The LEGO Movie – Pirate Ship Engine Noise
Picture the scene: you are sitting in a darkened theatre, enthralled by one of the best movies you’ve seen in a long time. You are loving the fact that the whole thing is created in LEGO, and that it is zipping along with a tight, well written script and brilliant direction. You’re enjoying the characters, and the humorous interactions between them. You’ve tried to stifle a few squeals of delight at the appearance of Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman and Benny The Spaceman, and you’ve let out a few belly laughs at the thinly veiled references to the suppression of creative thought.
Suddenly, there’s a cutaway – literally, a couple of seconds of film, denoting the beginning of a journey. Our heroes are aboard Metalbeard’s Pirate Ship and are setting off on their voyage. The shot switches to an exterior – the Pirate Ship against a flat background. It lifts and begins to move, and somebody off-camera vocalises an engine noise.
It’s a very simple moment, but one that generates laughter, goosebumps and teary-eyes all at the same time. Making engine noises is a universal thing – we’ve all done it as children, our own children do it, and we do it again while playing with them. It’s an instinctive, natural action that we engage in while indulging our creativity with toys.
The beauty of this brief movie moment is that it holds a mirror up to that behaviour and allows us to recognise ourselves, acknowledge the ridiculousness of it, and relate to every single other person – regardless of who they are, or what their age is. It is a joyous beat in a perfect film, and easily one of the best movie moments of 2014.
– Sarah Myles