LEGO Studies: Examining the Building Blocks of a Transmedial Phenomenon
2015; The Strong; Volume: 8; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1938-0399
Autores Tópico(s)Digital Games and Media
ResumoLEGO Studies: Examining the Building Blocks of Transmedial Phenomenon Mark J. P. Wolf, ed. New York: Routledge, 2014. Figures, contributors, institutions, prolegomena, appendix, index. 320 pp. $43.95 paper. ISBN: 9780415722919Over more than fifty years, LEGO sets have expanded from an open-ended building system to include instructions for building speci?c models, themed play sets, and licensed products. More recently, the company has become transmedia empire with books, games, educational products, feature ?lm, and more. LEGO Studies works from the premise that LEGO is distinct medium that warrants closer con- sideration. e book o!ers ?een essays incorporating play theory, games studies, cultural studies, media industries scholar- ship, fan cultures, adaptation studies, and other disciplines to articulate both LEGO's cultural signi?cance and to explore the many complex ways that LEGO products work in play.The book, which includes contribu- tions by fans of both LEGO products and some of the franchises adapted into LEGO toys, games, and other merchandise, deftly balances critical and celebratory approaches to the brand, perspective that facilitates deep readings ?rmly oriented in the aforementioned scholarly traditions. Despite such detail, the chapters are short and do not rely on extensive ancillary theoretical knowledge, making the book easy to read and teach.Several essays concentrate on issues related to adaptation and play-what is made possible when popular franchises are given the LEGO treatment. Mark J. P. Wolf 's and Neal Baker's chapters deal with the adaptation of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings respectively, from ?lms to LEGO sets, while Jessica Aldred's and Robert Buerkle's contributions explore the adapta- tion of these ?lms into LEGO-styled video games. Each undertakes thorough analy- ses of the films, toys, and-as applica- ble-related games to explain how LEGO works as distinct medium, not beholden to verisimilitude, variously inhibited and liberated by aspects of its material design and discursive framing. e abstraction resulting from adapting popular culture icons into LEGO products creates success- ful merchandise for multiple age groups, combines irony and sincerity, and infuses the brand's playful ethos into range of established story worlds.In the book's consideration of LEGO as system of play, questions surrounding modularity and units of meaning arise as second core theme throughout the work. Lori Landay's essay describes how two of LEGO's early product lines-Ninjago and Chima-use mythical schema to generate international appeal. She demonstrates how the brand now comprises not only physical interlocking blocks, but inter- locking ideological components as well. Likewise, Derek Johnson's discussion of LEGO's much-maligned Friends line for girls examines the toy industry's con- struction and deployment of creativity, arguing that it becomes a site of indus- trial and critical struggle under constant contestation and reconstruction, where industry lore is perpetually met with activists' counter-lore, which may rely on the same kinds of essentialization it seeks to dismantle (p. 101). Christopher Hanson's essay on LEGO Mindstorms robotic kits likens toy building blocks to the blocks of computer commands that Mindstorms users connect virtually in writing the programs that control robots. Hanson celebrates the open-ended qual- ity of Mindstorms products, which eschew goal-oriented activities in favor of paidic or play-like experimentation. …
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