One of the things we’re already appreciating about The LEGO Movie ahead of the film’s February release — exactly one month ahead, to be exact — is the attention to detail demonstrated in the design of the characters. Take Benny, for example, since Charlie Day’s character has been showcased in the latest poster in all his glorious spaceyness. When the first trailer released, he was introduced to us as "1980-something space guy," which puts this character in the mid-twenties to mid-thirties age range and suggests that, as a LEGO, he’d probably be showing a bit of wear and tear. Sure enough, you can see little nicks and scratches around the front of his space helmet. The bottom’s a little bit bent, his eye’s are the tiniest bit faded around the edges and he’s got a couple scratches on the right side of his forehead.
Benny’s clearly a LEGO that’s been around the toy box, outliving other more fleetingly faddish LEGO that have come and gone between 1980-something and now. Ok, in truth, I have no idea if there’s any kind of link between the characters of The LEGO Movie and played-with LEGO, in somewhat similar fashion to how the Toy Story characters are actual toys, self-aware and all.. Regardless, I like the slight datedness of Benny’s appearance, given his rather generic design, particularly by comparison to the more polished looking faces of Superman and Batman. Maybe it’s the fact that those characters are regularly updated in popular culture, whereas the "1980-something space guy" has one specific era to call his own. I’m probably overthinking this. I just love the details, nicks, scratches and all. He strikes me as the perfect example of LEGO nostalgia.
The new poster landed over on the LEGO Movie Facebook page, which has been pretty steadily updated and likely will continue to be, now that we’re coming up on the release of the film. As mentioned, Benny the space guy is voiced by the great Charlie Day, more often seen and heard in film and television (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Pacific Rim, Horrible Bosses). But he’s no novice at voice-work either, having voiced the role of Art in Monster’s University. You can catch his character Art in the second half of this clip:
The recently released TV Spot gives us a goofy look at Benny, who thinks spaceships are awesome…
So many facial expressions in just one quick snippet…
The LEGO Movie arrives in theaters February 7.
