Lego: When video games bridge between play and cinema

Abstract

This paper proposes an exploration of the Lego Transmedia World. The starting point is a definition of a Lego aesthetics based on four characteristics: modularity, translatability, intertextuality and a tripartite nature of Lego minifigures. A brief analysis of the most popular types of Lego products – toys, games, video games and movies – will delineate a continuum that goes from different degrees of playfulness to mere readership: continuum in which videogames hold a special position. The final aim of this article is to underline, thanks to the Lego case study, the complexity and variety of the knotty intertextual nets that characterize transmedia realities.

Keywords

• Lego Movies
• Intermediality