products and tools might be optimized, so that they could maximize opportunities to play, make, and share; and how we might enhance the environments, ofﬂ ine and online, where people might do these things—such as kindergartens, schools, libraries, art galleries, science and history museums, and cultural centers. The doing dimension concerns the relationships and practices which are the lifeblood of a culture. In terms of LEGO culture, children are typically eager to The LEGO System as a Tool for Thinking 197

exchange inspiration and stories around their creations, and this is supported by the LEGO.com website, YouTube videos, the LEGO Club Magazine , LEGO’s collaborations with museums, and so on. Communication and networks are vital to the doing dimension—especially for AFOLs, whose networks have exploded with the rise of the Internet (and are typically independent of the LEGO Group). These cultures really take off when people are doing things together, sharing ideas and inspiration, and learning from one another. The being dimension concerns the rituals, sentimental practices, and group characteristics and identifi ers which bind together a culture. In LEGO culture, this can refer to the collective practices of LEGO users and fans, and the general ethos associated with the company. As well as being helped by positive actions, this binding ethos could be disrupted by miscalculations—such as might occur if the major release The LEGO Movie (2014) had represented LEGO in an underwhelming or trivial way (which it didn’t), or if a licensing tie-in were to associate LEGO with unexpectedly violent narratives (which the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line perhaps does). The positive ethos can be sustained through the more timeless emphasis on the joy of building, which is supported by LEGO- affi liated products (such as books and the Movie ), and also by the independent online communities of LEGO fans, who support and inspire each other. Research has shown that members of online maker communities like to both give and receive support, 17 emphasizing an ethos of “open sharing, learning, and creativity” rather than profi t or self-promotion. This mutual sharing also helps to foster the collective identity of LEGO enthusiasts. The knowing dimension highlights the knowledge and shared meanings that support a culture. In the case of LEGO cultures this dimension is well integrated with doing and being , which, as we have seen, both involve networks of knowledge- sharing and mutual support. As LEGO cultures tend to be friendly and non- competitive, knowledge about products and techniques tends to be freely shared. Indeed, LEGO fans are often keen to share their achievements and passions with others, which drives the knowledge exchange within communities. As well as the active exchange of ideas, LEGO culture rests on a substantial body of more permanent materials, such as the several non-fi ction books on LEGO building, techniques, and the company and its products, huge online archives of LEGO

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 history and innovative building methods, and vast inspiring collections of LEGO “My Own Creation” models (MOCs) built by enthusiasts around numerous ﬁ ctional and real-life themes. In short, then, the dimensions of having , doing , being , and knowing describe the forces which bind, sustain and grow the LEGO culture. The culture is continuously made and re-made, normally through the small actions which collectively make up the whole. Sometimes there is a bigger, more potentially disruptive intervention, such as the 2014 release of The LEGO Movie, which was a notable event in mainstream popular culture. Fans of LEGO were concerned that the movie, if misjudged, might be a corny cash-in, and perhaps generate negative 198 David Gauntlett

associations with their cherished system. Of course, this concern—which I had myself—overlooked the fact that the LEGO Group typically take very good care of their brand, and could be expected to insist that it be a good reﬂ ection of LEGO values. Thankfully the Movie paid due regard to the having , doing , being , and knowing —the special products, relationships, sentiments, and knowledge—that are associated with LEGO cultures.

The Cultural Model—Applied More Broadly The model of creative cultures described earlier works just as well for the “maker movement”, and communities of craft-making people and designers. I described aspects of this culture in Making is Connecting (2011), with an evident particular affection for the arts and crafts community, and for digital media makers, such as bloggers and YouTube video makers. There is a 2013 book by Mark Hatch called The Maker Movement Manifesto, a title which struck me as a bit presumptuous, not least of all because Hatch is the CEO of TechShop—as it boasts on the front cover—and so might be expected to represent the interests of an engineering, technology, and 3-D printing sort of business than the whole maker community (or communities). To be fair, TechShop seems like a nice idea—a membership organization giving people access to workshops with tools and equipment to build their own projects. And, actually, Hatch does a pretty good job of representing broad maker-culture interests. The short version of his Manifesto appears under nine keyword headings: make , share , give , learn , tool up , play , participate , support , and change .18 His assertions under these headings are thankfully open and inclusive, and would generally apply just as well to lamb- swool cardigan knitters as to metal robot makers. For example, to pick just three of them:

1. Make : Making is fundamental to what it means to be human. We must make, create, and express ourselves to feel whole. There is something unique about making physical things. These things are like little pieces of us and seem to embody portions of our souls. 2. Give : There are few things more selﬂ ess and satisfying than giving away some-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 thing you have made. The act of making puts a small piece of you in the object. Giving that to someone else is like giving someone a small piece of yourself. Such things are often the most cherished items we possess. 3. Support : This is a movement, and it requires emotional, intellectual, ﬁ nancial, political, and institutional support. The best hope for improving the world is us, and we are responsible for making a better future. 19

Hatch’s nine keywords can be mapped quite easily onto our model of creative cultures ( Figure 10.1 ). Since all of the elements overlap and are part of a whole, it doesn’t make much sense to treat them separately. But we can see that our The LEGO System as a Tool for Thinking 199

having dimension would include tool up and support ; doing would include mak e, share , play , and participate ; being would include give and change ; and knowing would include learn , and support again. In fact most of them go with most of them. So we can see that this model and this manifesto mesh well together—but to what end? Talk about creative cultures is full of these pleasant, kind words— “share”, “participate”, “support”, and so on—but what is their signifi cance? The answer is that making things, being creative within a culture, and supporting others to be so, are essential to the health of a society. 20 These activities might have attractive outcomes, and be fun to do, but their value is greater than these pleasures. Everyday creativity and the do-it-yourself spirit are vital and culturally necessary—otherwise we are a “read only” society, a culture of consumers. Ivan Illich, the philosopher most famous in the 1970s, makes a powerful case for the do-it-yourself approach to life and culture in his book Tools for Convivial- ity (1973). He outlines a distinction between “industrial” tools, which are one- size-fi ts-all things that only convey the identity of the organization that produced them, and “convivial” tools, which are fl exible to different people’s needs, enable individual self-expression, and encourage conversation. Industrial tools often arrive as pleasant conveniences, but foster a terrible sickness within our cultures:

Society can be destroyed when further growth of mass production renders the milieu hostile, when it extinguishes the free use of the natural abilities of society’s members, when it isolates people from each other and locks them into a man-made shell. . . . Corporate endeavors which thus threaten society cannot be tolerated. At this point it becomes irrelevant whether an enterprise is nominally owned by individuals, corporations, or the state, because no form of management can make such fundamental destruction serve a social purpose. 21

Illich makes a powerful argument that people need to be able to shape their own environments, make their own stuff, and express themselves, rather than

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 simply purchasing readymade alternatives to these convivial relations. Through building the meaningful materials of everyday life, we learn that we can make a difference to the bigger picture as well. Industrial innovations [top-down, one- way, one-size-ﬁ ts-all offerings] are planned, trivial, and conservative. The renewal of convivial tools would be as unpredictable, creative, and lively as the people who use them. 22 The signiﬁ cance of LEGO cultures, and the maker movement, are that they operate at the convivial level, enabling people to create, communicate, and connect. These might be supported by certain kinds of industry —such as the LEGO Group, 3-D printer companies, or craft retailers—but these are not (or should 200 David Gauntlett

not be) doing the “industrial”-scale imposition of meanings and identities that Illich deplores.

Uniting Individual and Collaborative Creativity In The LEGO Movie , there is a tension between the celebration of individual creative imagination, and its other message about the importance of collaboration, working and playing together. This is nothing new—it is a tension we often come across in the discussion of creativity. It appears in Illich as well. The LEGO Movie nicely refl ects the fact—supported by much creativity research literature—that distinctive and novel ideas arise when individuals feel uninhibited, encouraged, and supported. 23 Personally, I was quite moved when, in the middle of the fi lm, Vitruvius tells Emmet: “Don’t worry about what the others are doing. You must embrace what is special about you.” 24 On the other hand, individualism can go too far, of course, and the fi lm also indicates that play and collaboration between people can often spark the best ideas, which is also a reality supported by a lot of research. 25 The tension is not entirely resolved—which may not matter too much in the fi lm, where we can accept both points. But if we seek a cultural theory of creativity, this contradiction presents a problem for our argument, and must be resolved. A solution is offered by Gerhard Fischer, another of the experts we collaborated with for the LEGO Foundation Cultures of Creativity project. Fischer argues that individual creativity and collaborative making can be combined:

Our work [in the Center for Lifelong Learning and Design] is grounded in the basic belief that there is an “and” and not a “versus” relationship between individual and social creativity. . . . By integrating individual and social creativity, support will be provided not only for reﬂ ective practitioners but also for reﬂ ective communities. 26

People are all different, and have different backgrounds, and different skills. This doesn’t mean that we should leave them all to do creative things separately, though, Fischer suggests. On the contrary, these differences are an “opportunity”

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 to develop new insights and new ideas. He explains:

The challenge to foster and nurture cultures of creativity is often not to reduce heterogeneity and specialization, but to support it, manage it, and integrate it by ﬁ nding ways to build bridges between local knowledge and by exploiting conceptual collisions and breakdowns as sources for innovation. 27

The most important thing for cultures of creativity is not the ability to access or learn existing knowledge, it is having opportunities to make new knowledge The LEGO System as a Tool for Thinking 201

together , addressing issues of shared concern. The “designer mindset” is fostered not by seeking and fi nding knowledge that is “out there”, but through the creation of new knowledge. Access to information—often cited as a key triumph of the Internet— is “a very limiting concept”, Fischer says. What we really need are environments and education systems that cultivate the development of the designer mindset “by creating habits and tools that help people become empow- ered and willing to actively contribute to the design of their lives and communities”. 28 Harnessing the power of people working together on a shared enterprise is ultimately more valuable than well-informed, imaginative individuals doing clever things. But we can have both: people can be supported to be individually creative, and then these insights and achievements can be integrated with the insights of others in the next, collaborative step. This is what happens in LEGO Serious Play, where participants build individual models fi rst, before combining their meanings into a shared model at a later stage; and it is also, really, what happens on Wikipedia, and on YouTube, where individuals plant fl owers that become part of a vast and fl ourishing garden.

. . . And Changing the World This brings us to the transformative cultural power of LEGO. I could hedge around this bold notion by saying “Of course, LEGO products are children’s toys, and you would not really expect them to be world-changing phenomena . . .”, but that would not really be quite right, because actually LEGO products are intended to be world-changing phenomena—in my experience that is absolutely what the people at LEGO wish for their products and for their business. By fostering creative play and imagination in children, they hope to contribute to an inventive, thoughtful society. The LEGO Group’s stated company mission is to “Inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow”, and, in my experience, they deﬁ nitely mean it. That is not to suggest that the LEGO Group sits outside of capitalist business models as a purely altruistic, public-service organization, but it does indicate that certain companies can be both money-making and socially useful. Indeed, the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 business book entitled Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry is very much the story of how the LEGO Group almost collapsed (around 2002–3) when it had diversiﬁ ed too far, and was producing toys and ventures which strayed away from the LEGO System and principles; and then how it turned the corner to be the incredibly successful business it is today, by focusing on the core LEGO identity, the joy of building, and the motto “Only the best is good enough” ( Det bedste er ikke for godt )—the phrase which Godtfred Kirk Christiansen carved and put up in his father’s workshop in 1936, at the age of 16. 202 David Gauntlett

As well as feeding children’s imaginations, I believe there are (at least) three central ways in which LEGO products and cultures contribute to a more creative and hands-on orientation to the world, potentially making it a better place:

• Everyone can make something: Building with LEGO is quick and straightforward for most people. Of course, some people become much more skillful over time (as we saw near the start of this chapter: “low fl oor, high ceiling, and wide walls”). But LEGO building helps people step into the world of making, and this is a vital shift in terms of a person’s sense of self in the world—being a creator, not just a consumer. These small steps are signifi cant 29 and contribute to a necessary shift in our culture toward a greater sense of creative ownership and engagement with our environment. • Remaking and rebuilding : LEGO play builds the sense in which things can be constructed, deconstructed, reviewed and changed, not simply by thinking about them, but by actually making them and changing them. The notion of rapid prototyping, foregrounded by IDEO and other design companies, has grown more infl uential in recent years, 30 but people have been doing it with LEGO bricks for decades. More generally, LEGO creativity fosters familiarity with making and construction, and the sense of objects as things that are made, which leads to the sense that things can be made differently—an optimistic approach to change. • Supporting and sharing : The LEGO ecosystem, as mentioned above, includes extensive networks of users eager to learn and exchange knowledge and inspiration. The striking phenomenon here is not produced by the LEGO Group itself, but fl ows from the self-initiated activity of LEGO enthusiasts (lightly supported by the company, which seeks to support but not to interfere). The networks of peer support and knowledge-sharing in LEGO communities serve as a model for other spheres, 31 such as academic networks—where “open access” principles have been variously embraced and rejected 32 —and in the design community. The excellent anthology Open Design Now (2011) shows how socially valuable design and innovations are generated through open sharing and collaborative practices, such as those which have been adopted—in a quiet, relatively unplanned, but powerful way—by LEGO users 33 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 online.

Clearly, in conclusion, LEGO is not “just a toy”; the LEGO System describes a complex web of products, resources, people, and knowledge, which interact in powerful ways. Of course, these are things which have a place within a wider culture, and so, even if LEGO could “change the world”, it couldn’t do it on its own. Nevertheless, whilst there is absolutely no need to apologize for the purely fun dimension of LEGO play, I hope to have demonstrated that it connects with some valuable social movements—such as maker culture and open knowledge-sharing—and can help to build a mindset which is creative, optimistic, The LEGO System as a Tool for Thinking 203

and willing to try out new things. It is this orientation that will be needed if we are to escape the gravitational pull of relatively passive media consumption and a purely “consumer” approach to the world, which drag us toward ever more serious environmental challenges. Instead, we can build a more energetic, do-it-yourself culture, where nature and human creativity can thrive together.

Notes 1. To provide more detail: from 2005, I worked with the LEGO Group on developing versions of the consultancy process, LEGO Serious Play, for purposes beyond its initial business-consultancy application. For instance, I used it as a social research methodology for the fi rst time (covered in my 2007 book, Creative Explorations ), and developed smaller and more portable applications of the LEGO Serious Play principles. I was co-author of the Open Source release of LEGO Serious Play, launched in 2010 (available at http://davidgauntlett.com/portfolio/lego-collaborations/). Since 2008, I have been a leading member of the LEGO Learning Institute, and have worked closely with the Institute directors and colleagues from the Universities of Cambridge, Edin- burgh, and MIT, to produce reports and materials including Defi ning Systematic Creativity (2009), Defi ning Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm (2010), The Future of Play (2011), and The Future of Learning (2012), all published by the LEGO Learning Institute. In 2013 the LEGO Learning Institute was absorbed into the LEGO Foundation, who supported and published our next study, Cultures of Creativity (2013). I have also produced videos, worked with LEGO Education, and co-produced a Systematic Cre- ativity training pack and workshop, which has been used by all new employees at the LEGO Group in Denmark since 2009. 2. David C. Robertson and Bill Breen, Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry , London, England: Random House, 2013, Kindle Edition. 3. Ibid. 4. Y. M. Antorini, A. M. Muñiz, and T. Askildsen, “Collaborating With Customer Communities: Lessons From the Lego Group”, MIT Sloan Management Review (Spring), 2012; Y. M. Antorini and A. M. Muñiz, “The Benefi ts and Challenges of Collaborat- ing with User Communities”, Research – Technology Management , Vol. 56, No. 3, 2013, pages 21–8; and M. Taillard, and Y. M. Antorini, Creativity in the LEGO Ecosystem , Billund, Denmark: The LEGO Foundation, 2013, available from www.legofoundation. com/en-us/research-and-learning/foundation-research/cultures-of-creativity/. 5. John Baichtal, and Joe Meno, The Cult of LEGO, San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press, Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 2011. 6. Edith Ackermann, David Gauntlett, and Cecilia Weckstrom, Defi ning Systematic Creativ- ity, Billund, Denmark: LEGO Learning Institute, 2009. 7. David Gauntlett, Edith Ackermann, David Whitebread, Thomas Wolbers, and Cecilia Weckstrom, The Future of Play: Defi ning the role and value of play in the 21st century , Billund, Denmark: LEGO Learning Institute, 2011; David Gauntlett, Edith Ackermann, David Whitebread, Thomas Wolbers, Cecilia Weckstrom, and Bo Stjerne Thomsen, The Future of Learning, Billund, Denmark: LEGO Learning Institute, 2012; and David Gauntlett, and Bo Stjerne Thomsen, Cultures of Creativity , Billund, Denmark: The LEGO Foundation, 2013, available at www.legofoundation.com/en-us/research-and- learning/foundation-research/cultures-of-creativity/. 204 David Gauntlett

8. Mitchel Resnick, and Brian Silverman, “Some reﬂ ections on designing construction kits for kids”, IDC ‘05: Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Interaction Design and Chil- dren, New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery. 9. Merlin Donald, A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness, New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2001. 10. Donald, A Mind So Rare , 2001, page 309. 11. David Gauntlett, Creative Explorations: New approaches to identities and audiences, London, England: Routledge, 2007. 12. Ibid. 13. Gauntlett, Creative Explorations , 2007; David Gauntlett, “Creative methods in social research, two day workshop, December 2008”, 2008, available at www.artlab.org.uk/ workshop-dec2008.htm; and David Gauntlett, “RSA workshop using creative methods”, 2008, available at www.artlab.org.uk/rsa-workshop.htm. 14. See Gauntlett and Thomsen, Cultures of Creativity, 2013; and Anne Scott Sørensen, Ole Martin Ystad, Erling Bjurstrom, and Halvard Vike, Nye Kulturstudier, Copenhagen, Denmark: Tiderne Skifter, 2010. 15. This section of text draws on some of the material that I wrote for the Cultures of Creativity report (Gauntlett and Thomsen, 2013). Reused/remixed by kind permission of the LEGO Foundation. 16. From Gauntlett and Thomsen, Cultures of Creativity, 2013, adapted from Sørensen, et al., Nye Kulturstudier, 2010. 17. Stacey Kuznetsov, and Eric Paulos, “Rise of the Expert Amateur: DIY Projects, Com- munities, and Cultures”, paper presented at the 6th Nordic Conference on Human– Computer Interaction, October 2010, available at www.staceyk.org/hci/KuznetsovDIY. pdf. 18. Mark Hatch, The Maker Movement Manifesto, New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education, 2013, pages 1–2. 19. Ibid. 20. Gauntlett, et al., The Future of Play , 2011. 21. Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality, London, England: Calder & Boyars, 1973, page xi. 22. Ibid., page 75. 23. See, for example, Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, London, England: Allen Lane, 2010; Jaron Lanier, Who Owns The Future? , London, England: Allen Lane, 2013; Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Classic Work on How to Achieve Happiness (revised edition), London, England: Rider, 2002; and Guy Claxton, What’s the Point of School?: Rediscovering the Heart of Education, London, England: Oneworld, 2008. 24. A clip which contains this bit can be seen at http://youtu.be/9VeUoVKiyhE. 25. See for example, R. Keith Sawyer, Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation, Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012; James C. Kaufman, and Robert J. Sternberg, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2010; and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention , New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1997. 26. G. Fischer, “Social creativity and cultures of participation: Bringing cultures of creativity alive”, Billund, Denmark: The LEGO Foundation, 2013, page 25, available at www. legofoundation.com/en-us/research-and-learning/foundation-research/cultures- of-creativity/. 27. Ibid., page 26. 28. Ibid., page 27. The LEGO System as a Tool for Thinking 205

29. David Gauntlett, “The internet is ancient, small steps are important, and four other theses about making things in a digital world” in Nelson Zagalo and Pedro Branco, editors, Creative Technologies: Create and Engage Using Art and Play , London, England: Springer-Verlag, 2014, available at http://davidgauntlett.com/digital-media/ six-theses-about-making-things-in-a-digital-world/. 30. Peter Coughlan, Jane Fulton Suri, and Katherine Canales, “Prototypes as (Design) Tools for Behavioral and Organizational Change: A Design-Based Approach to Help Organizations Change Work Behaviors”, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science , March 2007, Vol. 43, No. 1, 2007, pages 122–34, available at www.ideo.com/images/uploads/ news/pdfs/Prototypes_as_Design_Tools_1.pdf; and Tim Brown, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, New York, NY: Harp- erCollins, 2009. 31. Antorini, et al., “Collaborating With Customer Communities: Lessons From the Lego Group”,2012; Antorini and Muñiz, “The Beneﬁ ts and Challenges of Collaborating with User Communities”, 2013, pages 21–8. 32. Peter Suber, Open Access, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012; and Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy , New York, NY: New York University Press, 2011. 33. Bas Van Abel, Lucas Evers, Roel Klaassen, and Peter Troxler, editors, Open Design Now: Why design cannot remain exclusive, Amsterdam: BIS Publishers, 2011.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 11 LEGO: THE IMPERFECT ART TOOL

Nathan Sawaya

When I turned ten years old, I decided it was time that I got a dog. I asked my parents if I could get a dog. They said something to the effect of “you are not getting a dog”. So what did I do? I gathered up my LEGO bricks and built myself my very own life-size LEGO dog. It was a bit rectangular, very boxy. So I called it a Boxer. And that was the ﬁ rst moment I realized that LEGO is more than the toy in the toy store. It is not just what is featured on the front of the retail box—it can be anything. Anything I could imagine. If I wanted to be a magician, I’d build myself a top hat. If I wanted to be a rock star, I’d build myself a guitar. There were no limits. As I grew up I began to realize that, unlike my limitless imagination, there actually were limits in life. For example, my desire to be an artist was limited by my need to pay rent. I eventually found myself in law school and then practicing corporate law in New York City. When I came home at night, I would need a creative outlet. Some nights I would draw, some nights I would paint, and some nights I would sculpt. Then eventually I challenged myself to sculpt out of this toy from my childhood: LEGO bricks. I started doing large-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 scale sculptures out of LEGO. Most nights I would fi nd myself snapping LEGO bricks together even before I took off my suit or ate dinner. It felt good after a long day of negotiating contracts to build something with my hands. Slowly but surely, my New York apartment started to fi ll up with sculptures. The artwork consumed almost every room. I posted photos of the works on my website, brickartist.com, to showcase the artwork in a virtual gallery to friends and long-distance family members. When my site crashed one day from too many hits, I realized it was time to leave the law fi rm and pursue my passion to become a full-time artist. I quit my job as a lawyer, opened an art studio, and took the leap of faith. LEGO: The Imperfect Art Tool 207

I kept exploring the idea of creating new and exciting things. Making art that no one had ever seen before. I would explore all different types of art, but eventually came back to the idea of using the LEGO brick as an art medium. When I fi rst started creating art out of LEGO, it was unheard of. No one else had taken this toy into art museums and galleries. So at fi rst, I was drawn to the challenge. I had sculpted with other media over the years, but I kept coming back to LEGO. One of the fi rst large-scale sculptures I did was a giant replica of my own face. I used only black, white, and gray bricks that I had sorted from all the LEGO sets I had been saving since I was a kid. Some of the white bricks had started to turn various shades of pale yellow due to the age of them, and the variety of shapes and sized were not perfect, but somehow I was able to piece together a fi ve-foot-tall portrait of my face. The process was a cross between piecing together a puzzle without directions and playing a game of Tetris without the video screen. When the large self-portrait was complete, it got a great reaction and I enjoyed making it. I felt a sense of accomplishment and pride. I felt happy. So I created more sculptures. In addition to my own sense of joy, I enjoyed seeing other people’s reactions to my art for the fi rst time. Everyone has snapped a few LEGO bricks together, so there is a familiarity that permits them to relate to my art on a unique, personal level. There are countless reasons why LEGO is a perfect art medium and why so many others are now following the LEGO art trend. For example, it’s neat—no mess to clean up, no brushes to wash out, no tools needed. It doesn’t need to dry and if you don’t like the direction the art is taking . . . it comes apart! This chapter attempts to examine the perfection of the LEGO bricks as an art medium by reviewing its impact on both the artist and the viewer, as well as on the two combined. The fact that the brick is an imperfect art tool is the basis for it being the perfect art medium for an artist. Its imperfection forces artistic innovation. And its ability to evoke emotion is the basis for it being the perfect art medium for the viewer. The combination of giving both the artist and the viewer purpose within the art is the fi nal basis for its perfection. LEGO is the perfect medium for the artist because it is imperfect. It has limits as an art tool. So many times have I been working on a project, building

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 piece by piece, and I get stuck. I can’t represent the image, vision, or details of the subject matter and I am forced to improvise. Part of the problem is the limited colors of the bricks. Part of the problem is the restrictive shape and size of the bricks. There are a ﬁ nite number of colors when it comes to the LEGO palette. Of course, the LEGO Group has done a commendable job of trying to develop a wide range of hues that their bricks are produced in, but that range is still limited. In fact, the difference between LEGO as an art medium and something more traditional, like paint, is that LEGO bricks cannot be blended. You cannot swirl a few yellow and blue bricks together and expect to ﬁ nd green bricks. But that 208 Nathan Sawaya

fi nite number of colors is an amazing basis for innovation. It forces the artist to consider and commit to color early in the project. Even before the fi rst bricks are connected, the artist must commit to the coloring because there is no going back. Color cannot be changed without replacing the entire brick, or sometimes even starting over. There is also a fi nite number of shape and sizes of bricks. The “LEGO System of Play” is a fantastic, intricate system that allows any one element of LEGO to most defi nitely connect with other elements. It really is a complete system. But that system is still fi nite to a point. Pieces come in certain shapes and sizes, but those shapes and sizes are not malleable. The bricks cannot just be bent to the whims of the artist. And as an artist who works primarily with rectangular bricks, this limitation can pose a myriad of problems when trying to sculpt curves. When creating a sculpture that represents a human form, I want the LEGO bricks to mirror the curves of the human body. For example, in my sculpture, Everlasting (2012), I created an older couple who are walking hand- in-hand. Their body shape represents years of life and love. The intent of this sculpture was not to replicate the lean and shapely silhouette of runway models, but rather sculptures of two individuals who had put on a few pounds over the years. They would have curves, and they would have curves upon their curves. Now, to create curves in my brick sculptures, I cannot chisel away at the bricks as I could with say a marble statue. I cannot take small bits of the corners of the bricks away in attempt to smooth over the bumps to get a polished surface. I choose to use the bricks in a way to build tiny stair-step patterns that are full of right angles and sharp corners when closely examined. However, when viewed from a bit of a distance, those angles and corners blend into curves. It is this blending of angles to produce curves that gives the LEGO art its magic: almost a three-dimensional pixel effect. This effect of using right angles to build curves is the brilliance of the LEGO brick. It forces the artist to create in an almost unexpected way: “Oh, you say you want to build the swooping curves, then use these sharp rectangles.” LEGO sculptures can be bulky and too big in scale when representing real life forms—which can also be a bit of a problem. The largest sculpture I built so far is over six meters long. It is a replica of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 (see Figure 11.1 ). When I had my ﬁ rst solo art exhibition in 2007 at the Lancaster Museum of Art, I was amazed by the number of kids that attended this contemporary art museum. The museum curator tells me that more than 30,000 people went through her museum during the six weeks my show, THE ART OF THE BRICK, was there. This was outstanding, given the museum typically hosts 20,000 people in any given year. Seeing the unprecedented turnout, I wanted to give back to those kids, kids who love LEGO and have now found themselves in an art museum! So I thought about what kids were interested in . . . in addition to LEGO. One of the things I came up with was dinosaurs, so I set out to create a giant LEGO sculpture of a dinosaur skeleton. I spent the entire LEGO: The Imperfect Art Tool 209

FIGURE 11.1 Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton made of LEGO. (Image courtesy of Nathan Sawaya).

summer working on it, using over 80,000 individual LEGO bricks. The result was a pretty accurate anatomically correct T-Rex skeleton that consumed my entire art studio. As I learned that summer, a lot of working with LEGO is about engineering. Things need to be balanced and structurally sound to make sure they are going to stay upright. Gravity became an element that I needed to become friendly with. The gravitational pull of the earth continued to be something I instinctively, as an artist, wanted to resist. I designed sculptures that were top-heavy, that tipped over, and some that couldn’t support their own weight. These obstacles continued to

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 prove that LEGO as an art medium is far from perfect. Through trial and error, I honed my craft and was able to create three-dimensional sculptures that appear to portray the deﬁ ance of gravity. In addition, I look for opportunities to lean-in to the opposing forces of gravity through such dualities as ascent and descent, weight and weightlessness, hope and despair, or life and death. An example of this is a set of sculptures I created early on titled Red (2006), Yellow (2006), and Blue (2006). Red is a torso of a man reaching toward the sky as he appears to be gasping for air while loose red LEGO bricks are piling and pooling around his waist (see Figure 11.2 ). Is he ascending or descending? Blue is a full human form sitting on the ground with his legs outstretched while he 210 Nathan Sawaya

appears to be building his own arm piece-by-piece with blue LEGO bricks, or is he taking his arm apart? And Yellow —well, you see, that has turned out to be my most iconic piece of work to date (see Figure 11.3 ). It is a yellow torso of a man ripping his chest open while heaps of yellow bricks come cascading out of his open chest cavity. These three sculptures usually sat side-by-side-by-side on pedestals at my early shows. While I often left the interpretation of these works up to the viewer, and they made for great fodder for discussion when I spoke to school-age kids, the truth of the matter is that for me these three pieces deﬁ antly represent birth, life, and death. Of the three pieces in the collection, Yellow resonated the most with the masses and quickly became my signature piece. I designed Yellow years before I built it. It started as an idea to answer questions I got from fans time-and-time again: “What’s inside your sculptures?” “Are they hollow?” “Did you put metal beams inside for support?” As with Yellow , I keep the inside of the pieces as Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 11.2 Red (2006). (Image courtesy of Nathan Sawaya). LEGO: The Imperfect Art Tool 211

hollow as possible. If the sculptures were solid like marble or clay, they would be extremely heavy and hard to transport. I could see no reason to build up the insides of the sculptures with bricks that no one would see, that would weigh them down and would be a waste of resources. Red and Blue were both sold to art collectors, but Yellow tours with my traveling art exhibition. It has been all around the world including stops in Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Belgium, Israel, Canada, and countless stops across the United States. As I worked further on creating artwork for various exhibitions around the world, not only did they need to be upright, but the works had to be created in a way that would ensure they would travel properly to museums all over the globe. The imperfection of LEGO in this case, is that the bricks do not always stay together, and yet that is, in its essence, also the perfection of LEGO. I have found out the hard way that museums are not very happy when they open up a crate expecting to fi nd a sculpture, but only fi nd a pile of loose LEGO bricks. I have thought about including a note reading “some assembly required” with my artwork, but realized that there must be a better way. I now glue all of my bricks together when I am creating a sculpture. Some LEGO fans say this is “cheating” but I reply “How can it be cheating? There are no rules in art.” The process of gluing the bricks is only reinforcement. The amazing thing about LEGO bricks is that they would all snap together and remain just fi ne if my sculptures remained static for their entire lives, but because I ship my artwork Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 11.3 Yellow (2006). (Image courtesy of Nathan Sawaya). 212 Nathan Sawaya

all over the world, I want to make sure the works arrive in one piece. So I add a little bit of glue to each individual brick. But the fact that these bricks that could remain affi xed to each other without glue, albeit without any shipping, and yet still could be taken apart with only the effort of a young child, is fascinating. One could argue that a tool that so easily could come apart would be a great hindrance to creating great art in both size and complexity. Yet, the fact that the bricks do so easily come apart is what makes them so perfect. They can be removed and replaced without much effort to ensure the desired effect of the fi nal piece. It allows artists from age 4 to 94 to use this art medium, making it one of the most accessible art media on the planet for sculpting. LEGO is the perfect medium for the viewer of art because it evokes emotion. How many people have played with LEGO bricks when they were kids or sat on the fl oor with their own kids and snapped a few bricks together? Countless. The nostalgia of LEGO bricks weighs heavily on the viewer of LEGO art. Sometimes, reaction to my art is “If I had enough LEGO, I could do that!”. And yes I believe you could. But will you? Maybe, but it’s likely more fun, interesting, and inspiring to view art made from something you are familiar with—rather than actually sourcing the raw materials, designing the piece, constructing the vision, and spending hundreds of hours creating it. LEGO for me, and for a lot of people, brings back a sense of youthfulness. It’s like watching cartoons, playing video games, going to Disneyland, and wearing jeans. It’s comfortable and familiar. It feels good. So when adults visit THE ART OF THE BRICK touring exhibition, or they see my art in contemporary art museums or galleries, I suspect that they are indulging their inner child. They don’t see the challenges of the medium—such as the limited color palette, sharp edges, or restrictive size—they see themselves in a simpler time. They long for the day when there were no meetings scheduled, cell phone messages to return, or bills to pay. They feel good. I used to be amazed by the number of families that would come to my LEGO art exhibitions. It was surreal to see people lining up outside the doors even before the show opened. And when those doors did fi nally open, I would meet folks who had never been to a contemporary art museum in their life. Never been to an art gallery before. I would have dads come up and tell me that they

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 should be home watching the game on television, but that they somehow found themselves here at an art exhibition. I’d like to think it was because of my art, but they were also drawn by the medium. People have a connection to LEGO bricks that is much stronger than what they have toward something like clay or paint. They can relate to the LEGO art in a whole different way because of the familiarity. They have a relationship with this medium that goes beyond just the day at the museum. For example, when someone goes to a museum, they might see a marble statue. And they might really appreciate it, even be inspired by it, but it is very doubtful they have a slab of marble at home they can start chip- ping away at. However, people do have LEGO at home. LEGO: The Imperfect Art Tool 213

The LEGO brick also gives the viewer perspective. When someone looks at a sculpture built out of bricks they are going to be immediately struck by the distinct lines. Up close to the sculpture, one sees the plethora of rectangles, the many corners, the right angles. But when the viewer steps back and takes a look, they see it in a whole new way. All of those sharp corners begin to blend together into curves. It is almost a metaphor of how people view art: it is all about perspective. Up close it may be simple rectangular bricks and corners, but from a different perspective, it’s the human form and all of its curves. Further, it is made from a simple child’s toy, but from a different perspective, it is contemporary art made from an accessible medium. It’s been transformed from something quite ordinary—a toy—into something extraordinary—art. I also use LEGO bricks as an art medium for portraits and two-dimensional works. This is a completely different process than that involved with three- dimensional sculptures. Again, the medium is imperfect for this because of the limitations of shapes and lack of blending of colors, yet the results can be awe- inspiring. Many of my touring 2-D portraits are of my wife, and only utilize three color tones. In order to create illusion with the limited colors and ﬁ nite pixel size, my motto is “less is more”. This is a perfect example of relying on the viewer to ﬁ ll in the missing elements of the portrait. The design of the piece is critical in order to make the restrictive medium work. And whether in sculptures or portraits, beyond just the right angles blending to curves, the LEGO medium permits the viewer to see what they want to see, even if it is not there. So many people are familiar with LEGO as a toy that they understand the necessity of imagination that is associated with the toy. For example, a bit of imagination is always needed when playing with a toy train, because inherently it is not a real train. So when it comes to LEGO art, the viewer is already predisposed to use a bit of imagination when viewing the art. That allows the viewer to see curves and colors that are suggested, but might not be actually in the work itself. Seeing curves and colors that are not actually there is similar to seeing colors and curves in pixilated art. In pixilated art and photos, each tiny pixel may only be a tiny round dot of color. But when mixed with thousands of other pixels,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 in various colors and placement, the eye blends the pixels to see a particular shape that may not actually be there. I explored this theme with the LEGO brick when I did my collaborative project, In Pieces (2013), with photographer Dean West. For the project, we integrated my brick sculptures into his hyper- realistic photography. The bricks of the sculptures acted as pixels, which played with themes of pixels in the digital photography. For the project, we spent a great deal of time traveling about the U.S. scouting for locations. We would then ﬁ nd talent for our subjects, as well as go about creating certain elements in the scene out of LEGO bricks. The LEGO sculptures integrated perfectly into the scenes as almost a pixelated version of themselves. The entire process is an Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 11.4 My Boy (2009). (Image courtesy of Nathan Sawaya). LEGO: The Imperfect Art Tool 215

examination of the construction of one’s identity, which is appropriate since the sculptures are constructed piece-by-piece. Further, the accessibility of the brick also makes it an amazing art medium. The fact that anyone can pick up two bricks and snap them together allows it to be an artistic tool immediately. Many folks ask me about defi ning my art in the various genres of the art world. I usually say that is a question for art critics, because who am I to defi ne the art? That goes beyond just my work; who am I to defi ne the art of a fi ve-year-old? The simple act of snapping those two bricks together may be art in that child’s eye, and that accessibility of art is inspiring. I have also found that my art is relatable for generations who may not have experienced LEGO growing up. It appeals to a broad audience. Even if someone is not familiar with LEGO, they still can connect with the emo tions portrayed in the sculpture. For example, when I unveiled the sculpture, My Boy (2009) a woman started crying. The sculpture depicts an adult with a lifeless child draped in its arms (see Figure 11.4 ). Her reaction was a compliment because this woman was seeing this sculpture for what it was saying, and the medium didn’t matter. Creating art from this toy was the perfect tool for me as an artist. Sure, I played with LEGO as a kid just like most kids do. But then I exchanged a life of playfulness for anxious days tending to legal clients and grown-up expectations. I had wanted to be the perfect son and the perfect man—so I did what I thought society expected. It was only after I followed my true passion to become an artist that I fi nally began to achieve my potential. I, like the medium, am not perfect and I have my own restrictions. I didn’t go to art school, I didn’t have a mentor, I was grossly in debt with student loans from law school and I didn’t have resources, supplies, or tools to create art. But I had LEGO. It had always been there for me, just like that magician’s top hat or that Boxer dog. Reliable and full of fun tricks. LEGO gave me perspective and emotion. Even given all of the restrictions involved in using LEGO as an imperfect art medium, the emotional connection to the toy provides a personal connection to the art which allows viewers to fi ll the void in order to see perfect images. It causes the viewer to inject what is missing. And, in addition, there is a deep-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 rooted nostalgic feeling for the medium . . . and thus, also for the art. For me, as the artist, I also found a way to inject what was missing in my own life. Every day I work, I feel both joy and pride. In the end, LEGO art gives both the artist and the viewer challenges as well as purpose. In conclusion, the LEGO brick may be imperfect, but for me it is the perfect tool for creating art, as long you have the right perspective.

12 LEGO ART ENGAGES PEOPLE

Ed Diment and Duncan Titmarsh

LEGO’s most famous slogan reads: “It’s a new toy every day”, but can the promise of inﬁ nite creativity using children’s plastic building blocks translate to any environment, to any market and to any product? LEGO bricks have long been used as an artistic medium and design tool, beyond mass appeal as the world’s favorite toy. In an increasingly competitive market, brand recognition is vital, but how can this be achieved? LEGO is such a strong draw that organizations employing LEGO art as a promotional tool often out-perform expectations in terms of public engagement and media coverage. LEGO displays can draw large crowds and, in turn, mass media, even more so when utilizing public interaction in the build, typically resulting in positive press stories, mass blogging, and mainstream press and TV coverage for even relatively modest LEGO events. This article looks at how professional LEGO art has helped some of the world’s leading brands improve their visibility and public perception. It concludes that LEGO appears to have a unique pull on customer imagination and enjoyment that shows no signs of diminishing. LEGO art lives. This study is intended to provide an experiential insight into how corpora-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 tions have used professional LEGO art commissions and events to provide enhanced exposure for their brands. To this end, the essay proposes that a brand garners greater publicity than would otherwise have been the case without a LEGO build or LEGO-related activity, and looks to provide evidence of this link. Moreover, the same proposition is made with regard to LEGO events at existing attractions such as museums and galleries, not only in terms of media (including social media) exposure, but also through increased visitor numbers and revenue for the venue in question. Studying the Public Relations (PR) impact of the use of LEGO art is challenging as, at present, there is no body of academic research on the subject of LEGO Art Engages People 217

the impact of LEGO art and LEGO events from a PR and marketing perspective. Despite this, a wide range of literature exists demonstrating the building possibilities of LEGO as an artistic medium and, to a lesser extent, on the history of the company and its products; such literature forms a useful indication of why the company is so successful and its product so enduring. There is, however, primary data available from PR and marketing ﬁ rms based on campaigns and activities. In addition, most museums and galleries collect information on visitor numbers and revenue streams during events with a LEGO theme, during other themed events, and during the remainder of their periods of opening. Thus, through use of both these sources of primary data, this study aims to illustrate that a connection does exist and explain the nature of that connection, exploring what it is about LEGO art and creativity that draws people in. Whilst, as mentioned earlier, there are virtually no published essays, articles, or books on the subject of the relationship between LEGO use and promotional activity, this is not to say that LEGO and the use of LEGO bricks as art, nor the community of LEGO fans and builders, has not been written about. There are, in fact, a wide range of books on the subject of LEGO brick creations, as well as other texts on the subject of The LEGO Company, and, wherever relevant, these will be drawn on within this study. Though the above two paragraphs of the methodology indicate that there is some scope for employing traditional academic avenues of primary data and reference to existing academic study to support the thesis, they also indicate the limitations therein. It is for this reason that the methodology will also extend to encompass ﬁ rst-hand accounts of the production of LEGO art and creation of LEGO events, principally by the author’s own commercial organization, Bright Bricks Ltd. Bright Bricks is a UK-registered, private limited company founded by Man- aging Director, Duncan Titmarsh, in 2010. Duncan, as with so many people, grew to love playing with LEGO bricks as a child and, as with so many people, went through what is commonly referred to by Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs) as the Dark Ages, which involves a move away from using LEGO bricks during the teenage and early adult years. Duncan’s interest in LEGO was re-kindled one day when passing a shop and seeing a LEGO technic set in the window,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 and once that ﬁ rst purchase was made, the inevitable quest for more LEGO began. In 2003, Duncan went on a Red Letter Day to LEGOLAND Windsor in the UK; Red Letter Days being experiential gifts aimed at adults. The experience involved seeing behind-the-scenes at the LEGOLAND workshop in addition to meeting other like-minded adults, and it was in a bar after the event that a group of these LEGO fans decided to form the ﬁ rst AFOL fan group in the UK, which became LEGO User Group (LUG), The Brickish Association (Brickish). During Duncan’s time with Brickish, the association grew in size and started to get enquiries from commercial individuals for LEGO builds and Duncan, 218 Ed Diment and Duncan Titmarsh

along with other members, began to respond to these. It was at this time that Duncan also became aware of LEGO’s LCP (LEGO Certifi ed Professional) scheme and applied to be the UK’s representative, for which he was successful. Only a short time after this, Duncan determined that the opportunity existed to grow the business rapidly and invited Ed Diment, a fellow Brickish member, to join the company as co-owner and co-director. Since that point in 2012, the business has gone on to move premises four times and the company’s turnover has increased ten-fold. Due to this success, Duncan remains the UK’s only LCP and certifi cation is a complex process the end result of which is a partnership with the LEGO Group, a partnership that is made stronger for LEGO and Bright Bricks by promoting Duncan’s unique position within the UK. The LCP agreement lays out rules as to the types of project the LCP is allowed to engage in, as well as support from the local business unit and most importantly access to bulk brick purchasing for carrying out large-scale projects. By describing a number of these projects through case studies, it is hoped that this essay can illustrate how clients choose builds and activities that they feel will enhance their brand or their venue with a LEGO offering. In order to set the fi ndings of this study in context, it is worth providing an initial example of a project in order that the reader is able to visualize the nature of the undertaking to which Bright Bricks and other professional LEGO artists are engaged. Of the over 200 projects in which Bright Bricks has been involved, a key one was the creation of a 12.5-meter (approximately 40 feet tall) LEGO Christmas tree. The model was commissioned by LEGO UK, who is occasionally the client, in addition to being partner and supplier, as a mechanism for promoting the overall LEGO brand, rather than any one specifi c line or individual set. The tree was placed in St Pancras train station in London, a major transport hub for the city, during the Christmas season of 2012. The LEGO Christmas tree was a substantial undertaking involving the use of over 600,000 LEGO elements, a welded steel frame, and the skill of half-a- dozen LEGO builders working for Bright Bricks. In addition to the technical challenges of erecting such a creation were the logistical issues including, but not limited to: transport; assembly; health and safety; compliance with English

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Heritage regulations (St Pancras Station is a grade 1 listed historic building); compliance with St Pancras Station regulations (the station is a busy commuter hub with over 100,000 people transiting the station daily); compliance with Network Rail regulations (there are many rules about what can happen in a station); compliance with Railtrack regulations (for example, keeping away from the 40,000 volt over-head electriﬁ cation for the trains); and LEGO’s PR agencies, regarding dates for press launch and other promotional considerations. Despite the many hurdles indicated, LEGO UK felt it was well worth the trouble as the location, combined with the impact of such a massive and striking model, would have a high likelihood of enticing signiﬁ cant free media coverage. LEGO Art Engages People 219

FIGURE 12.1 Bright Bricks’ LEGO Christmas tree, St Pancras Station, London, November 2012 to January 2013.

Ultimately, LEGO UK was proven correct in this regard with a spectacular level of exposure they could only have hoped for with their most optimistic predic-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 tions. The LEGO Christmas tree received coverage in all the major UK national newspapers, was featured on a large number of mainstream Internet blogs, trended on Twitter and was actually the backdrop used by the BBC Six O’clock News (the national evening television news) to report the weather when the tree was ﬁ rst unveiled. This, in addition to appearing in all the London papers, as well as being picked up in numerous foreign media outlets and forming the subject of discussion across much of social media for the few days following the switch- on of the tree’s Christmas lights. Quantifying the media attention of projects conducted for the LEGO Group is the purview of the PR ﬁ rms engaged by LEGO UK to plan and monitor 220 Ed Diment and Duncan Titmarsh

these promotional activities, and in the case of the LEGO Christmas tree, the experts of Crescendo PR (then with Bright PR) compiled a fi nancial analysis of the impact of the tree’s media exposure. The analysis revealed that the total equivalent advertising spend that would have been required to leverage the same exposure was just over GBP £7 million pounds, 1 which is more than two orders of magnitude greater than the actual expenditure required to implement the LEGO Christmas tree project. In 2012, Bright Bricks began a Partnership with Milestones Museum in Bas- ingstoke in the South of the UK near London. The museum is a living history museum and in its fi rst two years, Bright Bricks provided models and activities themed to the history of the area, buildings, and vehicles. The annual event would run for up to nine weeks and involved static models, live builds, mosaic builds, workshops, and a host of other LEGO-related activities. On the strength of the show, the museum was able to secure a LEGO retail account and now does a good trade in selling offi cial LEGO sets. This type of event and partnership, exposing new users and fans to the LEGO product and its possibilities, is exactly what the LEGO Group envisaged in creating the LCP program. So successful were the fi rst two years of the show, that Milestones commissioned Bright Bricks to provide a fully-themed experience for 2014. This Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

FIGURE 12.2 Sabre-toothed cat, “LEGO Lost World Zoo” exhibition, Milestones Museum, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK, February 26, 2014 to April 27, 2014. LEGO Art Engages People 221

became “LEGO Lost World Zoo”, an exhibition where all of the models were of prehistoric or more recently extinct creatures: dodos, sabre-toothed cats, giant dragonfl ies, Neanderthal man, an aquarium, and even a public build of a life-sized woolly mammoth. To accommodate such an undertaking, a substantial increase in budget was allowed, based largely on the success of the fi rst two years. The success of LEGO shows at Milestones is indicated by visitor numbers to the museum and the level of enhanced revenue received, which in turn led to the wish to increase the event’s budget and reach. The museum has always recorded visitor and revenue information, which thus allows an analysis of the impact of each year’s LEGO event, when compared to both pre-exhibition years and attendance during periods outside weeks covered by the event, but within the same year. The LEGO show at Milestones typically runs from the last week in February each year to the last week in April. Figure 12.3 gives a breakdown of average visitor numbers per day for the same period each year from 2010 through to 2014 and refl ects the percentage increase in visitor numbers each year. 2 During this period each year no other special activities were run or other events put on, thus it is reasonable to conclude that the uplift shown in 2012, 2013, and 2014 related to the presence of the show. Other factors that can affect visitor numbers are the weather and events available at other nearby venues drawing away visitor numbers. There were no exceptional weather patterns in 2011, 2012, or 2013, and there were no special activities available at other nearby venues above and beyond their usual programs. It is worth noting that in 2014, the show was on during a period of good spring weather after an exceptionally wet winter, and visitor numbers were down accordingly. Despite the weather situation, however, visitor numbers were still over double those experienced in 2010 and nearly double those of 2011. Taking into account all the above factors, it is clear that the LEGO shows put on at Milestones Museum have had a substantial impact on visitor numbers. In terms of revenue generated, the increase in both 2012 and 2013 were signifi - cantly in excess of the fee charged by Bright Bricks for the provision of the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Year Average visitors per day Increase from 2010 Increase from 2011 No LEGO 2010 271 0% - No LEGO 2011 293 8% 0% LEGO show 2012 845 212% 188% LEGO show 2013 728 169% 148% LEGO show 2014 574 112% 96%

FIGURE 12.3 Milestones Museum visitor numbers and percentage change in visitor numbers. Source: Hampshire County Council (Milestones Museum), visitor information records, 2010–14 222 Ed Diment and Duncan Titmarsh

exhibition and associated activities. In this respect, the show more than paid for itself in enhanced visitor numbers without any need to charge an additional fee for entry to the LEGO exhibit. This also means that visitors get to enjoy the LEGO show in addition to taking on board all the normal visitor attractions of the museum. In 2012, Bright Bricks began another successful partnership with Rolls-Royce, the British-based engine manufacturer. Rolls-Royce is one of only a handful of companies in the world manufacturing gas turbine engines for the commercial aviation industry, and in particular for long-haul, wide-bodied airliners. One of their more recent products is the Trent 1000 high by-pass turbofan engine, designed speciﬁ cally for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. The engine is an extremely large and powerful jet engine over 5 meters (16 feet) in length and with a fan diameter of nearly 3 meters (10 feet) at the front of the engine. Bright Bricks was commissioned by Rolls-Royce to produce a moving, cut-away model of the Trent 1000, at 50 percent scale, from LEGO bricks, for display at the 2012 Farnborough Air show, one of the key international industry exposi- tions and a major event in Rolls-Royce’s calendar. The building of the LEGO Trent 1000 jet engine was a substantial undertaking for Bright Bricks, with a huge number of technical challenges and a hard deadline for delivery. A model of this size and complexity, coupled with a need for safe public display, required a steel base and framework for the model in addition to European Union health and safety regulations stipulating load-bearing structural loading. A wide range of LEGO building techniques were utilized to form the complex compound curves and engineering structures involved in a modern gas turbine, high bi-pass jet engine. “High bi-pass” refers to the fact that most of the air coming into the engine is pushed around the outside of the engine core by the massive front fan, so that most of the thrust from the engine is generated without passing through the compressors and turbines in the center of the unit. In order to illustrate some of the unique features of the Trent 1000, it was required that the model have much of the engine’s housing cut away so that the viewer would be able to see the working parts of a gas turbine not normally visible. This included a feature then unique to the Trent 1000; contra-rotating

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 compressors, or a set of fan blades spinning in the opposite direction to the rotation of the rest of the unit, thereby generating much higher compression ratios and consequently greater thrust. It was important for the LEGO engine to represent this feature, along with a host of other elements speciﬁ c to the Trent 1000, as the model would be on display on the Rolls-Royce stand representing the engineering excellence of the company. As far as possible, therefore, the LEGO model was as true to the Rolls-Royce original as could be achieved with LEGO bricks, including overall length, fan diameter, fan blade count, correct count of rows of compressors and turbines, correct blade shaping, and accurate representation of the unit’s other engineering details. LEGO Art Engages People 223

FIGURE 12.4 Bright Bricks’ LEGO Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 jet engine, Rolls-Royce Plc, Derby, UK, 2012.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 The LEGO Trent 1000 was duly ﬁ nished and shipped to the Farnborough Air show in what proved to be a horrendously difﬁ cult technical exercise. There was huge interest in the model at the show, and coverage of the model was extensive in the aviation press and on aviation websites, as well as in the mainstream media. As with the LEGO Christmas tree, the level of coverage was deemed to have far outweighed the cost of having the engine produced, and as with the tree, analysis of the equivalent advertising cost was determined, being estimated at a total of nearly GBP £1 million pounds. 3 One clear indication of the success of this build was the additional work commissioned by Rolls-Royce for Bright Bricks to carry out. A second half-sized jet 224 Ed Diment and Duncan Titmarsh

engine was ordered, this time a Trent 800 from the Boeing 777 airliner, and was to be provided by Rolls-Royce to Emirates Airline as a gift for being a loyal and prestigious customer. This second LEGO jet engine retained the same cut-away design and attention to detail of the fi rst model produced by Bright Bricks, whilst incorporating all the engineering differences between the two turbines. The new LEGO jet engine takes pride of place in Emirates Airline’s Aviation Experience next door to The Emirates Air Line (cable car Thames river crossing). In 2013, Bright Bricks carried out a number of projects for engineering fi rms around the world, and anecdotal information indicated that much of this stemmed from the success of the Rolls-Royce LEGO jet engines. Companies such as Marathon Oil, Sandvik, Maersk Oil, Aker, Epoke, Stenna, and many others commissioned a wide range of builds including live builds at conferences and expos in various locations around the world, publicity events, and even custom LEGO sets of their products such as miniature LEGO oil rigs, drilling machines, or salt-spreaders. Custom sets tend to be used by fi rms as giveaways to existing or potential clients as fun gifts which at the same time are a constant reminder of their brands and products. One company to approach Bright Bricks during 2013 was the Bechtel Cor- poration, the largest engineering company in the United States, which has branches all over the world. The London branch of Bechtel is responsible for the engineering works on the London Crossrail project, one of the largest construction projects in Europe. Crossrail is a series of inter-linked train tunnels under London that will allow far greater fl ow of passengers through London, linking up existing train networks and expanding a number of London’s train stations. In order to achieve this, it has been necessary to tunnel under the UK capital using giant tunnel boring machines (TBMs). Each of these machines is custom made, is around 500 meters (1,500 feet) long, and can chew through solid rock. In addition to purchasing and using TBMs on the Crossrail project, Bechtel began sponsorship of the First LEGO League (FLL) in 2013 to promote engineering and careers within Bechtel, as well as the wider industry, to young people. The FLL is a competition between teams of young people from all over the world who compete with each other, using their engineering skills, to build

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 LEGO robots using the LEGO MINDSTORMS technology. MINDSTORMS integrates LEGO Technic building pieces with a computer “brick” that can be programmed to receive inputs from up to four interchangeable sensors and control up to three motors. Sensors include touch, infrared, and sound and motion detectors, among others, and by programming their robots, young engineers can create machines capable of navigating a complex arena ﬁ lled with obstacles, whilst carrying out special tasks, scoring their team points. Bechtel felt that this new sponsorship would be an ideal opportunity to show just what could be done with MINDSTORMS technology and cross-relate this to a real-world engineering scenario. Bright Bricks was thus asked to build a LEGO Art Engages People 225

FIGURE 12.5 Bright Bricks’ LEGO tunnel boring machine for Bechtel Corporation, London, UK, 2013.

one-twentieth working scale model of a TBM from LEGO bricks, integrating MINDSTORMS technology such that the model would actually run through a tunnel-boring sequence. It was therefore necessary for the LEGO model to be motorized and, in total, three MINDSTORMS bricks, nine motors, and a dozen sensors were used to enable the LEGO TBM model to have a rotating drill head, an auger, three different conveyors, hydraulic rams, and a mechanism for rotating concrete tunnel liner sections into place. All these elements combined, at the touch of a button, to allow the viewer to see the machine run through an entire sequence of drilling, pushing forward, taking away the spoil, bringing up a section of tunnel liner, picking it up, and rotating it into place. The fully-working LEGO TBM was presented at the ﬁ rst round of the FLL

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 at Bechtel’s London ofﬁ ces, with teams from the across the capital meeting to compete. The model proved an enormous hit with FLL competitors and Bechtel staff alike, being an inspiration for budding young engineers. Organizations are constantly in search of things that will give them an edge over their competitors and that will engage with their audience, which will demonstrate that they are the innovative thinkers in their marketplace. The LEGO brand is one of the most recognized in the world, and by aligning to the brand’s value, its product, and its phenomenal growth, an organization can associate itself with these characteristics. This essay has illustrated three real-world examples of where organizations have done just that and beneﬁ ted in tangible, 226 Ed Diment and Duncan Titmarsh

empirical ways, whilst at the same time enjoying the fun associated with bringing the LEGO product into their daily business activities. There is no clear path to understanding how far the power of the LEGO brand can reach or for how long, and there has been no comparative research into whether using other means of promotion would be more or less potent or more or less cost-effective than publicity through the LEGO brand and product. To do so would require promotion of the same products using LEGO as a promotional tool and exploiting an alternative approach in parallel to see which is more potent, and this is perhaps a subject for further research. For the moment, however, it appears that the LEGO Group is riding high, and building publicity using LEGO bricks is an effective strategy for organizations seeking to engage people with their brand through the fun and enjoyment of the colorful plastic building blocks. Certainly, Bright Bricks has seen no easing in the demand for ever-more innovative and impactful LEGO creations that speak to the consumers of other products that can be wrought in LEGO bricks or venues that can be ﬁ lled with inspiring creations for all to see. The only limits are the limits of one’s imagination.

Notes 1. Crescendo PR Limited analysis of free media by media outlet compared to paid-for advertising equivalent with each outlet. 2. Hampshire County Council (Milestones Museum), visitor information records, 2010–14. 3. Rolls-Royce plc analysis of free media by media outlet compared to paid-for advertising equivalent with each outlet.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 13 THE VIRTUALIZATION OF LEGO

Kevin Schut

The space-themed LEGO sets I grew up playing with are a little paradoxical. The galaxy beyond our atmosphere lacks any limits, yet this particular plastic toy, with its geometrically perfect rows of bumps, is all about boundaries. The possible confi gurations of LEGO blocks is nearly infi nite—as evidenced by my children cheerfully mixing and matching my thirty-year-old set of pirates, knights, and astronauts whenever we visit my parents—but the blocks themselves are rigid and perfect. They can only click together in very specifi c formations. My gray space cruiser, in other words, is a set of unchangeable parts that suggest a universe free of restrictions. In a sense, life is about limitations. We live and play within the boundaries. In fact, Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen see restrictions as essential to play, which they defi ne as “free movement within a more rigid structure”. 1 But what happens when the boundaries change? Sometimes our physical conditions change: the coming of the railroad allowed relatively rapid travel of heavy cargo to depart from waterways. Sometimes we see social and cultural boundaries shift: women can be surgeons today, which would have been nearly impossible just over a century ago.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 The media we use to communicate are a crucial part of our cultural limits. It is hard to think about things we can’t express, and at the same time, our media make it easy for us to talk about other things. When we gain new tools of communication—say, social media—and de-emphasize or change the use of others—such as paper-based newspapers—these boundaries shift, and so does meaning-making. And this has happened to LEGO. For its ﬁ rst four decades, LEGO was a plastic toy, but with the release of LEGO Island in 1997, it jumped to the computer screen. Today, LEGO-themed programs range from the hugely popular action-puzzle games based on popular movie and comics franchises such Indiana Jones, Star Wars , and Batman to the 228 Kevin Schut

FIGURE 13.1 LEGO Digital Designer is a completely open-ended virtual LEGO-building tool. LEGO creators can make anything they can imagine—such as a pair of telegraph poles.

industrial-design-like construction program LEGO Digital Designer . These are examples of “virtual LEGO”, by which I mean any kind of digital LEGO product that we can interact with in some way. In other words, all these programs allow people to still play with LEGO, but in a non-physical form. So what happens when the bricks are pixels instead of plastic? I see two major changes. First, when LEGO adopts a game form, it tends to become more structured and goal-directed than the toy. Second, because the digital medium

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 has unlimited amounts of space and virtual blocks, the only restriction for LEGO players is now the amount of time they have.

Virtual LEGO bricks

Media Ecology If Marshall McLuhan and other scholars are right, then it shouldn’t surprise us that LEGO becomes a different thing when it becomes part of a computer program. The core idea of the “media ecology” school of thought is that our The Virtualization of LEGO 229

communication technologies impact our communication, and thus our culture and the way we think: “the medium is the message”. 2 The colors, the shapes and the decorations of the little toy pieces all have an impact on how we think of it and the things the toy represents. The way this works is not simple. As many academics note, 3 technology is social in nature and constantly undergoing negotiation, and LEGO is no exception to this process. The toy doesn’t design and manufacture itself, and eager constructors have found numerous ways to creatively avoid its apparent limitations. Probably the best way to put this is that each medium has a bias , as several scholars have noted. 4 Our tools of communication don’t control us so much as they encourage certain behaviors and discourage others. So what is the cultural inclination of virtual LEGO? To answer that, we need to think of all aspects of the medium, the complete set of factors that enable communication, 5 such as the computer machinery and cultural elements of the programs. There are two areas in particular that seem very signiﬁ cant: the implications of moving from a toy to a game, and the implications of shifting to a virtual or digital reality.

From Toy to Game When LEGO becomes virtual, it frequently ceases to be only a toy and starts to be part of a game. This is not universal: LEGO Digital Designer is indeed virtual, but it’s not really a game (more on this below). But the most common and popular manifestations of virtual LEGO are games, and that has important implications. The most signifi cant differences are that games are far more goal- directed activities than toys, and often feature some kind of explicit, pre-determined narrative. “Toy”, interestingly, is not a term that many academics have bothered to defi ne. In Toys as Culture , Brian Sutton-Smith lists a series of characteristics that most toys have, such as that they’re miniatures, they are quite different from what they represent, and they are part of children’s play. 6 This is hardly a complete defi nition but that’s partly the point: Sutton-Smith believes toys are defi ned to a large degree by context. 7

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 We could also look to hints from other languages. Jouet , the French word for toy, is simply derived from the verb jouer (“to play”). The German word for toy, spielzeug , has a bit more of a twist: spiel is “to play”, but zeug has more layered meaning. While usually translated as “stuff” or “thing” in English, zeug can mean a trivial, low-value object or something that is a measure of value. It is, in other words, a word of potential. Spielzeug , then, can mean “something that has the potential for play”. 8 And this, I think, is as good a defi nition as we are going to fi nd. This may seem imprecise and open-ended, but that is an appropriate defi nition for a toy. In the hands of my daughters, clearly-branded My Little Ponies can, at 230 Kevin Schut

various times, be ponies, or mothers, or children, or dragons as needed. Likewise, a fallen branch can become a sword or magic wand. The object is fl exible in meaning: this is especially true of LEGO, where a part from a spaceship can become part of a castle or a hippopotamus. What makes it a toy is play. 9 While we have few defi nitions of the word “toy”, we have a veritable cottage industry that has grown up around defi ning “game”. None of these defi nitions are, as Wittgenstein famously argued, likely to cover all instances of what our culture calls games. 10 But Salen and Zimmerman’s defi nition does a pretty nice job of hitting most of the elements that are common to many different discussions: “A game is a system in which players engage in an artifi cial confl ict, defi ned by rules, that results in a quantifi able outcome.” 11 This is substantially more complicated than our defi nition of the word “toy”. Two issues stand out: rules and goals. First, most theorists agree that, unlike toys, a game needs a system of rules. Toys certainly have physical constraints and affordances built into them: the rubber ball bounces better than a wooden one. They also have design constraints: one scholar notes that toys favor particular types of play (“core play”) even if they allow for atypical behavior (“peripheral play”). 12 But ordinarily, we would say that a ball doesn’t have rules . I can play with it however I want. When we start adding rules to the ball—say the rules of water polo—the toy becomes part of a game. Game rules, on the face of it, have a more voluntary, social sense to them than physical objects. Without a blowtorch, saw or glue, we’re not going to be easily able to re-shape a LEGO block, but it’s a simple thing to agree to change the rules of Settlers of Catan (1995). Ultimately, however, what seems like a clear distinction between a ball and water polo gets complicated by video games. The rules of most computer programs are, for the player, just as non-negotiable as the design of a toy. The things we usually call games normally have more complicated, ineffi cient, and non- physical restrictions than the things we usually call toys, but there are exceptions either way (tremendously complex toys and very simple games). This brings us to the second distinguishing feature of games, and one mentioned by several scholars: games have goals and toys do not. Tracy Fullerton, for instance, argues that “toys are manipulable, like puzzles [and games], but there is no fi xed goal”. 13 In a conference presentation, The Sims (2000) creator

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Will Wright:

[O]ffered a ball as an illuminating comparison: It offers many interesting behaviors, which you may explore. You can bounce it, twirl it, throw it, dribble it. And, if you wish, you may use it in a game: soccer, or basketball, or whatever. But the game is not intrinsic in the toy; it is a set of player- deﬁ ned objectives overlaid on the toy. 14

But even here, the line between toy and game is not quite so clear. Many games, like role-playing games, don’t seem to have win conditions or endings. Salen The Virtualization of LEGO 231

and Zimmerman suggest such texts straddle the border between game and not- game: “[Is] SimCity an informal play activity or a formalized game? It all depends on how it is framed. Sometimes the answer to the question of whether or not a game is a game rests in the eye of the beholder.” 15 So, rather than insisting on a simple distinction between toy and game, we would do better to see a continuum between two poles. In his critically important book Man, Play and Games (1958), Roger Caillois distinguishes between free-form play he calls “paidia” and much more structured, goal-oriented play he calls “ludus”. 16 Other scholars have developed similar ideas. 17 On the paidia end of the toy–game continuum would be the classic toy with very little hint of what the player should do with it: say, a plain stick. On the ludus end would be a zero-sum game like chess, with a winner and loser. While LEGO has traditionally sat near the paidea side of the continuum, going virtual has pulled the former toy in the direction of the ludus game, as we’ll see in a moment. But pre-defi ned goals are not the only modifi cations that the video game form brings to LEGO: video games also introduce the potential for certain kinds of storytelling. Even when games don’t have extensively scripted stories, they are always, to use Jesper Juul’s terminology, part fi ctional worlds . 18 But because the medium is interactive, game narratives are unlike those of novels and movies. Even when we fi ll video games with familiar stories, the content changes in the new context. 19 Physical toys like LEGO are not necessarily devoid of narrative. It’s not an accident that LEGO sells toy sets branded with well-known movie characters and settings. But toys have a hard time delivering cut-scenes and pre-scripted narratives the way video games can. Salen and Zimmerman describe this as the difference between embedded narrative (stories scripted and prepared in advance of play) and emergent narrative (stories generated by play). 20 On this latter point, Henry Jenkins has written a widely cited article about how video games are often better at suggesting story, rather than telling it. Drawing on the ideas of theme park designer Don Carson, Jenkins talks about how the space or world of a game often evokes narrative that the player engages: spatial storytelling is substantially different from a narrator delivering a pre-packaged tale. 21 Just as physical LEGO has traditionally been a paidia -style plaything, it has

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 also traditionally been a tool for delivering emergent narrative. But the shift to the video game medium, as we shall see in a moment, is encouraging LEGO use more in the direction of embedded narratives.

Virtual Worlds, the Telegraph and the Boundaries of Time and Space The second important aspect of virtual LEGO is that it is digital, which opens up different possibilities for players. This may seem like common sense: we usually use the term “virtual” to talk about representations of the physical world 232 Kevin Schut

on computers. If I use LEGO Digital Designer to build a tree, it has no weight, and I can’t touch it. In addition, when we interact with other people in digital spaces, we know that special social rules apply. When I play LEGO Pirates of Caribbean: The Video Game (2011), my daughter routinely punches me—and that’s just fi ne by me. We’re playing inside what theorist Johan Huizinga calls the “magic circle”. 22 However, a series of game scholars have recently argued that the division between reality and virtual reality is not nearly so neat. 23 They note, for instance, that many social rules do not disappear in digital worlds, 24 and that play in video games has impact outside the games. 25 If I do something mean in a game, my daughter may indeed be angry well after we fi nish playing. So it’s worth noting that virtual LEGO is not totally disconnected from everyday life. But we can take this too far. Virtual reality has different spaces of possibility than other mediated forms of communication. To take a simple example: I learned several times to my chagrin that it is possible to snap a piece of LEGO in two. I know of no LEGO video game that allows for that (although it is, of course, possible to program). As one scholar puts it, the binary opposition between the virtual and the real is problematic, implying a harder division than there really is. 26 The best way to sum it up then is that digital media (including video games) defi nitely offer a different experience of reality—just like every other medium. And how, exactly, is virtual reality different from other media representations of reality? We could probably consider many issues, but one of the most obvious is that of the representation of time and space. The computer technology underlying the game alters the boundaries of the LEGO toy. An essay by James Carey on the ideological impact of the telegraph does an excellent job of explaining how a medium can transform our perceptions of space and time. 27 The telegraph, argues Carey, was a “watershed in communication” 28 because, for the fi rst time in history, it effectively separated communication from long- distance transportation. In other words, the electric telegraph routinely and simply allowed messages to travel faster than humans across continents and oceans. Carey notes a wide range of cultural impacts, but focuses especially on how eliminating the limits of space made time a dimension of speculation. Early

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 19th-century commodity trading was based on the possibility of buying something like wheat in one region and selling for it a proﬁ t in another region. Because of the slow speed of transportation, it was quite possible for different cities to have signiﬁ cantly different commodity prices. With the arrival of the telegraph, however, there was no longer any delay in information transfer, and the prices in the US became national instead of regional. Traders did not, however, stop speculation just because the telegraph had conquered the boundaries of space. Instead, the new frontier of uncertainty became the future: the wise or lucky buyer could make a fortune by buying low today and selling high tomorrow. The Virtualization of LEGO 233

The point is that the characteristics of a communication technology helped transform the boundaries of a culture. Speciﬁ cally, the elimination of the boundaries of space opened the possibility of exploring time. The same thing is hap- pening with LEGO as it becomes virtual, as we’ll see in a moment.

Today’s LEGO Games Before considering virtual LEGO, it’s worth taking stock of the physical toy. This has changed substantially since I was a child, and it was already quite different then than when the company ﬁ rst started selling interlocking bricks a few decades earlier. The oldest sets of LEGO were fairly basic, without many specialized parts, and no tie-ins with any other multimedia brands. Today’s LEGO still retains some similar lines like the Creator line and the popular MINDSTORMS line, but many versions of the toy have strong narrative themes. Several of these, like the DC Universe and Marvel Superheroes lines, clearly connect to larger transmedial narratives. LEGO no longer creates its own video games, but it continues to work in close cooperation with the third-party developers and publishers, like Traveller’s Tales, who actually build the programs. 29 This has proven to be a generally successful strategy, as a number of LEGO franchises have achieved signiﬁ cant prominence. Some of the most popular titles would include the LEGO Star Wars games, the LEGO Indiana Jones games, and the LEGO Batman games, all of which are action games. There are other genres of LEGO video games, however, such as music games like LEGO Rock Band (2009), which plays pretty much like the games of the main Rock Band franchise, and the real-time strategy LEGO Battles games. LEGO does have one other virtual manifestation, and it’s not a game. LEGO Digital Designer (2004) is a program created to allow people to build their own sets from a full selection of LEGO blocks. Originally, it was part of the Design by ME service that allowed customers to design and order self-created sets; LEGO discontinued the custom-order system in January 2012, but has continued to provide LEGO Digital Designer free of charge. The following analysis relies most heavily on LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (2012) and LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (2008) as well as LEGO Digital Designer , but I will make occasional references to LEGO Rock

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Band . Obviously, there is much more to talk about than these speciﬁ c titles, but they will be sufﬁ cient to map out how the potential of the medium can transform the boundaries of LEGO.

Adding Goals As we will see in a moment, virtual LEGO can be very open-ended. But the most popular forms of virtual LEGO are ludus -style games with full pre-scripted narratives. So even though this is not required, virtual reality allows for a more restricted, cinematic, goal-directed kind of LEGO. 234 Kevin Schut

FIGURE 13.2 LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (2012) is one of the popular LEGO action games. It has a relatively elaborate narrative, and many rules that restrict free play.

LEGO Batman 2 opens with an optional movie-credit-like swoop over Wayne mansion and Gotham City. Once players select a new game, they see an extended cut-scene that sets up the subsequent gameplay. A news anchor introduces a “Man of the Year” gala event, a competition between Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor. The event is rudely interrupted by the Joker and his evil companions, who are then in turn interrupted by the arrival of Batman and Robin. Finally, after several minutes of non-interactive movie, the character has the opportunity to start playing. Different LEGO action games have some minor variations, but most of the gameplay is the same. Players control miniﬁ gure characters who can move around an environment made up of items largely constructed of LEGO pieces. Interac- tion with the environment is generally limited to jumping and punching, although the games have a button for special interactions (in Batman 2 , holding down the action button creates a target at which Batman can throw a batarang weapon),

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 and it is possible to pick up objects and use them. A large part of the game is destroying any and every object lying around; while this may sound antisocial, the LEGO objects are, in fact, all breakable, and when they explode, they spray out a shower of little round “stud” pieces, which the player collects, and which form a kind of score for the level. Another big part of the game is puzzle solving. For instance in Batman 2 , players need to ﬁ nd the Sensor suit for Batman to sneak past an alarm system. Or in Indiana Jones , the player has to throw a banana to a monkey so the monkey will toss down a wrench necessary to complete the level. In addition, just about every level has some kind of building action, indicated by a pile of twitching bricks The Virtualization of LEGO 235

that, if acted upon via a simple push and hold of a button, assemble into some kind of new LEGO object which is usually crucial for the completion of the level. While playing in story mode, the game has a clear linear structure: the player cannot advance to the next level before completing the current one. Each seg- ment of the game is usually preceded by a cut-scene and ended by another. When players complete a level, they can return to it on “free play” mode, which often opens up some other options, and doesn’t have the same cut-scenes—but the level is otherwise unchanged. Clearly, these LEGO video games are substantially different from the act of playing with physical LEGO toys. There are carry-overs. Obviously, the visuals are similar—although it’s worth noting that the minifi gures are much more fl exible in the video games than they are in physical form. The games allow players to tear LEGO apart and construct new objects, just as people typically play with the plastic toys. The branding and the types of LEGO pieces are another point of connection: physical versions of many of the objects in the games are available on store shelves. It’s also worth noting that players can defi - nitely act out the stories that the video games feature, as my children do with their favorite characters from books and TV shows and movies. But even these similarities are often skin deep. For instance, pulling apart a LEGO construction and putting one together is a substantially different experience than how it plays out in the video game. The manual labor of assembling and disassembling bricks, so crucial to how most people play with the toy, is nothing like the video game action of simply pressing a button a few times or pressing and holding one. And yes, toy players can act out narrative scenes, but they typically can’t do so with professional grade voice acting, a musical score, or the background of an Egyptian city street. This is one of the key distinctions between the game form and the toy form. LEGO as a toy may, if the player is so inclined, become theatrical, but it cannot be cinematic. 30 The video game form allows for the embedded narrative that Salen and Zimmerman write about. Prepared and pre-packaged story is what cinema does, and because video games can use that tool, the move to digital media opens up that option.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 It is worth noting that there is an overlap of narrative potential in both the toys and the games. Both the physical toy and digital representations have the same characters that visually suggest the same characteristics and tie into the same non- LEGO media franchises. Both forms of LEGO have objects that can suggest a story, such as the Batcave, which is both a toy set and a setting in Batman 2. In other words, both can provide the tools for developing emergent narrative. What the physical cannot do, short of some augmentation by some other medium (such as a comic book, pre-recorded sound, or a video-making program like set #1349, LEGO Studios Steven Spielberg MovieMaker (2000)), is provide a pre-scripted narrative. 236 Kevin Schut

The other thing the move to game form introduces is externally-imposed goal-directed play. Toy players can certainly establish objectives when they take out their LEGO set. Typically, builders have the instructions for the set they just purchased, which they can follow or ignore as they wish. But players have many more options available. They can build a lair with a terrible dragon and decide to have the princess rescue the helpless knight, for instance, and then steadily or rapidly work toward that goal. Video game players also have some of the same freedom to create new objectives. For instance, players can decide to see how few studs they pick up while successfully completing a level. Or they can try to throw every single chair in a room. Or they can have the goal of beating up their co-players every ten minutes. But the goals in the video games are substantially less fl exible than those of the physical toy player. If toy players decide that rescuing a knight is insuffi ciently glorious, they can add a couple of innocent construction workers and an astro- naut. In fact, if the dragon suddenly seems a bit too ferocious, players can decide it is actually a particularly fi erce bunny that really only eats dandelions. And perhaps they might add an invisible squirrel that throws rather painful but non- lethal acorns. In Batman 2 , however, such imaginative engagement is ineffectual. Until the player conquers the story mode, free play mode is not available. And in any case, even in free play mode, the level contains a series of predefi ned goals: treasures hidden behind doors. Players might want to play a character with small size, but until they unlock such a character, it is impossible. In fact, although most LEGO games fi t into the action category, they are, in a sense, all puzzle games: until players solve this or that challenge, they cannot advance to the next one. In short, whether through the use of embedded narrative or enforced play goals, the game form opens LEGO up to the possibility of far more directed play and less free-form play. Perhaps this sounds like a negative assessment: culturally, we tend to recoil at the thought of restrictions of freedom in any way. But of course, restrictions are a fact of existence, and can even be pleasurable. When a puzzle or challenge in a video game cannot be re-imagined or wished away, it has a kind of solidity that makes conquest of it deeply satisfying. So there is a kind of trade-off here: in virtual form, LEGO becomes less of a free-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 form open toy, and more of a rigid, goal-directed item.

From Space to Time The digital game medium does not, as discussed above, have to take a ludus - oriented form; there are plenty of video games far less constricted and goal-driven than the ones just discussed. If we broaden the net to include programs that aren’t really video games but still allow for the manipulation of LEGO, we can ﬁ nd even freer forms of digital play. But that does not mean that paidia -style games do not change the boundaries of LEGO. I want to use two programs to The Virtualization of LEGO 237

make the argument that the digital medium, like the telegraph, changes the most important restriction on LEGO from space to time. Virtual LEGO has unlimited space and material, so the thing which most limits play is the amount of time a player has. LEGO Digital Designer is the biggest LEGO play chest in the world. It has a huge catalog of different types of bricks and limitless numbers of each of those. It has no levels, no goals, no win conditions, and no conﬂ ict, so we can’t really call it a game. But it gives an area for free creation like nothing else. Aspiring designers can experiment with any kind of object they can imagine: they simply select bricks and drag the pieces over to the 3-D building space. And it would be quite possible to take that kind of limitless feel and add some elements of gameplay: the proof is the international sensation Minecraft (2011). While Minecraft is deﬁ nitely not a licensed LEGO game (although LEGO is producing Minecraft brick sets), it clearly embodies the spirit of the LEGO toy. Minecraft is all about construction: players mine or otherwise collect raw materials and either use them to construct structures or craft them in some way to create something completely new. This is clearly paidia play, as the game has no win condition or quests or required goals (although it does have achievements), but it has many possible objectives, typically in the form of items that are potentially craftable. For instance, in order to enchant items, players need an enchanting table, which requires obsidian, which requires lava, which usually requires underground exploration. The game also has non-crafting actions, like taming wild animals or trading with villagers. But more than anything else, the game leaves wide-open possibility spaces. Both individuals and communities of players have taken advantage of the LEGO- like block-by-block building to create remarkable structures. Westeros-craft, for instance, is a community that is in the process of recreating the entire world of George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels. This is a massive undertaking with impressive results. So both LEGO Digital Designer and Minecraft demonstrate that virtual LEGO can be far more free-form than the LEGO action video games described above. Regardless of the kind of virtual LEGO, however, it has one major feature that physical LEGO will never have: limitless blocks. In special cases, it is possible to

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 have more bricks than time to play with them—say, an employee of the company or a very wealthy collector. But for most players, there simply isn’t enough material to do everything they might desire to do—this is a limitation of physicality, of space, in a sense. LEGO Digital Designer and Minecraft have no such restrictions. It is theoretically possible to create such a large creation in the design program that it might crash or severely slow a computer, but it would be hard to do. Notch, the creator of Minecraft , is on record as saying that the game could theoretically support a world that is eight times as big as Earth (presuming each block in the game is the equivalent of one meter). 31 In short, these games demonstrate there is no 238 Kevin Schut

need for material scarcity in a digital environment. Space, in a sense, has been obliterated—or expanded inﬁ nitely. The new limiting factor is quite deﬁ nitely time. Players can make whatever castle they want in LEGO Digital Designer or Minecraft , but it will take time. It might take time to laboriously collect material before using it, as in the survival mode of Minecraft , or to search through the LEGO Digital Designer menus for the right piece and then place each one. Either way, virtual LEGO never runs out—only the clock does. This is not to say that time is never a factor for the physical LEGO player. Clearly, any child who loves building knows that playtime always ends too soon. But again, unless the player is that rare person with effectively limitless blocks, LEGO construction is an act of constantly searching and bumping up against scarcity of blocks. The digital medium has made virtual material virtually limitless. It cannot, however, give the player more time. Even if these programs had more highly- automated building processes than they do, such activity would still take time, which we have in limited quantities. Even a gamer who plays excessively cannot escape the prison of the unidirectional fourth dimension.

Conclusion As Salen and Zimmerman argue, all play occurs within boundaries. Those limits, however, are malleable. Sometimes players re-draw the boundaries voluntarily. Sometimes broader social changes can shift boundaries. But at least in some cases, a shift in the medium we use to play can transform our boundaries. This is, I think, what we are seeing with the virtualization of LEGO. While we still see the familiar blocks on the screen, they can easily be pulled into well-established patterns of storytelling and goal-directed ludus-style play, and their functional limit can shift from the amount of plastic available to the number of hours available. Again, this is not necessarily bad. While many people tend to idolize open- ended play, the boundedness of a game can certainly allow for compelling moments of gameplay. Indeed, learning to work with restrictions can encourage tremendous creativity. And games offer forms of mediated experience not possible with the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 physical toys. In short, as LEGO is virtualized, we gain and lose something. Although they are different from the ones I played with as a boy, LEGO still makes space-themed toys. It is perhaps, then, a little ironic that at the same time, its new digital form is obliterating space.

Notes 1. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004, page 304. 2. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1964. For related ideas, see also: Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: The Virtualization of LEGO 239

Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1979; Robert K. Logan, The Sixth Language: Learning a Living in the Internet Age, Toronto, Canada: Stoddart, 2000; Josh Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior , Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1985; Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death , New York, NY: Elizabeth Sifton Books, 1985. 3. See, for example, Wiebe E. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, page 380; Wiebe E. Bijker, “Sociohistorical Technology Studies”, in S. Jasanoff et al. , editors, Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, London, England: Sage Publications, 1995; Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor- Network-Theory, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. 4. See Harold A. Innis, The Bias of Communication , Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1951; and Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death , 1985. 5. Lisa Gitelman, Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. 6. Brian Sutton-Smith, Toys as Culture , New York, NY: Gardner Press, 1986, pages 248–53. 7. Ibid., pages 247–8. Note that Sutton-Smith’s deﬁ nition largely matches that of the Oxford English Dictionary (March 2014 edition, s.v. “toy”): “A material object for children or others to play with (often an imitation of some familiar object); a plaything; also, something contrived for amusement rather than for practical use.” 8. As I’m not a German speaker, I am entirely indebted to Altug Isigan for this point. 9. What this does not deal well with is collectible toys that adults spend a great deal acquiring and then leave boxed on a display shelf. If pressed, I’d argue that an unplayed- with mint condition Millennium Falcon in a glass cabinet was designed for play and still has that potential, and that is why our culture attaches the word “toy” to it, even though from a formalist perspective, it doesn’t qualify as a toy. 10. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, G. E. M. Anscombe, translator, 2nd edition, Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1958 (1953). 11. Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, 2004, page 80. 12. Maaike Lauwaert, The Place of Play: Toys and Digital Cultures, Amsterdam, Holland: Amsterdam University Press, 2009. 13. Tracy Fullerton, Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2008, page 38. 14. Greg Costikyan, “I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games”, in Frans Mäyrä, editor, Computer Games and Digital Cultures , Tampere, Finland, Tampere University Press, 2002, page 12. 15. Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, 2004, page 82. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 16. Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games , 1958; English translation, New York, NY: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961. 17. See René Glas, Battleﬁ elds of Negotiation: Control, Agency, and Ownership in World of Warcraft, Amsterdam, Holland: Amsterdam University Press, 2012; and Chee Siang Ang, “Rules, Gameplay, and Narratives in Video Games”, Simulation and Gaming 37, No. 3, September, 2006, pages 306–25. 18. Jesper Juul, Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. 19. Adam W. Ruch, “Grand Theft Auto IV: Liberty City and Modernist Literature”, Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media 7, No. 5, September, 2012, page 331–48. 240 Kevin Schut

20. Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, 2004. 21. See Henry Jenkins, “Game Design as Narrative Architecture” in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, editors, First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004; and Don Carson, “Environmental Storytelling: Creating Immersive 3D Worlds Using Lessons Learned from the Theme Park Industry”, Gamasutra, March 1, 2000, available at www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3186/ environmental_storytelling_.php. 22. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, R. F. C. Hull translator, London, England: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949. 23. See Gordon Calleja, “Digital Games and Escapism”, Games and Culture 5, October, 2010, pages 335–53; and Vili Lehdonvirta, “Virtual Worlds Don’t Exist: Questioning the Dichotomous Approach in MMO Studies”, Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research 10, No. 1, 2010; and Richard Page, “Leveling Up: Playerkilling as Ethical Self-Cultivation”, Games and Culture 7, May, 2012, pages 238–57. 24. Mia Consalvo, “There is no Magic Circle”, Games and Culture 4, No. 4, October 1, 2009, page 416. 25. Thomas M. Malaby, “Parlaying Value: Capital in and Beyond Virtual Worlds”, Games and Culture 1, April, 2006, page 141. 26. Calleja, “Digital Games and Escapism”, 2010. 27. James W. Carey, “Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph”, Communication as Culture, New York, NY: Routledge, 1988, pages 201–30. 28. Ibid., 203. 29. See Jim Rossignol, “Nordic: TT Games’ Smith Talks Serving Children Better With Lego”, Gamasutra , May 14, 2008, available at www.gamasutra.com/view/news/109591/ Nordic_TT_Games_Smith_Talks_Serving_Children_Better_With_Lego.php; and Christian Nutt and Leigh Alexander, “Traveller’s Tales’ Earl on WB Acquisition, Making Lego Batman”, Gamasutra , September 26, 2008, available at www.gamasutra. com/view/news/111288/Travellers_Tales_Earl_On_WB_Acquisition_Making_Lego_ Batman.php. Also, in rare cases, it may step in directly, as in the problems with LEGO Universe. See Eric Caoili, “Lego Buys NetDevil’s Lego Universe Team, Lays Off Staff”, Gamasutra , February 24, 2011, available at www.gamasutra.com/view/ news/33195/Lego_Buys_NetDevils_Lego_Universe_Team_Lays_Off_Staff.php; and Frank Cifaldi, “Lack of Subscribers Forces Lego Universe Ofﬂ ine”, Gamasutra, November 4, 2011, available at www.gamasutra.com/view/news/128070/Lack_Of_ Subscribers_Forces_Lego_Universe_Ofﬂ ine.php. 30. It is, of course, possible to use video tools to make movies of LEGO. In fact, LEGO has its own licensed app called LEGO Movie Maker (2012) that does just that. But the point I’m trying to make here is that that is not the toy itself—the cinematic Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 tools are external to the toy. This is also different from virtual LEGO where what is on the screen is the toy or game itself. As noted in the introduction, I’m concerned with the LEGO objects that players can actually directly manipulate. 31. “The Word of Notch”, March 12, 2010, available at http://notch.tumblr.com/ post/443693773/the-world-is-bigger-now.

14 BRIGHT BRICKS, DARK PLAY: ON THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF STUDYING LEGO

Seth Giddings

My ﬁ rst LEGO set was 6363 Auto Repair Shop. My dad had bought it for me. He is an architect and probably thought it would be nice to teach me about bricks. I must be around 3 or 4 and I can’t remember how I played with that particular set but looking at the tooth marks on the bricks (they are in such a shape that I can still recognize them) I probably didn’t play with them as he intended. —(L)

It is generally recognized that the pleasures of LEGO do not end once the instructions in a particular set have been followed and the model depicted on the box is accurately realized. Generations of children have—just as the manufacturers intended—pulled apart the pristine model and begun again, making new vehicles, environments, and creatures. The new set joins the larger box of LEGO full of older bricks, and is mixed and hybridized. This hybridization has become particularly evident in recent decades where licensed and themed sets (space, homes, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Friends, etc.) and their speciﬁ c colors, decals

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 and shapes get jumbled and repurposed. But if the vast majority of time spent playing with LEGO does not follow the instructions, how can it be studied? These emergent worlds are almost never preserved, displayed, or photographed. Their dynamics are often as much to do with the play of construction, the narratives or scenarios that the children conjure up as bricks are connected and moved. Moreover, this kind of play is more likely to be pursued without adult attention—once any necessary help with the instructions has been offered, adults will happily leave children to their engrossed activity, paying little or no attention to the nature of this play. Like the dark matter that constitutes the bulk of the universe, but which cannot as yet be detected or 242 Seth Giddings

examined, this dark play constitutes the reality of LEGO as lived and played. This chapter will acknowledge the impossibility of fully accounting for LEGO play, but it will offer some approaches to it, some hints at this lost multitude of transitory worlds and constructions. Through ethnographic studies of contemporary play and memory-work with older children and adults, it will trace particular instances of the interactions between the materiality of LEGO and the phantasmagoric worlds of play it affords. Resources for the LEGO historian or anthropologist do exist, such as the LEGO company’s own documentation, critical writings in both the press and literature, and online discussions and databases such as brickset.com. The ever- changing design and construction of the bricks and sets themselves can be studied, their material properties—particularly the affordances and constraint of the LEGO System of connection, the clicking together of stud and tube—at the very least suggest certain kinds of play and construction. Yet, as we’ll see, LEGO is nothing without its open-ended, imaginative and hence unpredictable potential, and, as none of these resources engage directly with everyday play in any sustained fashion, these discursive assumptions and material suggestions are far from exhaus- tive of the possible and actual structures and worlds built.

The Questions To address the lived and moment-by-moment events of LEGO play requires ethnographic research with children and/or memory-work. This essay works mainly with the latter, 1 but also draws on some press accounts and interviews, and from literary memoirs and cultural criticism, where the latter addresses directly the experience of LEGO play. The bulk of the material explored here, though, is from the computer game studies community. Through the Games Network discussion list, I asked for memories of people’s own childhood experiences of LEGO and, if possible, those of any children in their lives. Did they follow the set instructions or immediately make their own inventions? What kind of worlds or models did they build? Did they keep themed sets intact or did these sets get mixed up with others? Did they play on their own, or with siblings, friends, adults? I was interested in the experiential or phenomenological aspects of these

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 memories: how did it feel to play and build? Did they remember the sound of rummaging through a box of LEGO? What about the frustration of not ﬁ nding a necessary piece? Did they attempt to match colors, to create fantastical or realistic objects? Was the LEGO integrated with other toys? For older respondents: did they prefer the early “abstract” bricks or the newer themed and franchised sets? I made it clear I was not interested in LEGO video games, 2 adult collection of, or play with LEGO—unless with children, MINDSTORMS, LEGO Serious Play, and so on: just everyday children’s play with the plastic bricks. I have worked with 20 detailed responses. Whilst I have made no attempt to produce any kind of representative sample and I’m not interested here in Bright Bricks, Dark Play 243

making any claims for generality or universality, the respondents turned out to be a diverse group, with professions including psychologist, school teacher, historian, game scholar, game designers, educationalist, and media scholar. Nation- alities ranged across Europe and North America, with 12 male and eight female respondents. Not everyone gave their age, but their biographical accounts suggest a range from mid-20s to early 50s. I have resisted the temptation to connect individual accounts to biographical details (beyond those necessary—e.g., parent- hood, siblinghood, etc.) and play styles. A number identiﬁ ed themselves as AFOLs—adult fans of LEGO—and demonstrated expert knowledge of the history and sets backed up by catalog numbers and links to online databases. This adult fan culture is fascinating, but beyond the scope of this essay, so I have only drawn on their accounts of their childhood play or their play with children. Other respondents were less invested in LEGO expertise, but were clearly conducting internet searches as they typed their responses and found the bricks or sets they were remembering listed on sites such as Brickset. As some of the respondents preferred to be anonymous, I have referred to them by capital letters and have listed those who are happy to be named at the end of the essay.

I’m a 1976 baby, and looking at the issue dates on the sets I guess I was still very young when I had them, but I was treated to a whole load of Lego Space stuff, I would guess over the period of a number of birthdays and Christmases. Looking at www.brickset.com/browse/themes/?theme=space, I deﬁ nitely had a Command Centre , one of the spaceships (couldn’t tell you which for certain), and I think the Mobile Rocket Launcher (I remember the grey hinged piece). There were also some bits of crater terrain and a landing strip, although I don’t know if they were part of sets or not. Pretty soon after that, I got interested in Technic Sets, and I had the 1970s-issue Car/Auto Chassis and the Go-Kart from www.brickset.com/browse/ themes/?theme=Technic. —(E)

Claims for Creativity

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 A key challenge to studying LEGO as actually played is a direct product of its distinguishing characteristic: its openness as a toy. Its design and material characteristics, the LEGO System of Play with its insistence on the interconnectability of all pieces regardless of theme, and the company’s own marketing and self- presentation all facilitate and emphasize the possibilities for open-ended play, the exercise of imagination and creativity. As the cultural historian Gary Cross explains:

Its eye-catching red, yellow, white and blue pieces could be combined into inﬁ nite forms and shapes which delighted children and gave them unrestricted 244 Seth Giddings

opportunities to employ their skills and imagination. Lego’s chief Godtfred Christiansen claimed his blocks provided “unlimited” and timeless play, stimu- lated activity without violence, and were gender neutral. 3

The LEGO Group sets out the values and affects of its system of products as a set of qualities that include Imagination, Curiosity, Free Play, Fun, and Learning:

• Imagination : Curiosity asks, “Why?” and imagines explanations or possibilities (if . . . then). Playfulness asks, “What if?” and imagines how the ordinary becomes extraordinary, fantasy or ﬁ ction. Dreaming it is a ﬁ rst step towards doing it. • Free Play: Free play is how children develop their imagination—the foundation for creativity • Creativity: Creativity is the ability to come up with ideas and things that are new, surprising and valuable. Systematic creativity is a particular form of creativity that combines logic and reasoning with playfulness and imagination. • Fun: Fun is the happiness we experience when we are fully engaged in something that requires mastery (hard fun), when our abilities are in balance with the challenge at hand and we are making progress towards a goal. Fun is both in the process, and in the completion. • Learning: Learning is about opportunities to experiment, improvise and discover—expanding our thinking and doing (hands-on, minds-on), helping us see and appreciate multiple perspectives. 4

In this, LEGO is the late 20th-century descendant of a longer genealogy of seriously playful objects for children—including the wooden block “gifts” of the early 19th- century educational pioneer Friedrich Froebel 5 and the psychologist Margaret Lowenfeld’s therapeutic / diagnostic “world technique” of play with sand and water 6 to the more symbolic architectural toy sets, modular toy towns and engineering construction sets such as Meccano and its own ancestors. The architect turned toy collector Norman Brosterman wrote of an exhibition of his architectural toys from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that they were “boxes of possibilities”, and “potential architecture”. Their relationship to the actual worlds of building and

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 engineering is a material-conceptual one, more abstract or processual than any straightforward process of educating children in adult world architecture or engineering. If these toys are similar to others in that they are “abstractions of reality in a more comprehensible, miniature form”, then building blocks are different, they are “another level removed. In their unbuilt form they are ideas for ideas of things”. 7 He notes that the word “building” is a verb as well as a noun. This emphasis on the abstract and open-ended was not always present in the marketing of construction toys. Gary Cross notes that the Tyor wooden construction blocks at the start of the 20th century were advertised as “constructive, scientiﬁ c, amusing”. The Structo set was, Bright Bricks, Dark Play 245

clearly directed toward the boy’s ambition: “you don’t have to wait until you grow up to get training in mechanical building.” Structo bragged that “Fathers can’t resist the fascination of Structo, because it does the real things that big men do in real life. It is not a toy. It is a miniature of the mechanical world for boys.” 8

Unlike its early competitors in the construction toy market, there was a tension within the marketing of LEGO’s openness. Though primarily understood as architectural, the bricks were, from the start, seen as having the potential for “free play”. Thus, though imagination and creativity were at least in part at the service of learning and educational, an interplay between realist engineering and free imagination runs through subsequent and contemporary accounts of LEGO play. The values ascribed to LEGO play and the assumptions about how LEGO is actually played with in everyday life in academic and popular literature are almost universally predicated on any particular take on this tension. The implica- tion of some criticism of the theming and franchising strategies seem to be that the imaginative and creative potential of LEGO play is then only realized in its address to actual adult world industry and activity, not direct training as such, but developing the child’s cognitive and embodied understanding of design and construction. For others, the possible trajectories of construction play veer off from the pursuit of engineering and architecture into more fantastical and less instrumental modes of play. For Gilles Brougère, for instance, it is important that LEGO play precisely,

should not be confused with learning the processes of construction used in the outside world. . . . Construction toys give children opportunities for constructing their own instruments of play, realizing their own fantasies, symbolizing the real world according to their needs at any given moment. They are not really a means of accessing the building process of the adult world. 9

Whereas toys shaped like people, animals, weapons, vehicles, real world environments, etc. have all been subject to analysis and critique for their mediation of 10 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 the world into children’s play, LEGO has tended to be studied for its educational applications, and—as we’ll see—cultural analysis has tended towards anxious accounts of LEGO’s openness and “free play” being closed down through the incremental introduction of themed and franchised sets.

Instructions and Sets Anxieties about the historical and cultural changes in LEGO accrete around changes to the toy’s design and in particular the production of distinct LEGO sets from the introduction of the System of Play in the 1950s to the present day. 246 Seth Giddings

The ﬁ rst boxes of LEGO did not feature any specialized bricks or even instructions for any particular model (though pictures on the boxes gave indications or suggestions for building goals). Sets with instructions were not introduced until 1966. For Stephen Kline this was primarily a commercial decision that undermined LEGO’s original ideals:

These predesigned models seemed to extend the time children were willing to spend at play and they added the element of learning to follow plans. The introduction of thematic sets no longer accorded with Christiansen’s original philosophy of using bricks to build anything at all, but it helped reposition Lego in the market, and even though it was less open to children’s innovation, it ensured their enjoyment and loyalty to the product line. 11

There are three points here. The ﬁ rst is the widely held but ultimately unhelpful assumption that any instructions, theme, box illustrations, and their “pre-designed” models necessarily and inevitably restrict children’s imaginative and poietic play with LEGO (I will return to this). The second is the importance or value ascribed to the process of learning to read and implement plans or instructions—again, the value of this varies according to the critic’s position on the true essence of LEGO play. Third, and most interestingly, the introduction of instructions—Kline assumes—affects play in temporal terms, increasing the amount of time children were devoting to their LEGO. All of these points, however, are predicated on the “reading off” of future play practices from the presentation of the sets and the components they include. Attention to actual , not assumed, play demonstrates a much richer and varied interaction between the material affordances of LEGO pieces, packaging, instructions, and the individual player’s or groups of players’ preferences, experiences, and domestic environments:

When I got a new set I always followed the instructions ﬁ rst. If I liked it I kept it as it is for a while. If not so much I added its pieces to the general collection and used them to build [my own creations] or modify the sets I liked. Modiﬁ cations varied. Some were very simple. For example I

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 remember turning 6685 Fire Copter into a military copter by adding a gun to the bottom and rocket pods to the sides. Others could be bigger and much more complicated. I remember very cheerfully when I turned 6085 Black Monarch’s Castle (my only big castle set) into Jabba’s Palace by enlarging the back side, adding rooms to the sides, and covering up the ceiling. —(L)

This broad pattern is not universal, but it is common, with many respondents recalling that they would usually make the pre-designed model, and then after Bright Bricks, Dark Play 247

a period of time—generally in direct proportion to the size or complexity of the completed model—break it down and make other constructions undirected by instructions.

The usual ﬂ ow was: follow instructions, play with the set for a while, then slowly “corrupt” it with other pieces and ﬁ nally making it part of the collection of pieces of Legos that was re-assembled during play in different forms. The pieces were used to create things, mostly little cars, spaceships and houses. —(G)

I was given a LEGO helicopter and a LEGO fi re-fi ghter ship, complete with keels to make it fl oat, with very little customised pieces so I could build a variety of other stuff. It came with instructions, but I only used them for the fi rst two or three times. Otherwise I would remember what they were or make up my own. I would mix all the stuff up and not keep them separate. —(D)

My play with legos followed a predictable pattern from what I recall. My parents would give me a new set. I would build whatever was intended by following the instructions. Then I would break it down and add the pieces to “THE BOX”.

—(C)

Like (C), more often than not, the pieces would be before too long dumped into a large box containing all previous LEGO sets. However, not all respondents followed this pattern; (J), for instance, skipped the ﬁ rst step:

As a child I was obsessed with Legos and hated instructions. Where my younger (male) cousins always wanted me to build the exact models on the boxes, I immediately dumped all my legos into a bucket and built

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 whatever I wanted with them, ignoring and throwing out the directions immediately. —(J)

This respondent seems to ﬁ t the LEGO critics’ ideal player as she works only with her imagination:

I didn’t have any lego people, although I did have sets with wheels, and used those to make cars, trucks, trains, open things that resembled dune buggies, and so on. Most of my creations were based on my imagination, 248 Seth Giddings

not on anything “real” that I could see out the window . . . generally building complete three-dimensional buildings (houses, skyscrapers, bun- kers) out of them with windows, solid walls, and doors. I think I made a space ship once or twice, as well. —(J)

These categories of player play are not easily or clearly distinguished in observations and memories of everyday play, however. As noted earlier, setting to work with the instructions might precede imaginative play, or the two may overlap and interweave, with variable levels of enthusiasm:

I have a 5-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl—we buy the “model” boxes (e.g. cars, or Ninjago), but also have the Lego Creationary just with loads of pieces/bricks. My kids like to do both the models and the “free building” (although my little boy’s attention range with the models is shorter than with free building—it’s taking us about 5 days to ﬁ nish a “simple” Ninjago snake-bike, because he gets tired of following instructions after 10–15 [minutes]. He enjoys the building up as per instructions, and realis- ing he is able to “achieve” the intended results, but spends by far a lot longer just picking bricks and building his own stuff (easily 30 [minute] to 1 [hour] non-stop, sometimes more). —(F)

For this child “free building” proves more satisfying and absorbing than following instructions, whereas for (M) LEGO construction pleasures are varied, but even “following the instructions” led to the creation of models that were then the basis for other imaginative play:

Alone time was mostly deconstructing & reconstructing my favorite sets and staging elaborate battles between various factions, more than free building. While I enjoyed free building, I loved and probably fetishized the intricacy, cohesiveness and narrative completeness of the sets. That said, I had a few long-running projects that I returned to over the course of

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 my childhood Lego “career”: building working Transformers with Lego, using all my castle pieces on one massive fortress, and later, devising a kind of proto-battle/trading-card game with my favourite miniﬁ gures. —(M)

There is a signiﬁ cant historical dimension to all these play modes, both those patterns assumed by critics and those observed or recalled by parents and players. As noted, instructions were introduced in the mid-1960s, and there has been an incremental reﬁ nement and specialization of LEGO sets and pieces ever since. Bright Bricks, Dark Play 249

From substantial sets of mixed bricks with instructions for making a range of models to sets that were designed for the construction (initially at least) of one model (a ﬁ re engine or hospital, for example), to the introduction and proliferation of specialized, model- or theme-speciﬁ c bricks, to systems of related themed sets (notably LEGO Space in the late 1970s), to the current narrative and transmedial themes of Ninjago, Atlantis, and Friends, 12 or the media franchises of Harry Potter, Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Some of my respondents remember the introduction of themed sets, and most of the popular and academic criticism of the changing nature of LEGO is based on this apparent trajectory of the closing off of open-ended possibilities through specialization, direction, and “narrativization”.

I was a free form girl! Much of the Lego I played with was before sets or instructions and I found these things to be quite limiting when they did emerge onto the market. I’m quite orderly though, so would enjoy building houses, etc. —(B)

Others, however, have found following instructions compelling and creative in its own way, the ostensible constraints on imagination affording instead an intellectual pleasure in the process of construction, inseparable from other playful, poeitic, and imaginative activities:

My love for model building started when I was about ﬁ ve years old . . . and what excited me most was following the instructions. I loved watching how many small and simple steps resulted in a single beautiful and complicated piece. I found it thrilling that I could take the instructions—simple pieces of paper—and ﬁ gure out what they were telling me to do. This feeling was similar to the one I got when my sister and I created treasure hunts for each other. We made clues that led around the house but always ended up with a treasure map. Following the map was my favorite part. 13

LEGO models—again particularly the more complex ones—might be seen as

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 more closely connected for some players with the alternative construction toys such as Airﬁ x kits. These require close attention to the rules and their creators generally display the completed model rather than playing with it.

My eldest son, 14, has put together many sets and has kept them displayed on his bookshelf; in contrast to my approach of building and then dismantling after a few days/weeks, he has kept some of these completed sets for 6+ years on display. —(R) 250 Seth Giddings

Construction to Narrative Critical claims that the originary purity of LEGO has been lost vary in their identiﬁ cation of the precise historical moment and distinct design/marketing change that marks this fall from grace. For some, it was not the 1960s instructions but rather the themed sets of the late 1970s to mid-1980s. Gary Cross, for example, regards this development as a “compromise” with the broader children’s commercial culture of the “American fantasy industry”:

The claim that Legos offered unbounded creativity was increasingly hard to square with a sales program based on kits or “systems” designed to construct a single model. And the “timelessness” of Legos jarred against the sale of Lego Space Systems in 1984 [1979 in Europe]. . . . In the face of competition Lego had adapted to the all-pervasive marketing techniques of the noveltymakers, sacriﬁ cing its initial educational value. 14

Whereas Maaike Lauwaert situates the watershed moment in the mid-1990s, with a shift in LEGO’s industrial strategy from prescribing construction as the preferred or encouraged mode of play to story-based action and role-play :

These narrative toys allowed for both the development of more diverse products that did not necessarily have the brick and construction play at its core, and for the integration of these products with other media and other areas of the child’s world. . . . The LEGO toys introduced between the late 1990s and the early 21st century on the other hand focused heavily on the playing with the construction once it was ﬁ nished. 15

This brand expansion was a strategic repositioning of LEGO within a newly dominant children’s transmedia culture, 16 what Stig Hjarvard calls the “mediatization” of LEGO. If the original LEGO player was a proto-engineer, then:

As mediatization progressed, heroes and values stemming from the media industry’s repertoire of adventurous heroes gradually replaced the engineer. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 LEGO’s new heroes are seldom occupied with the slow, laborious work of construction, but are much more devoted to fast action in exotic places far from civilization and increasingly engaged in different kinds of violent–yet morally legitimate!—destruction. 17

As we’ve seen, the perceived transformation of LEGO from educational or “free” to narrative or prescribed is placed at different historical moments according to the speciﬁ c concerns and values of the critic; 18 however, everyday play is not so easily periodized. Memories and observations of play rarely resonate fully with Bright Bricks, Dark Play 251

analyses that project imagined players and play from the toy design and marketing. The following account not only captures one aspect of change in a single family, it also highlights a key element in the analysis of LEGO play: the distinction between construction itself as play and play with the (more or less) ﬁ nished model. Here the writer’s parents bought her her preferred “traditional” sets, and her younger sister Space LEGO:

I didn’t understand their appeal because you could make only one object with each kit, with only minor possible variations. My box of all-purpose LEGOs had pieces of many colors; the space LEGO pieces were all gray and blue and made for specifi c purposes. My sister happily made her spaceships and moon vehicles and then would play for hours, driving her men around and completing different missions. I would help her build, and I enjoyed the challenge of seeing who could fi nd the pieces fi rst. But I did not enjoy playing with the fi nished product. Our sets were even packaged differently. My traditional LEGO boxes had pretty pictures of simple structures. Space LEGOs came in boxes with pictures of the completed model in front of a lunar background. And Space LEGO models had decals, which imply permanence. Once they are applied, the piece they cover can be used in only one position. My sister’s boxes included step-by-step instructions for completing a model. Even then, I thought that this defeated the purposed of a toy. As I saw it, space LEGOs didn’t enable my sister to put anything of herself into her creations. 19

In memories of actual play, then, we see a mixing up of types of LEGO, attitudes to play, preferences, and relationships. For instance, (P)’s recollections are an eloquent validation of LEGO as compelling engineering—the technics and mathematics of the bricks inseparable from their affects:

By the time I played with the set we had no instructions. I made my own inventions. I mostly remember building houses, cars, trains and geometric shapes . . . I remember the sound fondly! I used to spend a lot of time moving the pieces around to ﬁ nd the ones I needed. I mostly had the simple bricks and bases to build. I had 1×1s, 1×10s, Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 1×2s, 1×3s, 1×4s, 1×6s, 1×8s, 2×2s, 2×3s, 2×4s (lots of them), 2×6s, 2×8s, corners 1×1×2s. Also the parts used for roofs: 2×2×45deg, 1×2×45deg, 2×2×45deg inside, maybe the 2×4×45deg but I don’t remember exactly. . . . A few wheels, but the ones they have on the LEGO parts site looks different from the ones I remember having. Ah, I found them. It was this one: www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4180c02 . And I had several of the train track pieces. —(P) 252 Seth Giddings

Interestingly, she was the only respondent to say that she matched colors:

Yes, deﬁ nitely matched colors. Most of the objects I created were realistic. To this day I am not much of a fantasy person. —(P) 20

In other responses to my questions, the mode of play cannot be so easily distinguished as “engineering” or “fantasy”. Respondent (O), for example, reﬂ ected on the educational and creative beneﬁ ts of following instructions versus more exploratory engineering. On the one hand, LEGO engineering for him is a fundamentally creative activity that “forces children to think about what they want to build and problem solve their way to creating that vision” (O). On the other hand, his own engineering, in collusion with his brother, resulted in “fantastical kinds of vehicles and submarines for the swimming pool in the summer”. They also produced cars for demolition derbies, designed for destruction:

We eventually got good enough at building these cars that we started breaking pieces before the cars would give and the pips would ﬂ y apart. That was some real purpose-driven “engineering”. —(O)

Or more simply, the interplay of symbolic imagination and the demands of construction may just ﬂ ow through the phases of making and playing. Respon- dent A’s ﬁ ve-year-old brother, for instance,

approaches it in a very matter-of-factly way most of the time, doesn’t refer to pieces as “Oh I need more scales to complete this dragon!” but rather just “I need a green, 4×4 one” or whatever, and he likes to build as fast as possible. Of course, he likes playing around with the pieces once they are completed. —(A)

These rich accounts highlight a dichotomy in critical assumptions about LEGO as a product for the fostering of imagination. Though both the austere simplicity

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 of the early architectonic system and the semiotic frenzy of contemporary mediatized sets necessitate imagination, the champions of each of these play patterns base their arguments on different understandings of the nature of imagination. For the former, imagination in LEGO play is most effectively extended through engineering and design: setting a material challenge (building a bridge perhaps) and imagining how the bricks can be connected to solve it. For the latter, it is LEGO’s potential for the exercise of symbolic or performative imagination that is key. Children building towns or worlds through which to tell their own stories and invent their own characters would epitomize this preferred style of play. As a shorthand, I will call these styles “engineering-imagination” Bright Bricks, Dark Play 253

and “symbolic-imagination” respectively. These rhetorics of LEGO play (pace Sutton-Smith 1997) share misgivings about themed and franchised sets and assumptions that they constrain each of their models of imaginative play. Thus, despite the superﬁ cial similarity in their periodizing or mythologizing of transformational moments in LEGO history, there are contradictory values ascribed to the modes of play undergoing these changes. I will now address how imagination is mobilized in my respondents’ descriptions of play in the more recent themed and transmedial LEGO universe.

Stories, Games, Media, and Worlds

At ﬁ rst I mostly built Spaceships, as big as possible, then went on to pirate ships, sometimes buildings (castles, pyramids and such) and vehicles. What I can clearly remember is that I always told myself the stories I was building while I was building—of exploration missions deep in space, of hidden treasures on secret islands and so on. —(T)

Stig Hjarvard calls LEGO’s strategy of emphasizing its narrative, media possibilities “imaginarization”. Placing this shift in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he is concerned with the organization and design of LEGO around speciﬁ c media themes, genres, and speciﬁ c “imaginary universes”. These sets “increasingly invite play in which storytelling is the crucial activity” and which—through the recent transmedial ambitions of LEGO—promote play across “a whole range of media platforms”. 21 Respondent (R)’s eight-year-old son, recovering from surgery, has been immersed in LEGO and the recent transmedial collections and connections have proved compelling:

He became acutely fascinated with The Hobbit / LotR [ Lord of the Rings ] sets and has put together most (if not all) of these Lego sets. For the most part, he keeps them whole after completing them, but he does modify them somewhat. He’s progressed from struggling to follow the directions to truly

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 mastering complex sets and doing them above his age level quite quickly. Additionally, playing with these sets has inspired him to begin reading The Hobbit ( just began today, actually), and he wants to read it and the LotR books. I’d say his experience with Lego might be typical of many young kids who discover the beauty of creativity and are then inspired to take up a new hobby/reading based upon the themes of the sets. —(R)

This account demonstrates that these sets certainly anticipate and facilitate symbolic- imaginative play and story-telling, and—interestingly—have the potential to bolster 254 Seth Giddings

reading amongst the transmedial mix. However, as we will see, other accounts suggest that symbolic-imaginative play with media-themed pieces does not necessarily adopt the transmedial universe as its frame of reference. And it is certainly clear that all kinds of imaginative worlds have been clicked into being with pre- franchised LEGO or in mixes of non-themed and themed pieces:

Now, my eldest was introduced to lego with Mega Bloks [a competitor to the LEGO and Duplo Systems but designed to be compatible with them] and then proper Duplo. Initially she just built towers, then as she got older we would sit and build the Duplo sets into more complex objects. She had a Toy Story themed set, so we made trains and recreated the train scene from Toy Story 3 a lot. Funnily enough, the youngest has followed a similar path—towers and trains! She just likes to stack them and call them trains or robots. —(Q)

That action, objects, and characters from popular media emerge in all kinds of play is inevitable in a postwar media-saturated children’s culture, whether licensed toys are involved or not:

I would often do this with my friend and I recall we were inﬂ uenced by the ﬁ lm Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome . —(C)

To reiterate the key methodological argument of this chapter: without direct observation or memories it cannot be known how these toys are played with, and what worlds they may generate. Morever, as has already been indicated, once the pieces of any particular themed set are mixed up with a child or family’s existing collection, all kinds of worlds can be constructed, and different kinds of knowledge, from popular media to science, are brought to bear, explored, and mixed up:

I was heavily into space, I used to spend hours looking at a Moon atlas,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 and I liked things like Battle of the Planets and Star Wars, so I built rockets and spaceships (not just those in the Lego Space instructions). I also seem to remember trying to build some Transformers (although I’d have been older by then, this would have been 1984/5). —(E)

The notion of narrative and story-telling does not exhaust the processes of symbolic-imagination in LEGO design, construction, and post-construction play. “Imaginarized” play can ﬂ ow along game/rule channels, or—very often—into Bright Bricks, Dark Play 255

the creation of worlds. It can also at times be thoroughly bound up in drawing as imaginative play: 22

Me and a group of 5–6 friends (all boys) in primary school (7–8 years old I think) would draw spaceships on pieces of paper every evening and effectively try to act out some sort of war between our drawn spaceships every day in school. We would come into school each day with several pieces of paper, each with elaborately drawn ships and then try and determine who would win in a battle. The rules were essentially made up as we went along but it usually resulted in everyone thinking they had won because nobody would concede that their ship was the worst. One way this manifested though was every lunch time through Lego where we were lucky enough to have lots of it on hand at our school. We would attempt to build our ships and try and do battle in a more concrete form. . . . .If time permitted during the lunch hour (which is when this all took place) we would also battle the ships which usually involved smashing them together in the ﬁ nal moments of lunch time. In retrospect the Lego was probably a way to materialise our imaginative drawn ships in a way beyond paper and pencil. More than that though, I think the chance to battle our creations as we might play with traditional toys that you can hold in your hand was exciting in a way that our pen and paper ships, however elaborate, could never be. —(N)

Media stories (here generic SF) are inseparable from engineering and the affordances of LEGO for construction and destruction. This account returns us to the materiality of LEGO as a toy and a system. Both the drawings and the construction fabricate imaginative worlds and action, but clearly in different ways and with different pleasures and outcomes. Even in a transmedia landscape with images and stories ﬂ owing across books, ﬁ lms, TV, and video games, LEGO bricks remain technological. The way they click together, the amount of pieces available, all shape possible constructions and play events at least as much as instructions, box illustrations, and media narrative frames. These material char-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 acteristics and affordances are also, the respondents evince, inseparable from the tactile pleasures and intense memories of LEGO play.

The Box, and Other Proustian Moments I ﬁ nd it heartbreaking to comb through the bricks of my childhood . . . the click of stud into hole promises a Proustian retrieval of lost bliss . . . 23 I played with ﬁ rst set of LEGOs on the shag carpet of my playroom with sunshine streaming through the high windows. 24 256 Seth Giddings

I remember hurting my ﬁ ngers on the little spiky cogs you got in the technical kits. —(E)

My question about the sound of LEGO rummaging met an enthusiastic response, and was matched by the serendipitous appearance of the rattle of bricks on different BBC Radio 4 programs whilst I was researching this essay. One appeared as a few seconds of a “favorite” sound recorded by a listener to a news magazine program. It was the “sound of his childhood in the 1970s and 80s” familiar again now with his own children. The other featured in a Reith Lecture by the artist Grayson Perry. He brought a box of LEGO and shook it for the audience:

And I brought this along because I want to rustle this Lego here—this incredibly evocative sound. This is the noise of a child’s mind working, looking for the right piece. I think it’s almost creativity in aural form. I wanted to bring that along. I love that noise. 25 It is funny you mention the sound, to this day I love that noise as you desperately search for that last ﬂ at single you need! —(Q)

The sound is not universally loved, however:

My parents became annoyed with the sound of me rummaging through LEGOs especially at night so they bought sorting boxes, which ended up being very practical and quiet. —(L)

Like Proust’s cake and tea, the memory of the sound can unlock a wealth of related sensory and affective material:

[T]he sound and incredible feeling on ﬁ ngers & palms from raking through a full drawer of pieces; doing so when someone else (friend or parent) was

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 doing the same thing, in the same pile, and getting into occasional “turf wars” (“you look on that side, I’ll look on this side”, as if pieces obey those demarcations); using my teeth to pull pieces apart (I preferred the occasional bloody gum to chipped & hang nails); dumping all the pieces of a new set on the ground; stepping on pieces; other people stepping on pieces; building on a hard table and having pieces drop off to skitter along the ﬂ oor; the anxiety & relief of anticipating a missing piece in a new set, and then ﬁ nding out that they’re all there. —(M) Bright Bricks, Dark Play 257

The sound and the “box” of LEGO are bound up together, and the box itself featured in many recollections:

When I was a kid, the Lego was kept in a plastic box, I think something left over from when I was a baby which had been used to store “baby stuff”—it might even have been some kind of Johnson & Johnson thing. It was grey and white, anyway, with a lid that opened and had a suspended tray with little compartments, above the body of the box. This was great for Lego—you could ﬁ nd the little bits you were after and put them in the tray, so you could ﬁ nd them easily. The box lid got broken when I was around 7 or 8 by a friend of mine, who stood on it to look out of the window. We kept the box, though. —(E)

The ubiquitous box, then, is by no means merely for storage—as well as an evocative object in its own right, it was, and is, integral to modes of construction and play; a technology in itself, holding all the pieces but also randomly generating suggestions for unexpected juxtapositions and new lines of ﬂ ight for the imagination:

It was an early 80s or late 70s Lego City—the whole town, with all buildings, cars and everything. But it all went in pieces into a big drawer under my bed, 4×3 feet long and wide and about a foot high, and there it remained for the next years. I remember very well rummaging through that treasure chest that seemed gigantic to me then, searching for the right bricks for my creations, sometimes for hours (at least so it seemed to me). —(T)

I would occasionally think about sorting the pieces and storing them in different containers but never did it. I recall much pleasure was looking for pieces in the box and ﬁ nding the target piece or ﬁ nding a completely different piece which took me in a different building direction. I never

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 put too much consideration into color—it was more about structural integrity. —(C)

“The box” as an evocative focus for a multiplicity of memories, and the well- spring from which many LEGO play events emerge, and its collection or absorption of numerous sets, negates critique of themed sets and instructions as constraining. Not only does the box mix up initially distinct sets, it often originates in, or has incorporated, LEGO from older siblings, relatives or 258 Seth Giddings

secondhand shops, jumble sales, and today, eBay. LEGO, particularly in the amounts needed for fully satisfying play, is not cheap, and old and new pieces and boxes often move through families and communities and down through generations. A couple of respondents had still raw memories of their rash selling-off or giving-away of large collections (generally as the collector enters adolescence). On the other hand, Respondent I recalls a wonderful communal- ism of LEGO:

Lego was a big deal where I grew up—I lived in a tight-knit neighbour- hood in part of a bigger city. Lego wasn’t just passed down between siblings, but between families and neighbours as one home collectively grew past the toy. When “the collection” made it to me, there were no ﬁ xed sets any longer, just 6 bins that I kept in my closet. I would use Lego (and Construx) to build houses for all of my dolls. —(I)

My grandfather bought a LEGO set in Germany as a gift for my brother. The set has stayed with the family. Even to this day, my nephews and nieces have access to it. —(P)

As so often with ritual objects, toys can become imbued with and imbue social and familial relationships and activities:

The history of the Lego is that it was the same Lego that my friend played with as a child in the same living room, and playing with her nephew in the same space felt like passing on the knowledge of creation and sharing similar memories. —(K)

Social and Inter-generational Play

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 In many of the accounts, it is impossible to separate out individual preferences for play as the context is the social world of siblings and sometimes parent and child (as in a number of examples above). Compromise, dominance, all the social dynamics of sharing are constraints and affordances in LEGO construction, just as much as the technicalities of the bricks or the attraction of imaginary and media scenes.

My ﬁ rst memory of lego was a space lego set I was given when I was around 6 or 7. My dad and I built it together. . . . When Technic Lego came out, my dad and I would spend hours building clever machines and Bright Bricks, Dark Play 259

vehicles that had geared moving parts. I fondly remember waking up one morning to ﬁ nd he had made a lego speeder bike (complete with a starwars speederbike pilot from my Star Wars toy collection! —(Q)

As a single child I was mostly alone while building; but I played with my friends and parents when I ﬁ nished a project. So I used LEGOs like other toys while playing with others but didn’t share the building experience with them. —(L)

Playing can unfold through rivalry or power relations as well as collaboration and cooperation:

When I was a little older, I got a Lego pirate ship for Christmas—this was one of my favourite presents, which is still at my parent’s house, and I quite liked the fact my brother was jealous of it as he had a smaller governor’s ship! I can remember having fun playing with them on the carpet using the cannons to attack the other ship—though captured pirates would end up in the governors’ fortress. —(H)

I was the younger sibling to an 8-year old sister, and thus was quite dominated in my play. I found her in possession of a LEGO house already, and there was some small form of car but do not remember instructions: so I would either copy her or make up my own constructions. —(D)

Other Worlds For all its polymorphous potential, LEGO, and not only in its early incarnations, tends toward a relatively narrow set of construction goals: buildings,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 towns, vehicles, and “worlds”. The variety within these types is infi nite, as the accounts documented throughout this chapter testify. The “world” type of construction is particularly interesting. Though LEGO has produced sets for the production of expansive and topographical models, from the early Town and City sets to contemporary models that simulate scenes from fi lms (for example, from the Harry Potter fi lm series), these are necessarily large and expensive. However, many respondents remembered or described the creation of extensive cities or open worlds from the jumble of their LEGO box. Often these worlds are “sketched” or mapped out in LEGO across a table or fl oor rather than built up from the careful construction of realistic 260 Seth Giddings

buildings. For instance, Respondent Q’s daughter plays with the recently released LEGO Friends aimed at girls:

She loves the sets. We build them and about an hour later she destroys them to build little worlds and buildings that she actually wanted. She enjoys building them with me, but loves to freestyle! She builds little scenarios [and] her buildings are abstract, mostly just representational of what she wants. So a café is normally just a couple of doors, a few chairs and ﬂ owers and then the people. She does not worry about things like walls and roofs, they get in the way of actually playing! —(Q)

Signiﬁ cantly, other toys populate her worlds alongside the Friends ﬁ gures:

Moshi Monsters, Barbies and more all become part of the story she is playing through. —(Q)

This is a widespread aspect of LEGO worlds that cannot be depicted in LEGO marketing and packaging: they are bricolaged from LEGO, other toys, and household objects, anything at hand that can build up a compelling world. My own younger son and his friend would incorporate all sorts of other objects into dynamic microcosms that would spread across the bedroom or lounge ﬂ oor, up and over furniture. Wooden blocks were an economical way to quickly build architectonic and geographic features, as were sections of early LEGO constructions not completely broken up from an earlier game. LEGO was often secondary to the main game—an environment for Playmobil ﬁ gures for instance, or for an elaborate re-imagining of the computer game Age of Mythology (2002) with toy soldiers.

There would be cities, forests, lakes and mountains built out of LEGOs, play dough, wooden and plastic cubes. Toy soldiers and plastic animals were also great to mix up with miniﬁ gures. I also used LEGOs to expand

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 my play experience with other toys; I built buildings or vehicles for action ﬁ gures for example. —(L)

I would use Lego (and Construx) to build houses for all of my dolls. The houses turned into sprawling communities that would ring my bedroom. I would bring up big bowls from the kitchen and ﬁ ll them with water to make lakes and pools, and would lay out colourful clothes (much to my mum’s chagrin) to signify grass, pavement, sand, and more. I would spend the better part of a day building my mini metropolis, and then it was allowed Bright Bricks, Dark Play 261

to remain erect for at least a few days more for me to play in it before the bowls were recalled to the kitchen and laundry needed doing. —(I)

LEGO Phantasmagoria Finally, most of the worlds and other creations discussed in detail in the recollections and observations gathered here are characterized by a profoundly unrealistic aesthetic and performative sensibility. From a distance they are familiar and mundane—buildings, cities, vehicles—but close up, and in the fl ow of play, they reveal a fantastical and nonsensical dynamism. Already we have encountered cities of roofl ess buildings, a mathematical dinosaur, stacks that are at once trains and robots, and the transformation of a medieval castle into an SF palace, as well as syncretic worlds of LEGO, Playmobil, and domestic objects. The anthropologist of play Brian Sutton-Smith has called for a greater acknowledgement of the role of phantasmagoria—nonsense, obscenity, and fi gurative violence—in children’s imaginative play, noting that children’s own stories “portray a world of great fl ux, anarchy and disaster often without resolution” and with “a preference for rhyme and alliteration”, and characterized by nonsense, obscenity, and “crazy titles, morals, and characters”. 26 The following two accounts perfectly capture different registers of a phantasmagorical interweaving of everyday reality with imaginative fabulation, the mixing of pleasurable nonsense with the child’s reaching out to, and pulling back from, the outside and adult world that characterizes so much of children’s play. As such they are worth quoting at length. The fi rst is a seriously surreal world shaped by familial relationships and collusion as well as plastic bricks, the second is characterized by a “warlike theme” but one that is played “harmoniously and dynamically”. 27

We spent the afternoon constructing different buildings and vehicles with the boys, mainly the 4 year old but the 2 year old would play with the constructed vehicles now and then. The ﬁ rst vehicles built were mainly trucks, and then my friend (the boy’s aunt) started building on other parts and the stories in the world changed. The vehicles were seen by the 4 year

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 old, Arlo, as response vehicles (Australian speciﬁ c ones), and the strange contraption my friend made became part of a more complicated water hydrant system. Various buildings were constructed including a hospital, a shop and a house. The hospital because the bricks were white and red; a shop as there were some lego drawers and shelving units. Arlo ended up calling the town “Crazy Bamboo Town”, which shocked everyone as no one realized he knew what bamboo was, but on further discussion it turned out he had read about pandas and bamboo recently so it seemed to be a way for him to try out new words. This was true of other words he would use in the game’s narrative that were related to Australian slang 262 Seth Giddings

culture and he had started to pick up in other conversations. It was also a chance for him to explain Australian speciﬁ c animals and emergency services to me as a non-Australian visiting the country. Much of the story was driven by the four year old’s imagination and involved running people overhand taking them to hospital or taking them places in the trucks, or putting out ﬁ res. —(K)

Three children [fi ve years of ages, in a kindergarten in Germany] are in the process of building spaceships and rockets, they say, out of Lego blocks. Martin fl ies his rocket against his head and simultaneously makes fl ying sounds: “Ui, ui; oo-pf, oo-pf”; he then makes sounds like a German ambulance siren: “Tatoo-tata, tatoo-tata.”

MARTIN: “I have an extinguisher rocket” and makes motor sounds, “Humm, humm, neeh.” ANJA: “The rockets can only ﬂ y this way.” She demonstrates this with her hand and simultaneously makes loud noises, “Teeha eeha, teeha eeha. My rocket can turn.” BERND: “I have a spaceship. Fire!! Crack, boing, boing” (loud sounds, with a great deal of playful emphasis). MARTIN: (Flies his rocket in Anja’s direction) “You’d better watch out that it doesn’t smash your rocket.” ANJA: “I have a crocodile.” MARTIN: “I’m going to hit you one on your head. I’m taking my axe with me.” BERND : “I’m taking my metal saw and: rickeracke, rickeracke.” ANJA: “Yesterday there was the show with the mouse” (a television program). BERND: (Sings) “Spaceship, spaceship, once upon a time Lila, lula, once upon a time.” 28

Violence and destruction are key elements in Sutton-Smith’s phantasmagoria, and appear deeply embedded in brick play: a common early game for toddlers (and by which a certain stage of child development is professionally measured) is the repeated building—and subsequent demolition—of block towers. Often,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 too, in the play of older children, particularly that of boys, LEGO pleasures lie as much in destruction as construction:

When I had friends over we free built, often creating dioramas using a speciﬁ c theme, and then enacting narratives using our favorite miniﬁ gures. Most narratives resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the diorama. Favorites were castle and car racing themes. —(M)

I began [by] building houses, castles, and helicopters, pretty standard stuff, and then, with one of my schoolmates, I developed a favorite LEGO Bright Bricks, Dark Play 263

FIGURE 14.1 “Crazy Bamboo Town”.

game: we each built structures and then smashed them against each other to see which one would break up ﬁ rst. Usually we played to what we referred to as “total disintegration”. 29

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 There is always something phantasmagorical or surreal about children’s play. The animation of dead matter by hands and minds, the translation of real world phenomena and events into a playful microcosm (whether engineering- or symbolic- imagination), and young children’s interpretation of the phenomenal, adult, or media worlds around them all yield marvelous results. Play serves its own pleasurable and logical-illogical purposes—as Crazy Bamboo Town proves. Even in the play of older children, the realistic and the fantastical may not be opposites:

The LEGO people I put in my world had distinct personalities, realistic jobs and normal lives. The normal lives of my LEGO people demanded realism and performance from my constructions. I was in total control 264 Seth Giddings

and I learned the basics of design and construction. With practice, I could achieve realism with increasing complexity. I added doors, hallways, second and third fl oors, and backyards to my buildings. I added furniture . . . I reveled in increasing detail. If my LEGO world was not realistic it seemed of less value. When I received a Space Set I built a moon colony with a base, rockets, land rovers. . . . Most satisfying to me was that each member of the space colony had a personal identity. I had men and women who had marriages and children. The space base was built next to a medieval world, with a king, queen, prince, two guards, horses, swords, and fl ags. I set up the scene suggested by the manufacturer: the royal family enjoying a joust. But I twisted time and culture: I dismantled the horses and gave the king a car. . . . To achieve other levels of fi ne detail, I declared war between the medieval and space worlds. 30

I would be fascinated to know whether LEGO play was more or less phantasmagorical in its early days, predating the accounts gathered here, with the simpler sets and less pervasive children’s media culture of the 1950s to the early 1970s. Did the open-ended nature of the bricks facilitate unfettered fantasies or did their architectural simplicity tend towards the exercise of engineering-imagination? Sutton-Smith’s work suggests a long history of nonsense, scatology and semiotic hybridity in children’s play that surely even early LEGO could not have escaped entirely. Perhaps play with scientiﬁ c and construction toys has always been characterized by the realist and the fantastical—and all their combinations.

Conclusion The memories and observations collected and discussed here demonstrate that it is possible to study everyday LEGO play, but only partially and not without difﬁ culty. The respondents, and the other ad hoc LEGO historians I have drawn on, document attitudes, emotions, relationships, tactile and intellectual affects, environments and technics—demonstrating vividly the rich and complex char-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 acter of everyday play with and around LEGO. However, key aspects are hinted at within these accounts but not fully brought to light. Imaginative acts and dramas are alluded to, play patterns sketched out, but more often than not the detail and texture of any particular moment of play, any particular world or narrative, are lost, evaporated like a dream on waking. It is striking that memories of respondents’ own childhood play are often sharp in the tactile, sensory detail of boxes and bricks but vague on the details of particular symbolic or narrative imaginative content—the stories told or worlds created. This is a signiﬁ cant challenge in the search for the lost times of LEGO and children’s culture more generally. Bright Bricks, Dark Play 265

Moreover, I have so far found no accounts from earlier than the late 1970s, around the time that the fi rst dramatically themed sets (LEGO Space) appeared. Though people remembered and played with the simpler, unthemed LEGO as well, or instead of, for these generations the earlier bricks can only be discussed or understood in relation or opposition to the newer, “imaginarized” sets. What worlds did LEGO facilitate when it was just architectural? Did it then fi t the assumptions of critics of more recent LEGO—was it more imaginative, more open-ended? Was this engineering-imagination or symbolic-imagination, or both? Did the phantasmagoria of children’s media culture—less pervasive perhaps in the 1950s and 1960s, but certainly in existence—impinge and shape the animation of the plastic bricks and the rise and fall of their worlds? Was childhood imagination and its expression signifi cantly different before the round-the-clock TV channels, video games, and the ubiquity of transmedia systems? I would argue that these questions go beyond the immediate challenge of studying one particular, albeit paradigmatic, construction toy. They address something of what it means to be a child, to imagine, learn, share, and engage with ideas, materials, and possibilities.

Notes With thanks for the memories: Jonathan Barbara, Kristin Bezio, Laura Crawford, Claudio Franco, Michaela French, Penny Giddings, Jo Iacovides, Josh Jarrett, Andrzej Marczweski, Björn Berg Marklund, Adriana Moscatelli, Jon Preston, Arlo Rose, Paolo Rufﬁ no, Tonguc Ibrahim Sezen, David Shaenfield, Nick Taylor, Brian Verdine, Nick Webber, Tobias Winnerling, and other respondents who wished to remain anonymous. Full versions of these memories and observations are online at: www.microethology. net/legomemories. I intend to maintain this site as an ongoing repository of, and discussion on, LEGO play and would invite any readers with their own memories and observations to submit them via the site.

1. See Seth Giddings, Gameworlds: Virtual Media and Children’s Everyday Play, New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2014, for further ethnographic work on LEGO. 2. I have studied LEGO video games, however: see Seth Giddings and Helen W. Kennedy, “Little Jesuses and Fuck-off Robots: On Cybernetics, Aesthetics and Not Being Very

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Good at Lego Star Wars”, in Melanie Swalwell and Jason Wilson, editors, The Pleasures of Computer Gaming: Essays on Cultural History, Theory and Aesthetics, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2008; Seth Giddings, “‘I’m the One Who Makes the Lego Racers Go’: Studying Virtual and Actual Play”, in Sandra Weber and Shanly Dixon, editors, Growing Up Online: Young People and Digital Technologies, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; and Seth Giddings, “Simulation” in Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, editors, The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies, New York, NY: Rout- ledge, 2014. 3. Gary Cross, Kids’ Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1997, page 220. 4. See http://aboutus.lego.com/en-gb/lego-group/the_lego_brand. 266 Seth Giddings

5. Michelle Henning, Museums, Media and Cultural Theory , Maidenhead, England: Open University Press, 2006. 6. Margaret Lowenfeld, Play in Childhood, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1991 (1935). 7. Norman Brosterman, “Potential Architecture: An Inﬁ nity of Buildings”, in Potential Architecture: Construction Toys from the CCA Collection, Montreal, Canada: Centre Cana- dien d’Architecture, 1991, pages 7–14. 8. Cross, Kids’ Stuff, 1997, page 61. 9. Gilles Brougère, “Toy Houses: A Socio-anthropological Approach to Analysing Objects”, Visual Communication. 5(5), 2006, pages 5–24, 17. 10. See Cross, Kids’ Stuff, 1997; Dan Fleming, Powerplay: Toys as Popular Culture, Manchester, England and New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 1996; and David Machin and Theo Van Leeuwen, “Toys as Discourse: Children’s War Toys and the War on Terror”, Critical Discourse Studies, 6 (1), 2009, pages 51–63. 11. Stephen Kline, Out of the Garden: Toys, TV, and Children’s Culture in the Age of Marketing, London, England: Verso, 1993, page 159. 12. The LEGO Friends range is designed and marketed for young girls, and is unrelated to the popular television sitcom. 13. Scott Brave, “LEGO Planning”, in Sherry Turkle, editor, Falling for Science: Objects in Mind, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2008 (1996), page 159. 14. Cross, Kids’ Stuff, 1997, page 220. 15. Maaike Lauwaert, The Place of Play: Toys and Digital Cultures, Amsterdam, Holland: University of Amsterdam Press, 2009, page 60. 16. Mizuko Ito, “Mobilizing Imagination in Everyday Play: The Case of Japanese Media Mixes”, in Seth Giddings, editor, The New Media & Technocultures Reader , London, England: Routledge, 2011, pages 491–505. 17. Stig Hjarvard, “From Bricks to Bytes: The Mediatization of a Global Toy Industry”, in Ib Bondebjerg and Peter Golding, editors, European Culture and the Media, Bristol, England: Intellect, 2004, page 60. 18. And it might be tentatively suggested, in relation to the critic’s own age and ludic biography. 19. Sandie Eltringham, “LEGO metrics”, in Turkle, Falling for Science, 2008 (1990), page 150. 20. Most didn’t even attempt color matching:

I remember ﬁ nding the right piece shape was the main point, colours were all over the place – I never had enough pieces for whatever I wanted to build, I couldn’t be too picky with colours. —(G) Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016

21. Hjarvard, “From Bricks to Bytes”, 2004, page 55. 22. See also Giddings, Gameworlds , 2014; and Giddings and Kennedy, “Little Jesuses and Fuck-off Robots”, 2008. 23. Anthony Lane, Nobody’s Perfect, New York, NY: Random House, 2002. Excerpt online at www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0802/lane/excerpt_bricks.html. 24. Eltringham, “LEGO Metrics”, 2008, page 151. 25. Perry, Grayson, “Lecture 4: I found myself in the art world” (transcript), BBC Reith Lectures 2013, transmitted November 5, 2013, available at http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/ radio4/transcripts/reith-lecture4-csm.pdf. Bright Bricks, Dark Play 267

26. Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997, page 161. 27. Gisela Wegener-Spöhring, “War Toys and Aggressive Play Scenes”, in Jeffrey H. Goldstein, editor, Toys, Play, and Child Development , Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994, page 86. 28. Ibid., pages 85–6. 29. Andrew Chu, “LEGO Laws”, in Turkle, Falling for Science, 2008 (1992), page 156. 30. Alan Liu, “LEGO people”, in Turkle, Falling for Science, 2008 (1992), pages 153–4.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 15 AFTERWORD: D.I.Y. DISCIPLINARITY— (DIS)ASSEMBLING LEGO STUDIES FOR THE ACADEMY

Jason Mittell

I wish to begin this afterword with a cautionary tale. In 2001, Slayage: The International Journal of Buffy Studies launched in the wake of an overwhelming number of submissions to an edited anthology about the series, Fighting the Forces: What’s at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 1 Slayage continued as a quarterly journal until 2012, at which point it offi cially shifted to a semi-annual schedule—as of this writing, the journal has published 37 issues, with more than 150 peer reviewed essays. Like most successful pieces of popular culture, Slayage has spawned spinoffs, including an undergraduate scholarly journal Watcher Junior in 2005, and a biannual academic conference starting in 2004 dedicated to the study of Buffy and other works produced by series creator Joss Whedon. In 2008, the scholars who founded Slayage offi cially incorporated a nonprofi t organization called the Whedon Studies Association, changing Slayage ’s subtitle to “The Offi cial Journal of the Whedon Studies Association” in 2010. In Slayage ’s online bookstore, the WSA lists more than 40 books of “Scholarship and Criticism” about Buffy and other “Whedonverses”. Buffy Studies was built into a thriving and prominent subfi eld of media

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 studies, generating such a large body of scholarship that it seems likely that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the most studied television series of all time. 2 But what does this success, at least in visibility and quantity, mean? An outsider might regard this prolifi c scholarly enterprise as a marker of a superlative status: Buffy must be regarded as America’s all-time best television series, or perhaps its most important, most popular, or most controversial program. Or perhaps Whedon must be the medium’s most prolifi c, innovative, or iconic creator, the Shakespeare of television. But even the most ardent “Whedonian” would be hard-pressed to stand by any of these claims—at best, I’d imagine a Whedon scholar would assert that they fi nd one of his programs to be television’s most interesting series, or Afterword 269

perhaps just their personal favorite. If the number of critical words written about an object of study were a clear marker of its merits as an important scholarly topic, then we could expect many other series to dwarf Buffy in academic prominence, including Star Trek, Sesame Street, and The Simpsons (just to account for the letter S), as an easy case can be made for why each of these (and other) series is more vital to understanding television as a medium than Whedon’s work. But Buffy Studies did not emerge and thrive because of its inherent merits as an academic subfi eld; rather it was the benefi ciary of a convenient conjuncture of numerous factors. Buffy debuted in 1997 at a moment when American television’s creative possibilities were undergoing a change, with a rise in more serial- ized storytelling in primetime dramas such as Northern Exposure and The X-Files , as well as comedies that embraced a playful attitude toward narrative conventions, as with The Simpsons and Seinfeld —all trends that Buffy built upon and transformed fruitfully. 3 The emergence of so-called “netlets”, The WB and UPN, allowed a series with cult appeal like Buffy to stay on the air for many seasons by attracting a small but dedicated audience that would have never survived on one of the major networks, and the new aftermarket for TV-on-DVD encouraged new fans to discover the series and join its cult following. On top of those trends, Buffy ’s highly literate dialogue and overt feminist sensibilities placed it in the taste culture sweet spot for many media scholars who could look beyond the campy title to discover the program’s more subtle pleasures. Given that launching an online journal in 2001 seemed both feasible and innovative, Slayage and its spinoffs were a logical outcome to the program’s appeals to so-called “aca-fan” sensibilities. 4 Buffy Studies was born of scholarly demand, as many academics had something to say about this innovative series that they loved. But it persists by creating its own demand by constituting and institutionalizing an academic community and its apparatuses of credentialed accomplishments. After all, given the competitive state of the academic profession, publication and conference venues eager to fi nd content on a highly-specialized topic to fi ll its ongoing tables of contents and schedules are understandably appealing to aspiring scholars of all ranks. That is not to suggest that there is not merit in many individual works of Buffy

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Studies, but we need to think about what they add up to together—how do we reconcile the fact that Slayage has been published for more years than Buffy and its spin-off Angel ran combined? Is the institutionalization of Whedon Studies functioning to produce important scholarly knowledge, or is it working more to generate publication lines on academic CVs and foster a community of academics with a shared taste in television? In short, what would be lost if Buffy Studies were dismantled? I raise these questions not to call for the eradication of Buffy Studies—I leave it to the Whedonians to assess their own continued relevance and importance. Instead, I tell the cautionary tale of Buffy Studies to make an arguably more 270 Jason Mittell

incendiary proposal: I am calling for the eradication of LEGO Studies, here at the very site of what might be viewed as its founding. Let me clarify. I am not suggesting we should not study LEGO; in fact, I would argue that this book makes a strong case as to why LEGO merits continued academic study, and provides many models for how best to pursue such scholarship. I am also not trying to poke holes in this book’s title, as “LEGO Studies” is a very apt name for what these collected essays have to offer. Rather, I am suggesting that LEGO Studies should both begin and end with this book, not continuing as an ongoing project attempting to sustain the specifi c contours mapped in this volume. Before making the case for dismantling this project, let me sketch what LEGO Studies looks like, based on the work assembled in these pages. LEGO Studies is comprised of pieces from a variety of disciplinary sources, combining the critical analysis found in media and cultural studies with the practice-based accounts of artists, educators, and designers. LEGO Studies foregrounds the industrial contextualization of its material objects, much like fi lm and media studies encourages us to see cultural texts as emanating from commercial systems where market logic and institutional structures shape the meanings that we consume. In this case, though, LEGO is an unusual company: globalized prior to the era of globalization, connected to a web of other cultural industries but structurally independent from them, and innovating trends like transmedia convergence long before such terms were coined. LEGO Studies is also an account of a practice, as the majority of LEGO products are designed to be used, and only become signifi cant through user practices of building, playing, collecting, and destroying. Beyond just a medium, though, the essays here varyingly consider LEGO as a technology, a tool, a platform, a practice, a brand, and a toy, remaining open to a fl uid and shifting defi nition of the scholarly object itself, in a way that certainly befi ts LEGO’s inherent fl exibility. These essays embrace different angles and approaches to their topics. Mark Wolf and Neal Baker both explore what a close-reading of a playset might look like, requiring a different methodological toolset used to critically read a novel, a fi lm, or even a video game. Such an analysis requires the fl exibility to realize that a LEGO model has both designed and improvised uses, and that meaning

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 arises only through the active playful engagement of builders, a methodological challenge tackled head-on by Seth Giddings’s essay exploring adult memories of childhood LEGO play. LEGO Studies also insists that we look at the parts as well as the whole, seeing the signiﬁ cance of each piece’s context and usage within or across sets. This extends beyond the pieces themselves, as Lori Landay’s account of the transmedial Ninjago and Chima franchises and Derek Johnson’s analysis of paratexts like advertisements and designer videos both highlight that even the free play enabled by LEGO bricks are always contextualized by cultural frameworks, such as gender norms and racially-tinged mythologies, and thus such playsets circulate in larger ﬁ elds of industrial and consumer practices. Afterword 271

This book also highlights how LEGO Studies embraces transmedia analysis, considering both material plastic bricks and electronic pixels as the foundational elements of LEGO’s cultural practices. Studying the LEGO branded video games opens the methodological door to aesthetic and cultural accounts of gameplay and representation, as with Jessica Aldred’s and Robert Buerkle’s essays that consider the infl uences of comic books, live-action fi lms, and video games to explore the unique transmedial playfulness of the LEGO games, as well as competing notions of nostalgia, irony, storytelling, and play. The layers of physical plastic and software code also merge in Christopher Hanson and Michael Lachney’s discussions of LEGO MINDSTORMS, where the boundaries between toy and teaching tool are shifting and subject to both historical and political analysis. In another approach to transmedia ecology, Kevin Schut compares the physical and electronic versions of LEGO bricks to consider the ways in which digitization changes concepts of play, creativity, and materiality. Despite the emphasis on LEGO’s various materialities throughout the book, LEGO Studies also remains open to imagining LEGO as a site of hands-on practical philosophy and theorization. David Gauntlett exemplifi es this approach, highlighting the ways in which LEGO embodies the creative impulses of the maker movement, and how this creativity might be marshaled to help foster social change. While impossible to realize through the constraints of a collection of written scholarly essays, Gauntlett’s maker-centered account suggests a new mode of LEGO scholarship, using bricks instead of words to literally make arguments in a material built form. Such creative and expressive uses are explored in the practice-based essays by LEGO practitioners Nathan Sawaya, Ed Diment and Duncan Titmarsh, and there are rich possibilities for further imaginative work that might express scholarly insights raised throughout this book via the material form of LEGO. In short, the version of LEGO Studies assembled in this book is rich and varied, avoiding strict disciplinary boundaries or even a sense of uniformity in positing a singular defi nition of LEGO itself. With this exciting assortment of possibilities and connections assembled in this book as a model, why would I want to dismantle LEGO Studies already? When I fi rst proposed this essay, I’ll admit I had no such thoughts, but my impulse for creative destruction was

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 spurred by the ur-text of LEGO theorization, The LEGO Movie . Beyond just serving as a hugely popular amalgamation of promotion and entertainment, the fi lm offers some deep refl ection on LEGO as a cultural practice and how it might best be theorized. Within the fi lm’s embedded storyworld, the narrative confl ict contrasts the rank-and-fi le LEGO populace who inhabit a world constructed according to instruction manuals, and the master builders who wish to transform their world based solely upon their creativity. At fi rst, the story seems to endorse the master builders, as they offer the mind-expanding revelations that enlighten Emmet and allow him to break through his conformist sensibilities—to extend this parable to the academic realm, this would seem to 272 Jason Mittell

endorse rejecting disciplinary traditions in the name of free-fl oating inquiry- driven exploration. However, as the fi lm’s narrative progresses, Emmet comes to reconcile and balance the extremes of instruction manual conformity and the master builders’ open creativity, discovering how the traditions and limits of designed builds offer benefi ts that work best in tandem with freeform creative practice. This volume similarly strikes such a balance between being guided by disciplinary instructions and inspired by the creative new possibilities discovered by thinking across traditional boundaries and objects of study. But The LEGO Movie’s philosophy transcends the dichotomy of prescribed versus open building, as the real confl ict is revealed to be at a larger level of practice. The fi lm’s true villainous object is not the instruction manual, but the Kragle, the weaponized glue that Lord Business plots to use to freeze the LEGO- verse in a state of permanent stasis. In the fi lm’s meta-revealing third act, we discover that Lord Business is the LEGO avatar of “The Man Upstairs”, or the father of Finn, the creative spirit behind the embedded LEGO story we have been witnessing. This unnamed man has a drawer full of Krazy Glue, which he plans to use to combat his son’s rule-breaking by binding his collection of LEGO seemingly built to perfect design specifi cations into a state of permanent stasis. The fi lm’s emotional climax comes when both The Man and Lord Busi- ness recognize that the power of creativity and collaboration would be sacrifi ced if the Kragle is applied. Thus the evil impulse that must be vanquished to save both Bricksburg and the father/son bond is not conformity, but stasis. Academic codifi cation into scholarly organizations and journals is the equivalent of applying the Kragle to our critical practices. What we need from LEGO Stud- ies is fl uidity and fl exibility, the ability to put unlikely pieces together while also being able to dismantle and reconfi gure what has already been done. Building and locking in an academic sub-discipline creates a structure that outright demands further production of more of the same, leading to a proliferation of work that mostly lacks the energy and insight that inspired the fi eld’s initial founding—the intellectual equivalent of Where Are My Pants? or “Everything is Awesome”. To be clear, I am not calling for the end of scholarship about LEGO by suggesting that this book serves as any sort of “fi nal word” on the topic; nor am I suggesting that the book’s editor is a nefarious Lord Business looking to build a static empire

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 of LEGO Studies. Rather, I simply believe the “study of LEGO” should not be forged into something more stable called LEGO Studies. Let’s keep the Kragle in the drawer, and be inspired by new recombinations and builds, not beholden to the norms of a publishing schedule or regular conference. We must avoid treating this book as an instruction manual to be replicated and rebuilt. We should take inspiration from its cross-disciplinary strengths and keen insights, but also recognize its gaps. Many aspects of LEGO remain unex- plored in this volume, including the role of DUPLO and its young practitioners (a topic that The LEGO Movie teases will be addressed in its sequel), the way that LEGO has spread differentially and been localized across the globe, the Afterword 273

culture of LEGOLAND theme parks and LEGO-derived movies and video series like Clutch Powers , the fan communities surrounding LEGO and their creative practices, such as LEGO-based animation, fan sites, or the feature-length mockumentary Brick Madness (2012), and less-heralded LEGO products like their line of board games and non-buildable toys and clothing. Likewise, there are some other disciplines and topics that might be brought to the table, such as analysis by architects and engineers of LEGO’s underlying design and building practices, environmental scholars refl ecting on the impact of LEGO’s popularization of molded plastic toys, and psychologists thinking about the use of LEGO as a tool within play therapy. I’m particularly intrigued by the possibilities of what a philosopher or critic following Object-Oriented Ontology or Actor-Network Theory might have to say about LEGO’s materiality and object-hood—after all, in thousands of words of LEGO scholarship, we still have not heard anything from the perspective of a minifi gure or 2×8 red plastic brick. To conclude, I learned a lot from reading this book, both within each chapter and in the provocative connections between them. After absorbing its various insights and perspectives, I come away inspired to tear them down—not via the tools of critical nitpicking and hole-poking typical of much academic discourse, but through a dismantling inspired by LEGO creativity. What are the conceptual building blocks offered by these essays and how might they be recombined and added to in the most constructive way imaginable? I hope the study of LEGO fl ourishes and points toward new directions that I cannot even yet imagine, but that we resist the lure of the Kragle and always retain the fl uidity and creativity that our subject matter demands.

Notes 1. See http://slayageonline.com/pages/Slayage/About_Slayage.htm for details of the journal’s history; Rhonda Wilcox and David Lavery, Fighting the Forces? : What’s at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littleﬁ eld, 2002. 2. At least by outside scholars—reputedly, Sesame Street holds the record for the most researched television series of all time, but the majority of that research is commissioned by its producers to understand children’s viewing practices and comprehension, not published by independent scholars unrelated to the series.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 3. See Jason Mittell, Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling , New York, NY: New York University Press, 2015, for more on this trend. 4. For discussions of aca-fans, see Matt Hills, Fan Cultures , London, England: Routledge, 2002, and the many writings of Henry Jenkins, especially on his blog Confessions of an Aca-Fan, available at http://henryjenkins.org/. This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 APPENDIX: RESOURCE GUIDE FOR LEGO SCHOLARSHIP

As the number of LEGO sets has rapidly increased since the company began licensed sets and series, so too has the amount of LEGO scholarship increased in recent years. Of course, the sets themselves are perhaps the best resources for exploring the LEGO phenomenon, and LEGO has been around long enough that several generations of scholars have grown up with it. While there are too many LEGO sets to list here, books like the LEGO Collector: Collector’s Guide (see below) and websites like Brickapedia can be used to reference sets.

Books Baichtal, John, and Joe Meno, The Cult of LEGO, San Francisco, California, CA: No Starch Press, 2011. This book details the many uses of LEGO and the doings of groups of AFOLs (Adult Fans of LEGO), with many color images of interesting builds. Bedford, Allan, The Unofﬁ cial LEGO Builder's Guide (Now in Color!) , San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press, 2012. Aimed at a younger audience, this book Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 is a guide for building with LEGO, including chapters on building techniques and a “Brickapedia” featuring 275 different shapes of LEGO pieces. Benitti, Fabiane Barreto Vavassori, “Exploring the Educational Potential of Robotics in Schools: A Systematic Review”, Computers & Education 58, No. 3, 2012, pages 978–88. Benitti’s article is a meta-analysis of research on educational robotics in schools. This article is a helpful starting point for an overview of empirical studies on LEGO MINDSTORMS and other educational robotics. Benitti focuses on potential contributions to schools, classroom effectiveness, and future research of educational robotics. 276 Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship

Burks, Jared K., Minifi gure Customization: Populate Your World! , Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2011. A short (84 pages) book on the customization of minifi gures. Burks, Jared K., Minifi gure Customization 2: Why Live in the Box? , Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2011. Another short book (80 pages) which is a sequel to Burks’s other book on minifi gure customizatiuon, which introduces more complex techniques. Byskov, S. Tro, Håb & Legetøj: Landsbyfolk og industrieventyr i Billund 1920–1980. [Faith, Hope, and Toys: Village People and Industrial Adventure in Billund 1920–1980] Grindsted, DK: Overgaard Bøger, 1997. This book is about how the city of Billund developed from 1920 to 1980 due to the industrial adventures of LEGO. It tells a story about family values, Christianity, and social conventions in Billund and how they were the foundation of the LEGO company. Cortzen, Jan, LEGO Manden—Historien om Godtfred Kirk Christiansen. [The Lego Man—The Story about Godtfred Kirk Christiansen] Copenhagen, Denmark: Børsens Forlag, 1996. The book tells the story of Godtfred Kirk Christiansen and how he and his father developed LEGO campany, and how they overcame crises and turned LEGO into a success story. It also gives a fi ne portrayal of Godtfred Kirk Christiansen and his close relation to his father and the LEGO company. Delingpole, James, “When LEGO lost its head – and how this toy story got its happy ending”, Mail Online, December 18, 2009, available at www.dailymail.co.uk/ home/moslive/article-1234465/When-LEGO-lost-head-toy-story-got-happy- ending.html. Story about LEGO’s fi nancial crisis and turnaround during the 2000s. Doyle, Mike, Beautiful LEGO, San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press, 2013. An amazing assortment of very advanced LEGO artworks, made by designers and AFOLs. Mostly photographs, with some interviews with designers throughout. Eggers, Sebastian, Christian Horstkötter, and Tobias Kaminsky, editors, LEGO Collector: Collector’s Guide , Dreieich, Germany: Fantasia Verlag GMBH, 2008. This 800-page LEGO Collector’s catalog, with text in both English and German, covers thousands of LEGO sets produced from 1958 to 2008, with information

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 about each set including images of packaging, number of pieces, and years of production. A must-have for anyone studying LEGO from a historical perspective. Elsmore, Warren, Brick Wonders: Ancient, Modern, and Natural Wonders Made from LEGO, Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series, 2014. Compiled by an expert LEGO modeler, this book looks at LEGO reconstructions of various world wonders. Elsmore, Warren, Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO , Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series, 2014. Compiled by an expert LEGO modeler, this book looks at LEGO reconstructions of architectural sites around the world. Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship 277

Farshtey, Greg, LEGO Minifi gure Year by Year: A Visual History, London, England: DK CHILDREN, 2013. Although intended for a young audience, this 256-page book examines the development of minifi gures over the years, providing a useful resource for anyone studying minifi gures. FIRST LEGO League, FIRST LEGO League Coaches’ Handbook, Manchester, England: FIRST and the LEGO Group, 2006. This guide is made for those who take on the coach’s role for a FLL team. Gura, Mark, Getting Started With LEGO Robotics: A Guide for K-12 Educators , Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education, 2011. Gura’s book provides K-12 educators with an overview of both technical and classroom management skills for the application of LEGO MINDSTORMS in STEM education classrooms. Herman, Sarah, A Million Little Bricks: The Unoffi cial Illustrated History of the LEGO Phenomenon , New York, NY: Skyhorse Publications, 2012. Probably the best and most detailed history of LEGO available, and a revised version of her earlier book, Building a History: the LEGO Group , South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books, 2012. Himber, Guy, Steampunk LEGO, San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press, 2014. A collection of steampunk-inspired designs and how to build them with LEGO. Humberg, Christian, 50 Years of the LEGO Brick, Königswinter, Germany: HEEL-Verlag GmbH, 2008. A history book replete with photographs which includes facsimile catalogs and other items, as well as six icon red LEGO bricks. Isogawa, Yoshihito, The LEGO Technic Idea Book, Volume 1, Simple Machines, San Franscisco, CA: No Starch Press, 2011. Mostly color pictures showing how to build different gear combinations, chasses, types of doors, and pulley systems. Kmieć, Paweł, The Unoffi cial LEGO Technic Builder’s Guide , San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press, 2012. Detailed building guide, including a range of mechanical and vehicular concepts, for building with LEGO Technic pieces.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Lipkowitz, Daniel, The LEGO Book , Expanded Revised Edition, London, England: Dorling Kindersley, 2012. Many pictures, with a useful section on the history of LEGO. Most of the book covers LEGO themes over the years, with images of the various sets. A short section covers LEGO theme parks, and other aspects of LEGO culture. Lipkowitz, Daniel, LEGO Play Book: Ideas to Bring Your Bricks to Life, London, England and New York, NY: Dorling Kindersley, 2013. Six chapters, each by a different builder or team of builders, demonstrate the diversity of building with LEGO, all shown in pictures with captions and call-out text giving building tips and suggestions. Constructions are miniﬁ gure scale and microscale. 278 Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship

Lunde, Niels, Miraklet i LEGO , Copenhagen, Denmark: Jyllands-Postens Forlag, 2012. Danish language book about the miracle of LEGO. Lyles, Brian; and Jason Lyles, The LEGO Neighborhood Book: Build a LEGO Town! , San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press, 2014. The Lyles brothers demonstrate how to create elaborate buildings and architecture with LEGO. Martell, Nevin, Standing Small: A Celebration of 30 Years of the LEGO Minifi gure , London, England: Dorling Kindersley, 2009. Although the book features some information on the making of minifi gures, most of the book is of close-up illustrations of minifi gures from LEGO themes over the years, including some customized minifi gures made by fans. Papert, Seymour, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas , 2nd edition, New York, NY: Basic Books, 1993. This classic educational technology text introduces the software Logo as a way to re-think math and science teaching and learning through computers and computer programming. This book offers a theoretical and historical foundation for understanding LEGO MINDSTORMS. Reid, Peter, and Tim Goddard, LEGO Space: Building the Future, San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press, 2013. Space travel stories reaching hundreds of years into the future, illustrated with elaborate LEGO constructions, with directions on how to build some of them. Resnick, Mitchel, Turtles, Termites, and Traffi c Jams , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. Resnick’s book offers a brief overview of the history and application of the LEGO/Logo project in its relationship to teaching and learning about decen- tralized organization. Robertson, David C., with Bill Breen, Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry, New York, NY: Crown Business, 2013. Robertson’s book is written for an audience interested in the business and company history of the LEGO Group. With an emphasis on innovation, this book traces the failures and successes of the LEGO Group over time. Success of the LEGO Group is linked to customer-driven development and production, crowd sourcing, and the fostering of employee

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 creativity. Schwartz, Jordan Robert, The Art of LEGO Design, San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press, 2014. Design advice from a former designer of the LEGO Group, including unconventional ways to use bricks in builds. Turkle, Sherry, editor, Falling for Science: Objects in Mind , Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2008. This book, about science education, contains essays on various objects used to teach science to children, including short essays (about three pages each) on LEGO Particles, LEGO Metrics, LEGO People, LEGO Laws, LEGO Planning, LEGO Replicas, and LEGO Categories. Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship 279

Wienberg, Christian, “LEGO Outgrows Hasbro, Mattel as ‘Star Wars’ Sets Boost Proﬁ t”, Bloomberg.com , March 1, 2012, available at www.bloomberg.com/ news/2012-03-01/LEGO-outgrows-hasbro-mattel-as-star-wars-sets-boost- proﬁ t.html. This is a short article about the LEGO Group’s growth during 2010 and 2011, with a projection for 2012. Wiencek, Henry, The World of LEGO Toys , New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Publishers, 1987. An early look at LEGO art, LEGO toys, and how they are made from the late 1980s.

Essays and Articles Bartneck, C., M. Obaid, and K. Zawieska, (2013), “Agents with faces – What can we learn from LEGO Minfi gures?”, in Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction, Sapporo, Japan, III-2-1, available at http://bartneck.de/publications/2013/agentsWithFaces/bartneckLEGOAgent.pdf. A study of all the facial expressions found on minifi gures from 1975 to 2010, and of trends such as the declining number of happy faces. Becraft, Andrew, (2012), “The First Year of LEGO Friends – Worst Toy of the Year?”, The Brothers Brick, December 19, 2012, available at www.brothers- brick.com/2012/12/19/the-fi rst-year-of-lego-friends-worst-toy-of-the-year/. A blog post in the LEGO collecting community that responds to the criticisms of the LEGO Friends theme that centers on the potential of the gendered sets. Becraft, Andrew, (2009), “What it is . . . is beautiful – LEGO ad from 1981”, The Brothers Brick , July 14, 2009, available at www.brothers-brick.com/2009/07/14/ what-it-is-is-beautiful/. One of the fi rst blog posts to refl ect on the 1981 “What it is . . .” ad in terms of LEGO’s gender politics, two years before the image would go viral in 2011 and 2012. Brick Journal, a print magazine on the subject of LEGO, also available online at www.brickjournal.com. Bumgardner, Jim, (2007) “The Origins of Mindstorms”, Wired.com , GeekDad , March 29, 2007, available at archive.wired.com/geekdad/2007/03/the_origins_

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 of_/. A look at the origins of LEGO MINDSTORMS. Diaz, Jesus, (2012), “Hey Anti-Lego Feminists, ‘Lego for Girls’ Actually Kicks Ass”, Gizmodo.com, January 3, 2012, available at http://lego.gizmodo.com/5872578/ hey-anti+lego-feminists-lego-for-girls-actually-kicks-ass. A blog post that insists that the gender normative qualities of the LEGO Friends are not impediments to creativity, but actually provide a “backdoor” to creativity by using gender stereotypes to attract girls to construction play. Diaz, Jesus, (2008) “LEGO Brick Timeline: 50 Years of Building Frenzy and Curiosities”, Gizmodo.com, January 28, 2008, available at http://gizmodo. 280 Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship

com/349509/lego-brick-timeline-50-years-of-building-frenzy-and-curiosities. A list of interesting facts about LEGO, and a look at 50 years of its history. Gardner, Joshua, (2014), “Springﬁ eld gets the LEGO Treatment: How a Simpson’s Episode 2 Years in the Making Became Show's most Expensive Half- hour Ever”, Daily Mail, April 16, 2014, available at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ article-2606283/Springfield-gets-LEGO-treatment-How-Simpsons-episode- two-years-making-shows-expensive-half-hour-ever.html#ixzz2zBH7cBRn. This short article tells how the LEGO-themed episode came to be made. Ginn, Anthony, (1985) “Logo, LEGO, and Logic”, The Guardian, November 21, 1985, sec. Computer Guardian. An early essay on LEGO use in education. Hystad, Dean, (2002) “Building LEGO Robots for FIRST LEGO League”, INSciTE: Innovations in Science and Technology Education, September 23, 2002, available at www-ee.ccny.cuny.edu/www/web/jxiao/LEGOManual.pdf. Robot building competitions using LEGO. Johnson, Derek, (2014), “Figuring Identity: Media Licensing and the Racializa- tion of LEGO Bodies”, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 14(6), 2014, available at http://ics.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/10/16/1367877913496211. abstract. Critical examination of the LEGO miniﬁ gure, the historical practices that have encouraged LEGO to develop skin tones and facial printing beyond the original yellow standard, and the post-racial logics by which LEGO articulates these practices to media licensing strategies outside its core corporate values. Karmark, Esben, (2010), “Challenges in the Mediatization of a Corporate Brand: Identity-Effects as LEGO Establishes a Media Products Company”, in L. Chouliaraki and M. Morsing, editors, Media, Organizations, and Identity, Basingstroke, England: Palgrave, pages 112–28. Scholarly analysis of the process by which LEGO struggled to manage and reorganize its brand and corporate culture as it expanded beyond construction toys to a focus on the media (and then retreated from that expansion in a process of de-mediatization). Lauwaert, Maaike, (2008), “Playing Outside the Box – On LEGO Toys and the Changing World of Construction Play”, History and Technology 24(3): 221–37.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Scholarly analysis of LEGO’s historical shifts from development of interlocking construction toys, to confusing diversiﬁ cation across media, to the revival of the brand through closer attention to users. Lidz, Franz, (2013) “How Lego Is Constructing the Next Generation of Engineers: With Programmable Robots and Student Competitions, Lego is Mak- ing ‘Tinkering with Machines Cool Again’, Smithsonian Magazine, May 2013, available at www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-lego-is-constructing- the-next-generation-of-engineers-37671528/?no-ist. A look at how the use of LEGO MINDSTORMS in education makes learning engineering more fun. Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship 281

Miller, Farah, and Emma Gray, (2012), “LEGO Friends Petition: Parents, Women and Girls Ask Toy Companies To Stop Gender-Based Marketing”, The Hufﬁ ngton Post, January 15, 2012, www.hufﬁ ngtonpost.com/2012/01/15/lego- friends-girls-gender-toy-marketing_n_1206293.html. Popular reporting on the efforts of online activists to intervene in the gendered marketing logics that undergirded the LEGO Friends theme in 2012. NPR Staff (2011), “With New Toys, Lego Hopes to Build Girls Market”, NPR Morning Edition, December 15, 2011, www.npr.org/2011/12/15/ 143724644/ith-new-toys-lego-hopes-to-build-girls-market. National Public Radio report that circulated LEGO’s claims about its newfound commitment to making targeted appeals to girls as well as the “anthropological” nature of its market research. Pickett, David, (2012a), “Part I: Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, Sociological Images , May 8, 2012, http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/ 2012/05/08/part-i-historical-perspective-on-the-lego-gender-gap/. Pickett, David, (2012b), “Part II: Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, Sociological Images, May 15, 2012, http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/05/15/ part-ii-historical-perspective-on-the-lego-gender-gap/. Pickett, David, (2012c), “Part III: Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, Sociological Images, May 22, 2012, http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/ 2012/05/22/part-iii-historical-perspective-on-the-lego-gender-gap/. Pickett, David, (2012d), “Part IV: Historical Perspective on the LEGO Gender Gap”, Sociological Images, May 29, 2012, http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/ 2012/05/29/part-iv-historical-perspective-on-the-lego-gender-gap/. Critical and historical analysis of LEGO’s historical efforts to market its products to boys and girls, with an emphasis on the differences in these appeals and the limitations to play embedded in products aimed at girls. Pomphrey, Graham, (2006), “Rebuilding LEGO”, License! , November 1, 2006, www.licensemag.com/licensemag/Entertainment/Rebuilding-LEGO/Article Standard/Article/detail/390961. Interview with Jørgen Vig Knudstorp that focuses

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 on his attempts to reposition the LEGO Group for success (through emphasis on core corporate and product values) following the economic struggles of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Richards, Bailey Shoemaker, (2013), “A Year Later, How’s LEGO Doing”, SPARK Movement , June 19, 2013, www.sparksummit.com/2013/06/19/a-year- later-hows-lego-doing/. A post-mortem on LEGO’s response to the activist push against the gender politics of the LEGO Friends theme beginning in 2012, in which the willingness of LEGO executives to agree to a sit-down meeting is claimed as a victory and successful industry intervention. 282 Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship

Richards, Bailey Shoemaker, and Stephanie Cole, (n.d.), “Tell LEGO to Stop Selling out Girls! #Liberate LEGO”, Change.org , available at www.change.org/ petitions/tell-lego-to-stop-selling-out-girls-liberatelego. Online petition aimed at pressuring the LEGO Group to abandon its appeals to girls based on gender stereotypes in favor of more inclusive and diverse forms of representation and marketing. Sargent, Randy, Mitchel Resnick, Fred Martin, and Brian Silverman, (1995), “Building and Learning with Programmable Bricks”, Logo Update, Vol. 3, No. 3, Spring 1995, available at http://el.media.mit.edu/logo-foundation/pubs/ logoupdate/v3n3.html. Use of LEGO and the programming language Logo in education. Sarkeesian, Anita, (2012a), “LEGO & Gender Part 1: Lego Friends”, Feminist Frequency , January 30, 2012, available at www.feministfrequency.com/2012/01/ lego-gender-part-1-lego-friends/. Sarkeesian, Anita (2012b), “LEGO & Gender Part 2: The Boys Club”, Feminist Frequency , February 6, 2012, available at www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/ lego-gender-part-2-the-boys-club/. Two-part video series that critiques the regressive, segregationist gender politics of the LEGO Friends theme and offers insight into the ways in which LEGO has historically excluded girls from construction play (creating gendered differences in construction play rather than responding to natural differences). Vasallo, Steve, (2012), “Parents: Buy Kids’ Legos, But Throw Away the Instruc- tions”, Forbes , January 27, 2012, available at www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/ 2012/01/27/parents-buy-kids-legos-but-throw-away-the-instructions/. Popular essay criticizing the tyranny of instruction booklets over creative imagination, in favor of nostalgic celebration of an imagined past where there were no such restrictions on how LEGO bricks could be used. Wade, Lisa, (2012), “Beauty and the New LEGO Line for Girls”, Ms. Blog , January 10, 2012, available at http://msmagazine.com/blog/2012/01/10/beauty- and-the-new-lego-line-for-girls/. Popular blog essay critical of the beauty norms embedded into the design of the 2012 LEGO Friends theme. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Ward, Andrew, (2011), “A Brick by Brick Brand Revival”, Financial Times, July 17, 2011, available at www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0596a1f0-af27-11e0-914e- 00144feabdc0.html. Business press report that celebrates LEGO’s success in rebranding following its ﬁ nancial woes at the turn of the century. Weinstock, Maia, (2012), “My Dear Lego, you are Part of the Problem”, Annals of Spacetime , February 20, 2012, available at http://annalsofspacetime.blogspot. com/2012/02/my-dear-lego-you-are-part-of-problem.html. Feminist blog essay that takes the LEGO Group to task for its complicity with the mass market toy industry and its insistence on pink toys and gender stereotypes for girls. Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship 283

Weinstock, Maia, (2013), “Breaking Brick Stereotypes: LEGO Unveils a Female Scientist”, Scientifi c American , September 2, 2013, available at http://blogs.scienti ficamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/09/02/breaking-brick-stereotypes-lego- unveils-a-female-scientist/. Feminist commentary on the signifi cance of the offering of a female scientist in the 2013 collectible minifi gure line, compared to the more stereotypical representations of women in LEGO mini-fi gures. Wieners, Brad, (2011), “Lego Is for Girls”, Businessweek: Magazine, December 14, 2011, available at www.businessweek.com/magazine/lego-is-for-girls-12142011. html. Business press report that gives the LEGO Group a platform to frame the new 2012 LEGO Friends theme as part of a corporate commitment to the creative needs of girls, as well as to situate those needs as natural (revealed through “anthropological” market research) rather than market-based. Yulo, Michele, (2013), “Lego Remakes a 1981 Ad, But This Time For Girls Only”, Princess Free Zone, March 5, 2013, available at http://princessfreezone. com/pfz-blog/2013/3/5/lego-remakes-a-1981-ad-but-this-time-for-girls-only. html. Feminist blog post that seizes upon the circulation of the 1981 “What it is . . .” ad via social media in 2012 to call attention to a regressive shift in the LEGO Group’s understanding of gender differences and to imagine more gender- inclusive marketing logics into being.

Websites http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/LEGO_Wiki. Brickapedia, a user-created LEGO encyclopedia with over 27,000 pages of information on LEGO sets, reviews, and forums. www.brickartist.com. LCP Nathan Sawaya’s website. www.brickfi lms.com. A website devoted to an online community of fans who make stop-motion fi lms with LEGO. www.brickjournal.com. A website and magazine for brick enthusiasts of all ages. www.bright-bricks.com. Company website for Bright Bricks, owned by LCP Duncan Titmarsh and Ed Diment. www.brothers-brick.com. A LEGO blog for AFOLs, including articles, interviews, and even a jargon guide. Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 www.fi rstlegoleague.org/. Website of the FIRST LEGO League organization, which stages competition for school-aged children with challenges involving LEGO. www.LEGO.com. The LEGO Group’s own website. www.seankenney.com. LCP Sean Kenney’s website.

Film & Video Bionicle 2: Legends of Metru Nui (2004), directed by Terry Shakespeare and David Molina, released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Miramax Films, 75 minutes. 284 Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship

Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows (2005), directed by Terry Shakespeare and David Molina, released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Miramax Films, 74 minutes. Bionicle: Mask of Light—The Movie (2003), directed by Terry Shakespeare and David Molina, released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Miramax Films, 70 minutes. Bionicle: The Legend Reborn (2009), directed by Mark Baldo, released by Kidtoon Films and Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 71 minutes. Friends: Dolphin Cruise (2013), TV movie directed by Trylle Vilstrup, 22 minutes. Friends: New Girl in Town (2012), TV movie directed by Peder Pedersen, 22 minutes. Friends: Stephanie’s Surprise Party (2013), TV movie directed by Trylle Vilstrup, 22 minutes. Hero Factory (2011), television series, one season of 11 episodes (22 minutes each). LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers (2010), directed by Howard E. Baker, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 78 minutes. LEGO Atlantis: The Movie (2010), TV movie directed by Mark Baldo, released by Cartoon Network, 21 minutes. LEGO Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite (2013), directed by Jon Burton, released by Warner Bros., 71 minutes. LEGO City (2016), forthcoming TV series. LEGO City: A Clutch Powers 4-D Adventure (2010), directed by Howard E. Baker, short ﬁ lm shown in the LEGO theme parks. LEGO Clutch Powers: Bad Hair Day (2010), short ﬁ lm shown along with LEGO City: A Clutch Powers 4-D Adventure . LEGO Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Brick (2008), TV movie directed by Peder Pedersen, released on Cartoon Network, 5 minutes. LEGO Legends of Chima (2013–present), television series, two seasons, 13 episodes per season (22 minutes each). LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: Maximum Overload (2013), directed by Greg Rich- ardson, released online, 22 minutes. The LEGO Movie (2014), directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, released by Warner Bros., 100 minutes.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 The LEGO Movie 2 (2017), forthcoming sequel. LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu (2011–present), television series, three seasons, 13 episodes per season (22 minutes each). LEGO Star Wars: Bombad Bounty (2010), directed by Peder Pedersen, released on Cartoon Network, 5 minutes. LEGO Star Wars: Revenge of the Brick (2005), directed by Royce Graham, Pete Bregman, Mark Hamill, Bill Horvath, and Karl Turkel, released on Cartoon Network, 5 minutes. LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out (2012), directed by Guy Vasilovich, released on Cartoon Network, 22 minutes. Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship 285

LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace (2011), directed by David Scott, released on Cartooon Network, 22 minutes. LEGO Star Wars: The Quest for R2-D2 (2009), directed by Peder Pedersen, released on Cartoon Network, 5 minutes. LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles (2013–present), one season of four episodes (22 minutes each). Mixels (2014–present), television series, 11 episodes at present (1– 2 minutes each). Monty Python and the Holy Grail in LEGO (2001), directed by Tim Drage and Tony Mines, included as a bonus feature on the Special Edition DVD of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), 2 minutes. The Simpsons (“Brick Like Me”, Episode #550, May 4, 2014). Scenery and characters made of LEGO.

Video Games & Apps Bionicle: The Game (Electronic Arts and Feral Interactive, 2003) Bionicle: Heroes (Eidos Interactive, 2006) Bionicle: Matoran Adventures (Electronic Arts, 2002) Bionicle: Maze of Shadows (THQ, 2005) Bionicle: Tales of the Tohunga (The LEGO Group, 2001) Drome Racers (Electronic Arts and THQ, 2002) Island Xtreme Stunts (The LEGO Group, 2002) LEGO Alpha Team (The LEGO Group, 2000) LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (TT Games, 2012) LEGO Batman: The Videogame (TT Games, 2008) LEGO Battles (TT Games, 2009) LEGO Battles: Ninjago (TT Games, 2011) LEGO Chess (The LEGO Group, 1998) LEGO City Undercover (Nintendo, 2013) LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins (Nintendo, 2013) LEGO Creationary (The LEGO Group, 2011) LEGO Creator (The LEGO Group, 1998) LEGO Creator: Harry Potter (Superscape, 2001)

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 LEGO Creator: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Superscape, 2002) LEGO Creator: Knights’ Kingdom (The LEGO Group, 2000) LEGO Friends (The LEGO Group, 2013) LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1–4 (TT Games, 2010) LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5–7 (TT Games, 2011) LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (TT Games, 2009) LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (TT Games, 2008) LEGO Island (Mindscape, 1997) LEGO Island 2 The Brickster’s Revenge (The LEGO Group, 2001) LEGO Knights’ Kingdom (THQ, 2004) 286 Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship

LEGO Legends of Chima Online (Warner Bros. Interactive, 2013) LEGO Legends of Chima: Laval’s Journey (TT Games, 2013) LEGO Legends of Chima: Speedorz (The LEGO Group, 2013) LEGO Loco (The LEGO Group, 1998) LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (TT Games, 2013) LEGO Miniﬁ gures Online (Funcom, 2014) LEGO Movie Maker (2012) The LEGO Movie Videogame (TT Games, 2014) LEGO My Style Kindergarten (The LEGO Group, 2000) LEGO My Style Preschool (The LEGO Group, 2000) LEGO Ninjago: Nindroids (TT Games, 2014) LEGO Ninjago: The Final Battle (The LEGO Group, 2013) LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (TT Games, 2011) LEGO Racers (The LEGO Group, 1999) LEGO Racers 2 (The LEGO Group and Taito, 2001) LEGO Rock Band (TT Games, 2009) LEGO Rock Raiders (The LEGO Group, 1999) LEGO Soccer Mania (Electronic Arts, 2002) LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (TT Games, 2006) LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (TT Games, 2011) LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (TT Games, 2007) LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game (TT Games, 2005) LEGO Stunt Rally (The LEGO Group, 2000) LEGO The Hobbit (TT Games, 2014) LEGO The Lord of the Rings (TT Games, 2012) LEGO Universe (The LEGO Group, 2010) LEGOLAND (The LEGO Group, 1999)

Board Games Creationary Booster Pack (2011) Happy Holidays: The Christmas Game (The LEGO Group, 2010) LEGO Bionicle: The Quest Game (University Games, 2006)

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 LEGO Creator (2003)

LEGO Games Series Produced by the LEGO Group, Listed by Set Numbers: #3835 Robo Champ (2009) #3836 Magikus (2009) #3837 Monster (2009) #3838 Lava Dragon (2009) #3839 Race 3000 (2009) Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship 287

#3840 Pirate Code (2009) #3841 Minotaurus (2009) #3842 Lunar Command (2009) #3843 Ramses Pyramid (2009) #3844 Creationary (2009) #3845 Shave a Sheep (a.k.a. Wild Wool in the US) (March 3, 2010) #3846 UFO Attack (2010) #3847 Magma Monster (2010) #3848 Pirate Plank (2010) #3849 Orient Bazaar (2010) #3850 Meteor Strike (2010) #3851 Atlantis Treasure (2010) #3862 Harry Potter Hogwarts (2010) #3852 Sunblock (2010) #3853 Banana Balance (2010) #3854 Frog Rush (2010) #3855 Ramses Return (2010) #3856 Ninjago: The Board Game (2010) #3865 City Alarm (2012)

Theme Parks LEGOLAND Billund (Denmark) (1968) LEGOLAND California (United States) (1999) LEGOLAND Deutschland (Günzburg, Germany) (2002) LEGOLAND Florida (United States) (2011) LEGOLAND Malaysia (Nusajaya, Johor, Malaysia) (2012) LEGOLAND Windsor Resort (United Kingdom) (1996) LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Berlin at Potsdamer Straße, Berlin (Germany) (2007) LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Oberhausen (Germany) (2013) LEGOLAND Discovery Center Chicago at Schaumburg, Illinois, (United States) (2008) LEGOLAND Discovery Center Atlanta, Georgia (United States) (2012)

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 LEGOLAND Discovery Center Kansas City at Kansas City, Missouri (United States) (2012) LEGOLAND Discovery Center Dallas Fort Worth at Grapevine Mills, Grapevine, Texas (United States) (2011) LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Westchester at Yonkers, New York (United States) (2013) LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Boston (United States) (2014) LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Manchester (United Kingdom) (2010) LEGOLAND Discovery Center Tokyo (Japan) (2012) LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Toronto at Vaughan Mills, Vaughan (Canada) (2013) 288 Appendix: Resource Guide for LEGO Scholarship

Conferences and Leagues BrickCon (held annually in Seattle, Washington, since 2002) BrickFair (held annually in the Eastern United States, since 2008) BrickFest (held in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 (twice), 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009) Brick Fiesta (held annually in Texas, since 2011) Brickworld (held annually in the United States, since 2007) FIRST Lego League (various meetings, events, and competitions, since 1999) Junior FIRST Lego League (various meetings, events, and competitions, since 2004) Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 INDEX

21st Century Readiness Act 174 Arts and Crafts Movement 8–9 Asia-Pacifi c market 67 A. C. Gilbert’s Erector Set 16 Askildsen, T. 190, 202, 203 Abelson, Harold 156, 163n6 Asmus Toys action fi gures 51 abstraction 106–107, 123–125, 136–138; Attack of the Wargs #79002 45 of appearance 107–110; of gameplay Attack on Weathertop #9472 41, 43 and action 110–113; of performance Australia 211 113–115 Automatic Binding Bricks xxi, 18 Ackermann, Edith 191, 203 automation 153–54, 156, 157–159 action fi gures 60–1, 74–75 Avatar: The Last Airbender xxii adaptation 15–29, 40–52 avatars 106, 109–13 Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs) xxiii, 11, 12, 190–192, 195–198, 202–203, 217, 243 Baggage Carts #622 19 Adventures of TinTin, The 62, 63 Baichtal, John xxiii, 1, 191 advertising 85–86, 91, 93–94 Ball, S. J. 168 Aeroplane and Pilot #250 30 Barrel Escape #79004 45–46 AFOLs (see Adult Fans of LEGO) Basic sets #1–5 19 agency and structure 63, 71, 73, 74, 76 Bathroom #261 19 Aker 224 Batman franchise xxii–xxiii, 20 Alderaan 26 Battle at the Black Gate #79007 48–49

Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Altman, Rick 143 Battle of Helm’s Deep, The #9474 41 An Unexpected Gathering #79003) 46–47 Baudrillard, Jean 10 Andersson, Hans viii, 153–154, 163 Bauhaus Movement 9, 10, 12, 13 Antique Car #196 30 Bechtel Corporation ix, 224–225 Antorini, Yun Mi 190, 202, 203–4 Belgium 211 Aragorn viii, 112 Ben 10 xxii Architecture series (see LEGO Architecture Ben-Hur 17 series) Biedermeier 8, 13 Arctic Explorer Playset 17 Billund, Denmark 189 Aristophanes xxiii Bionicle xxii, 68–69, 74–75; and Maori ART OF THE BRICK, THE 208, 212 complaint 68–70 Artdinnk 154, 160–161 Birds, The xxiii 290 Index

Blacktron xxii, 19 Christiansen, Ole Kirk 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 56, Blue 209, 211 190, 201 Bob the Builder franchise xxii Chu, Andrew 267 Boeing 777 airliner 224 Citroën DS 19 #603 30 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft 222 City (see LEGO City) Bondebjerg, Ib 266n Claxton, Guy 200, 204 boundaries 227, 231–3, 236, 238 Cloudcuckooland xxiii Boxer 206, 215 Clowns #321 18 Boym, Svetlana 127 Codea 164n23 boys 82, 85–96, 99–100; toys 57, 70, 72, 74, collaborative versus individual creativity 75n16, 77 200–202 Brave, Scott 266 collectors and collectability 141–142, Breen, Bill 190, 201, 203 146–147 Brickish Association, The 217 Collins, H. 179 Brickset 243 communication 227, 229, 232–3 Bright Bricks Ltd. (company) viii–ix, xix, communism 13 217–226 Complete Bathroom with 1 Figure #265 30 British Association of Toy Retailers xxi Complete Kitchen with 2 Figures #263 30 Brooker, Will 119, 121, 132–133 computer 227–30, 232, 237 Brosterman, Norman 244, 266 concretization, 60–1 Brougère, Gilles 245, 266 conﬂ ict play 72–4 Brown, Tim 202, 204 Conner, M. 169 Buffy the Vampire Slayer 268–269 constructionist learning theory (see Papert, Building Set #105 19 Seymour) Building Set #115 19 constructivist educational philosophy 154, Burroughs, Edgar Rice 17 155, 163–63 Butterﬂ y Beauty Shop #3187 viii, 87 constructivist learning theory (see Piaget, Jean) C3PO xxiii convergence 105–107, 109, 115 Caillois, Roger 63, 70, 138, 161–162 cooperative gameplay 143 Calrissian, Lando xxiii Cortzen, Jan 1, 9 Campbell, Joseph 55 Coughlan, Peter 202, 205 Canada 211 Council of Elrond, The #79006 49 Canales, Katherine 202, 205 Cowboy and Indian Camp 17 canonicity xxiii Cowboy and Pony #806 18 Cantina Adventure Set 18 Crafton, Donald 106, 113–15 Caradhras viii, 112 Crazy Bamboo Town ix, 263 Cargo Bot 155, 161–162, 164n23 creativity 81–86, 88–101, 244–245, 256 Carnage Heart (Artdink, 1995) 154, 161 Creature Cantina Action Play Set 18 Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Crescendo PR 220, 226n1 Academy 178 Cross, Gary 243, 244, 250, 265, 266 Cars franchise xxii Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly 200, 204 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 cheating 211 Cuban, L. 174 CHI Laval #70200 vii, 61 Cult of LEGO, The xxiii children 241–265 cultural appropriation 69–70 children’s culture 250, 254, 265 culture, model of 195–9 children’s media 130–131, 132–134 cut-scenes 106–7, 113–15 Children’s Room #266 30 Chima (see LEGO Legends of Chima) DACTA 159 Chima Online vii, 61 Dark Ages 217 China xxi, 211 David C. Robertson 1 Christiansen, Godtfred Kirk 1–2, 4, 6–10, DC Comics xxiii, 6 56, 169, 190, 201, 244, 246 Death Star #10188 vii, 15, 24–26, 28, 37 Index 291

Death Star (Kenner) vii, 18, 22–23 First Inspiration and Recognition of Death Star 15, 37–39 Science and Technology (FIRST) Death Star II #10143 20, 23, 28 172–73, 181 Death Star Space Station (Kenner) 18, 22 FIRST LEGO League 172, 178, Death Star Technical Companion 37 181–82, 224 deep texts 83–85, 94, 96, 100–101 ﬁ rst people in LEGO sets 19 Delingpole, James 20, 30 Fischer, Gerhard 200–201, 204 Denmark xxi Fitzpatrick, Kathleen 202, 205 designer mindset (Fischer) 201 Fleming, Dan 132–133, 140, 266 designer videos 96–100 Florea, Adrian viii, 98 Detention Block areas, comparison of 28 Fort Apache 17 digital play 64–65 Fort Dearborn 17 Diment, Ed 218 Fortune magazine xxi Disney 5 Foster, E. 182 Disney characters xxii Foucault, M. 177 Dixon, Shanly 265n franchising 20 Dol Guldur Ambush #79011 48–49 Freire, P. 176–77 Dol Guldur Battle #79014 48–49 Freirean praxis 177, 179, 180–82 Doll Set #905 18 Friends (see LEGO Friends) dollhouses 16, 23–24, 28 Froebel, Friedrich 244 Dolphin Cruiser #41015 viii, 97 Fulton Suri, Jane 202, 204 Donald, Merlin 192, 204 Futuron xxii, 19 Droid Factory 18 Dumbledore xxiii Galidor xxii DUPLO 86–87, 155, 254 game 227–38, deﬁ nition of 230–31 Games Workshop products 51–52 Eco, Umberto 127 Gandalf xxiii ecosystem model of LEGO communities Gandalf Arrives #9469 42–43 190 garbage compactor rooms, comparison Eggers, Sebastian 30 of 26 Eglash, R. 182 Gauntlett, David 189–205 Eltringham, Sandy 266 Geek Culture 11, 12, 13 embedded narrative 231, 235–6 Gehring, Wes 144–5 Emirates Airline 224 gender 82–101 Epoke 224 gender script 82–85, 88–90, 95–97, 99–101 Erector Set (see A. C. Gilbert’s Erector Set) Generation X 125–9, 141 Escape from Mirkwood Spiders #79001 45, 47 Giddings, Seth 265, 266 Esso Filling Station #310 30 Gilligan, C. 170 Esso Trailer #252 30 Gimli viii, 112 ethnography 242 Ginn, Anthony 156 Evans, R. 179 girls 82–83, 85–97, 99–101 Everlasting 208 Gizmodo.com viii, 95 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Evers, Lucas 202, 205 Goblin King Battle, The #79010 45 evolution 192 Golding, Peter 266n expertise 179–180 Goldstein, Jeffrey H. 267 Gombrich, Ernst 108–109 Family House #31012 46 gravity 209 Family Room #268 19 Gray, Jonathan 133–134 fandom xxiii, 118–21, 123–4, 134, 142–6 Green Lantern xxiii Farnborough Air Show 222 gun towers, comparison of 25 Feminist Frequency viii, 87 Gunsmoke 17 Fenella viii, 97 Gunsmoke Dodge City 17 Fiat 1800 #605 30 Gura, M. 175 292 Index

Harry Potter franchise xxii, 20 LabVIEW 159 Hasbro xxi, 18, 29 Lake-town Chase #79013 48 Hatch, Mark 198–199, 204 Lancaster Museum of Art 208 Hendershot, Heather 130–131, 137 Land of the Jawas Action Play Set 18 Henning, Michelle 266 Landmark series (see LEGO Landmark Higashi, R. 178 series) Hjarvard, Stig 59, 250, 253, 266 Lane, Anthony 266n Hobbit, The xxii Lanier, Jaron 200, 204 Hodgins, W. 169 Lauwaert, Maaike 250, 266n Horstkötter, Christian 30 Learning Company, The 154, 160 Hutcheon, Linda 125–127, 145–146 “leg godt” xxi Legend Beast vii, 61 IDEO 202 Legends of Chima (see Chima) Illich, Ivan 199–200, 204 LEGO i–xxv, 1–287, adaptations from imaginary worlds 59–64, 231; Bionicle as other media xxii–xxiii, children’s play 68–69; mythology in 65–70 with 241–265, franchising of 245, imagination 244–247, 249, 252, imaginarization of 253–254, marketing 264–265 of 245–246, 250, mediatization of 250, implied audience 129 narrativization of 249–250, theming In Pieces 213 of 245–246, 249, 253, transformative Indiana Jones franchise xxii cultural power of 201–203, transmedial individual versus collaborative creativity nature of 252, 255, 265, values and 200–201 ethics 190–192, 195–198, 201–203 industry lore 88–91, 94–96, 101 LEGO and media 216 instructions 81–83, 88–90, 94–96, LEGO and public relations 216–219 99–100, 241, 246–247, 249, LEGO Architecture series 20, 244, 265 251–253 LEGO as a ‘tool for thinking’ 192–5 intellectual property (IP) 106, 110, 113 LEGO as a creative tool 189–203 irony 126–129 LEGO as a medium xxii, 206–215 Israel 211 LEGO as a transmedial empire xxii Ito, Mizuko 171, 266 LEGO as art 206–226 LEGO as engineering 245, 252, 255, 265 Jameson, Fredric 125 LEGO as “forms of life” 168–171 Jenkins, Henry 144, 180 LEGO as toy 206 Jiaxing xxi LEGO as transfranchisal xxiii Jr. FIRST LEGO League 172 LEGO Atlantis 249 Junemann, C. 168 LEGO Avatar: The Last Airbender 5 Juul, Jesper 106, 111–13 LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes ix, 234 LEGO Batman 5, 6, 85 Kaminsky, Tobias 30 LEGO Batman video games 145–7, Kant, Immanuel 121 233–234 Kaufman, James C. 200, 204 LEGO Belville 85 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Kennedy, Helen W. 265–266 LEGO Bionicle 5, 6, 7, 11 Kenner 17–18, 22–23 LEGO Bob the Builder 5 Kinder, Marsha 57, 74, 130 LEGO Book, The 30 Kitchen #269 LEGO Castle 4, 11 Klaassen, Roel 202, 205 LEGO castle set comparison viii, 73 Kline, Stephen 246, 266 LEGO Certiﬁ ed Professional 218 Knudsen, Jonathan 158 LEGO Certiﬁ ed Professional Program Knudstorp, Jørgen Vig 5, 58, 59 xix–xx, xxii Kristiansen, Kjeld Kirk 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, LEGO Chima 87, 96–100 57, 172 LEGO Christmas Tree 219–220, 223 Kuznetsov, Stacey 197, 204 LEGO City xxii Index 293

LEGO City 11 LEGO Movie 2, The xxii LEGO City 256, 259 LEGO Movie, The xxii–xxiii, 6, 58, 60, LEGO City 96, 99 67, 76, 81, 86–88, 197–198, 200, LEGO Clikit 85 271–272 LEGO Club Magazine 55, 58, 64, LEGO Paradisa 85 72, 76, 87, 88 LEGO Pirates 259 LEGO Collector: Collector’s Guide 30 LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean video game LEGO Creationary 247 145–6 LEGO custom sets 224 LEGO Scala 85 LEGO Death Star (see Death Star #10188) LEGO self-portrait 207 LEGO Death Star II (see Death Star II LEGO Serious Play viii, xxiv, 189, 193–5, #10143) open source release 194 LEGO Digital Designer ix, xxiv, 228–229, LEGO slogan 216 232–233, 237 LEGO Space 4, 11, 241, 243, 249, 250, 251, LEGO DUPLO 2, 4 254, 258, 264, 265 LEGO Education 172, 174 LEGO Spider-Man 5 LEGO fans 190–2, 195–8, 202–3 (see also LEGO SpongeBob SquarePants 5 Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs)) LEGO Star Wars 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 15, 18–29, LEGO Foundation 56–7, 59, 64, 68, 85, 87, 91–92, 105, 107, 241, 249 79n40, 172, 189, 192, 195–9, 203 LEGO Star Wars video games 122–125, LEGO Friends viii, xxii, 46, 82, 85–101, 130–131, gameplay of 134–142, 241, 249, 260, 266 reception of 122–3, 124, 130 LEGO Group xxi, 1–2, 4–7, 9, 11, 82–83, LEGO Studies Panel at SCMS xi 85–94, 96–97, 99–101, 166, 168–171, LEGO Studies, as academic ﬁ eld xi, 189–203, 207, 219–220, 226, 244, 270–273 educational governance 172–75 LEGO Superheroes 87, 92 LEGO Harry Potter 5, 6, 11, 91, 241, LEGO System of Play xxi, 18, 55–59, 249, 259 169–71, 189–192, 195–203, 208, LEGO Harry Potter video games 145, 242, 245 147–8 LEGO Technical/Technic 85, 224, 243, LEGO Indiana Jones 5, 233, 249 256, 258 LEGO Indiana Jones video game 146 LEGO Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 6 LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original LEGO The Hobbit 6, 45–51, 253 Adventures 107 LEGO The Lone Ranger 6 LEGO Landmark series 20 LEGO The Lord of The Rings viii, LEGO language games 169–170 6, 20, 41, 52, 85, 96, 106–7, LEGO Learning Institute 189, 191, 203 110–15, 253 LEGO Legends of Chima vii–viii, LEGO The Lord of the Rings video game xxii, 5, 6, 55–56, 60–62, 64, 72, 146, 147 75–76 LEGO themes 19 LEGO Lost World Zoo exhibition viii, LEGO Town 2, 4 220–221 LEGO Toy Story 5, 254 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 LEGO Marvel Superheroes video game LEGO UK 218–219 145–8 LEGO Universe viii LEGO MINDSTORMS viii, xxiv, 5, 6, 7, LEGO used in education xxiv 66–67, 81, 153–156, 157–159, 160, 161, LEGO User Groups (LUGs) 217 163, 224–225; classroom management LEGO/Logo project 157–58 175–180; ethics and transparency LEGOLAND 4, 5, 6, 10, 217 180–183; MIT LEGO/Logo project licensing 85, 87, 92 171; politics 171; teachers’ expertise Lincoln Logs 16, 18 175–80 Lion Legend Beast #70123 vii, 61 LEGO MOCs (My Own Creations) 50, Lipkowitz, Daniel 30 197 Little Indians #805 18 294 Index

Liu, Alan 267n Minecraft xxiii, 20, 57, 65, 76, 237–238 Livingroom with 2 Figures #264 30 Mines of Moria, The #9473 41, 43–45 Locomotive with Driver & Passenger #252 30 minidolls viii, 82, 86–90, 96–97 Logo (programming language) 156–158 miniﬁ gures viii, xxiii, 19, 21, 23–24, London Crossrail 224 73–74, 81–82, 85–90, 92, 96, 107, Lone Ranger Rodeo 17 109–110, 247 Lone Ranger, The xxii Mirkwood Elf Army #79012 48–49 Lord of the Rings LEGO (see LEGO Lord MIT Media Lab xxiv of the Rings) Mixels xxii Lord of the Rings, The xxii MOCs (see LEGO MOCs (My Own Lowenfeld, Margaret 244, 266 Creation)) Lucas, George 119, 120, 145 model of transmedial imaginary world ludus 138, 161–62, 231, 233, 236 experiences, 62–64, 71–72 modernism 9, 11–13 M:Tron xxii, 19 Monahan, T. 167–168 Machin, David 266n Mother with Baby Carriage #208 19 Maersk Oil 224 Mumford, L. 167 Magasin du Nord 190 Muñiz, A. M. 190, 202, 203–4 maker culture 191, 198–203 My Boy viii, 214–215 Maori 69–70 myth blocks 55–6, 59–60, 66, 70, 72; Marathon Oil 224 mythology of LEGO as 76; in Ninjago market research 88, 92, 94 55–6, 60, 61, 63, Chinese cultural marketing 81–97, 100–101 references in 66; music in 70; spinning Martin, Fred 157–58 in 70–2 Marvel Comics xxiii, 6 Marvel superheroes xxii Neanderthal man 221 Marx Toy Company 16–17, 29 New York City 206 masking effect 109 Niels Lunde 1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ninjago vii, xxii, 63, 247, 249 (MIT) 154, 156–158, 163n5 Noble, D. 167, 179 Master Builder set #004 18 Norrick, Neal R. 142–144, 147 materiality 242 nostalgia 121, 125, 134, 147, in ﬁ lm and Mattel xxi, 29 television 125–30, and irony 126–9, and McCloud, Scott 106–10 sincerity 129–31, as vicarious appeal Meccano 16, 244 128–30 media 227–9, 231–3, 235–8 Nursery #297 19 media bias 229 NXT Intelligent Brick 158–59 media ecology 228–229 mediatization 59–60 Ocko, Steve 157 Mega Bloks 254 Olivia’s House #3315 46 Mego Corporation 17 on-line communities 190–2, 195–9, 202–3 Mehenkwetre 16 open design 202 Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Meno, Joe xxiii, 1, 191 Orc Forge, The #9476 41 merchandising 20 microworld 163 packaging 81–82, 88–89, 95–97, 100 Milestones Museum viii, 220–221, 226n2 paidia 138–141, 146, 161–62, 231, 236–237 Milhaus xxiii Pajitnov, Alexey 12 Millennium Falcon vii, 37 pantomime 123, 136 Millennium Falcon LEGO sets, comparison 20 Papert, Seymour xxiv, 4, 156, 162–63, Millennium Falcon Spaceship (Kenner) 18 164n5, 170–71, 176–77 MINDSTORMS (see LEGO parody 144–146 (see irony) MINDSTORMS) participatory culture 12 Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Partnership for 21st-Century Skills 174 Powerful Ideas xxiv patent #3, 005, 282 vii, 3 Index 295

Paulos, Eric 197, 204 Rubik, Erno˝ 12 Pedersen, Steffen 2 Rubik’s Cube viii, 12, 153–154 Perron, Bernard 265, 266 Perry, Grayson 256 Sam Moskowitz 11 Piaget, Jean 154, 162–63, 170 Sandvik 224 Picciano, A. G. 168 Sarah Herman 1, 7, 8 Pirate Ship Ambush #79008 48–49 Sargent, Randy 157–58 Pirates of the Caribbean xxii, 20 Sarkeesian, Anita viii, 87 pixels 213 Sawaya, Nathan 108–9 Planet of the Apes 17 Sawyer, R. Keith 200, 204 play 241–2, 246, 249, ‘free’ 244, 245, 249, Saxton, Curtis 23–24, 30 253, phantasmagorical 261–4 Seesaw #803 18 Playmobil 260, 261 self-locking bricks xxi Playset Magazine 17 Selwyn, N. 168, 173 playsets, history of 16–18 Serious Play initiative (see LEGO Pokémon 68, 70–71 Serious Play) Pokhilko, Vladimir 12 Shanghai xxi politics: education 168; technology 167–68 Shell Service Station #648 30 postmodernism 10, 11, 13 Shelob Attacks #9470 41 Presidents’ Council of Advisors on Science Silverman, Brian 157–158, 192, 204 and Technology 173, 174 Simcity 163 PRIMO 155 Simpsons, The xxii Prince of Persia xxii Singapore 211 production 82–84, 88, 90–91, 94, 96–99, 101 Slayage 268–9 Programmable Brick computer 154, small steps to creativity 202 157–58 Solo, Han xxiii programming games 154–155, 159–62 Sørensen, Anne Scott 195–7, 204 Propp, Vladmir 55 space 227–228, 231–233, 236–238 Space Police xxii, 19 Queen Margrethe II 4 SPARK movement 90–94, 96–97, 99 spatial storytelling 231 rapid prototyping 202 Speed Racer xxii RCX (Robotic Command eXplorer) Speedorz vii, 61 158–59 SpongeBob SquarePants xxii Red viii, 209–210 Spring, J. 168 Remco Industries 16 Star Wars and fandom 118–21, 123–4, replayability 123, 139 132–4, 142–6, franchise xxii, 15, 17–29, Resnick, Mitchel 157–58, 164n12, 192, 204 original trilogy 118–19, 121, 123–4, retelling stories 136–8, 142–6, 147–8 132, 136–7, prequel trilogy 119–21, 124, Return of the Jedi (see Star Wars, Episode VI: 131, Special Editions 119, toys 132–4, Return of the Jedi ) 137, 140, video games 122, 136 (see Rice, Frank 17 LEGO Star Wars video games) Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Riddles for the Ring #79000 46 Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones 29 Riders of Rohan viii, 115 Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith 29 Riley, D. 181 Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope 24–29, Roadside Service Station 17 31–37 Robertson, David 190, 201, 203 Star Wars, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi 21, Robinett, Warren 164n21 24–29, 37–39 ROBOLAB 159 STEM Education 166–67; international Robot Odyssey 154, 160, 161 competition and rankings 171, 173–74; RobotWar 159–160 literacies 171, 174, 182–83; teachers Rolls-Royce ix, 222–223, 226n3 175, 178–80; reform 170, 173–75; social Roy Rogers Ranch Set 17 justice 181–82 Royal Roost #70108 vii, 61 Stenna 224 296 Index

Sternberg, Robert J. 200, 204 Tyor construction blocks 244 Strong Museum’s National Toy Hall of Tyrannosaurus Rex 208–209 Fame xxi Structo construction set 244–5 U.F.O. xxii, 19 Suber, Peter 202, 205 Unexpected Gathering #79003 23 Sunnyside Service Station 17 United Cutlery replica props 51 Superman xxiii United Nations 172 Sutton-Smith, Brian 252, 261, 264, 267 United States 211, 213 Swalwell, Melanie 265 Unitron xxii, 19 System of Play (see LEGO System of Play) University of Portland STEMRobtics 178 Untouchables, The 17 Taillard, M. 190, 203 Uruk-hai Army #9471 41 Taiwan 211 Technic (see LEGO Technic) Van Abel, Bas 202, 205 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles xxiii, 197 Van Leeuwen, Theo 266n Tetris 12, 13 virtual LEGO 228–9, 231–3, 236–8 Thames river 224 virtual reality 229, 231–3 Thomas the Tank Engine xxii VW Beetle #260 30 Thomsen, Bo Stjerne 191–192, 195–197, 203–204 Wagon Train 17 Tilted Twister 153–54 Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett at the Alamo 17 Tilted Twister robot viii, 154 Warner, Silas 159 time 228, 231–3, 236–8 Weber, Sandra 265 Tinkertoy Construction Set 16, 18, 29 Weckstrom, Cecilia 191, 203 Titmarsh, Duncan 217–218 Wegener-Spöhring, Gisela 267 Tobias Toy Company 16 West, Dean 213 Tolkien, J. R. R. 6, 11 Western Ranch Set 17 tools for thinking (Gauntlett) 192–195 Weta Workshop collectibles 51 Tower of Orthanc, The #10237 47–49 “What it is is beautiful” ad 93–94 Town Plan No. 1 18 Whedon, Joss 268–9 toy 227–33, 235–8, deﬁ nition of 229–31 Whitebread, David 203 toy play 132–134, 137, 140, 148 Who Framed Roger Rabbit xxiii Toy Story xxii Wilson, Jason 265 transformation 74–6 Windmill with Miller and His Wife #251 30 Transformers 247 Winner, L. 167, 168 transfranchise xxiii Wittgenstein, L. 168, 169 transgenerational media 130–131, 137, Wittgensteinian “forms of life” xxiv 147–148 Wizard Battle, The #79005 48 transmedia 271 Wizard of Oz and His Emerald City, Transmedial Imaginary Worlds Experience The 17 vii, 63 Wolbers, Thomas 203 trash compactor rooms, comparison of 26 Wolf, Mark J. P. 61–2, 64, 66, 106, Downloaded by [New York University] at 13:09 03 October 2016 Traveller’s Tales 105–7, 115 108, 265 Trent 1000 engine 222–223 Women You Need to Know blog viii, 93 Trent 800 engine 224 Wonder Woman xxiii Trolle Terkelsen, Anna-Sophie 194 Wookieepedia 37 Troxler, Peter 202, 205 World War II 2, 9 Tufts University 164n13 tunnel boring machines (TBMs) 224–225 Yavin 4 27 Turkle, Sherry 266n, 267n Yellow viii, 209–211 Twitter 91, 93 Two Lives Left 155 Zach the LEGO Maniac 85–86 Tynie Toy Company 16 “zero-player games” 164–165n24