Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Lets Lord & Miller Play In Their LEGO Universe
This post contains spoilers for "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse."
They actually did it: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, co-writers of both the "Spider-Verse" franchise and "The Lego Movie," finally found a way to combine their two most beloved worlds in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse." The new movie is jam-packed with so many Easter eggs, universe jumps, and eye-popping artistic flourishes that it's easy to come away feeling like you'll need to watch it again to catch everything. Still, one world, in particular, is hard to forget — because it's made out of Legos.
The scene comes fairly early in the film when Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) first finds out about the league of Spider-People working together to save the universe without him. Quick scenes show Spider-Men across the multiverse placing calls to group leader Miguel (Oscar Isaac). Among them? Lego Peter Parker (voiced by comedian Nic Novicki), who's in the middle of his day job at the "Aily Bugle" (the D Lego fell down) — getting yelled at by J.K. Simmons' J. Jonah Jameson — when the call comes in. An editor's note explains that this is Earth-13122, but we only see a little bit of it.
Peter sneaks into the bathroom, throws on his Spider-Man outfit, and answers the call with a quick but hilarious "boop-boop" sound that's clearly coming from someone's mouth, not a sound effect. It's that "boop-boop" that makes viewers realize, right as we're about to leave the Lego world behind, what makes it so special. It appears to be made largely of genuine stop animation footage of Legos, like the kind of home movie a kid would make playing with their favorite toys.
Lego Peter Parker is 'one of their best'
The filmmakers haven't confirmed the process that went into making Earth-13122 (though Jake Johnson spilled the beans on the Lego world back in May), but the guy who recreated the "Across the Spider-Verse" trailers with Lego — Preston Mutanga — claims to have worked on it. Assuming it is mostly stop-motion with added effects (it really looks like it!), this is an even more realistic Lego world than the one portrayed in the partly computer-generated Lego film franchise.
Like almost every scene in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," the Lego world detour manages to stuff several great jokes into just a few seconds. From the instantaneous way Peter puts on his costume, to the hilariously short report he gives Miguel, to self-serious Miguel's insistence that Lego Peter is "one of our best," the entire sequence is playful, silly, and very funny.
While this is Lego Spider-Man's big-screen debut, the character has headlined his own film before — the 2019 short "Lego Marvel Spider-Man: Vexed by Venom," where he was played by Robbie Daymond. Lego Spidey has also popped up in other Marvel projects, including the short series "Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Maximum Overload" (that time voiced by Drake Bell) and multiple "Lego Marvel" video games.
This latest clip is extra-endearing, and will surely get some films hoping for a feature-length Lego Spider-Man movie, but I think the charm of most of the "Spider-Verse" cameos is in their fleeting nature. Lego Peter Parker is boop-booping today, back to his regular life tomorrow, and that's what makes him so delightful.
"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" is now in theaters.