A new trailer for The Lego Batman Movie is out and it’s got at all: Robin, the Joker, new Commissioner Barbara Gordon and lots and lots of Alfred. So far it’s looking like a worthy follow-up to The Lego Movie.
But even better than the jokes may be the surprising thematic core to The Lego Batman Movie revealed in the new trailer.
While the cinematic Batman seems forever trapped in a grim dystopia, chained to his own sadism, writer Grant Morrison has taken the comics in a radically different direction. After his jaw-dropping run on All-Star Superman, Morrison moved on to Batman. After grinding Batman and Bruce Wayne down to nothing (his Batman of Zur-En-Arrh is so much more interesting than death), Morrison built the Dark Knight back from scratch, with both a new Batman and a new Robin (Bruce Wayne and Tim Drake eventually returned). Soon Batman had an entire Batfamily working with him, an emotional bond Batman earned after decades of lonely, stoic hero posturing. Morrison took some of the cheesiest characters and ideas from 60s’ Batman psychedelia and gave them new emotional heft and meaning. I guess my point here is: Grant Morrison is the best and I love him.
Anyway, now there’s a new trailer for The Lego Batman Movie (trailer 4, apparently) and it lays out a similar thematic angle. Batman, having lost his family as a child, struggles to build a satisfying emotional community for himself. Nolan may have made Batman a proxy for some of our larger political and societal ethical quandaries, but it’s good to see Bruce Wayne given his emotional due as well:
The Lego Batman Movie will be out in theaters Feb. 10, 2017.
