| Character | Gallery | Relationships |
| “ | You don't have to be the bad guy. | ” |
–Emmet to President Business | ||
Emmet Joseph Brickowski is a Master Builder, construction worker and the main protagonist of The LEGO Movie franchise. He is dubbed as "the Special" after finding the Piece of Resistance following Vitruvius's prophecy 8 ½ years later in the first movie. He is the one who is prophesied to save the universe with the Piece of Resistance from Lord Business who intends to use a powerful relic called the Kragle, dubbing him as "the Special".
He is voiced by Chris Pratt mainly in The LEGO Movie, The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, and LEGO Dimensions, while Keith Ferguson voiced him in The LEGO Movie Videogame as well as A.J. LoCascio in The LEGO Movie 2 Video Game and The LEGO Movie 4D A New Adventure
Biography
The LEGO Movie
Emmet was just a normal construction worker in Bricksburg, living alone in an apartment with his potted plant Planty. He was caught off guard on his job by a hooded figure who was searching on the construction site. He went to try and follow the hooded figure who revealed themselves to be a lady, but ends up falling down a hole. This is where he discovered and touched the Piece of Resistance before experiencing a vision and passing out.
He awakens in the custody of Bad Cop, President Business' enforcer, with the Piece of Resistance attached to his back. Emmet learns of Business's plans to freeze the world with the Kragle, a tube of Krazy Glue with the label partially rubbed out; the Piece of Resistance is the tube's cap. Bad Cop also accuses of him of playing dumb and says Bad Cop says that he "can’t be this stupid", to which Emmet explains that he is just a normal guy, that he has best friends that are looking for him right now, and that his friends will tell him. Bad Cop angrily turns on the television, which shows his friends forgetting that he was real and saying that he is nothing.
Bad Cop then takes Emmet to the melting chamber so they could melt him and the Piece of Resistance, but he was saved by the hooded woman who thinks he is “The Special” from the blind wizard Vitruvius's prophecy, who goes by the name Wyldstyle.
They escape from the melting chamber, and Bad Cop finds this out and orders all his men to attack them. Emmet introduces himself while Wyldstyle builds a motorcycle to escape from Bad Cop’s forces. As they were heading into the secret tunnel just past an off-limits area, Emmet reveals that he is just an ordinary guy who accidentally touched the Piece of Resistance after being asked his favorite restaurant, TV show, and song.
They arrive at the Old West, where Wyldstyle takes Emmet to the blind wizard Vitruvius disguised as cowboys. Vitruvius takes Emmet and Wyldstyle downstairs into a secret room, where Vitruvius and Wyldstyle would enter Emmet’s brain, which was completely empty. Though disappointed that Emmet is not a Master Builder, they are convinced of his potential when he recalls visions of "the Man Upstairs". Before Vitruvius could start training Emmet, Bad Cop’s forces attacked Vitruvius, Emmet, and Wyldstyle. They escape and stop Bad Cop's pursuit with the aid of Wyldstyle’s boyfriend Bruce Wayne, also known as Batman.
After passing by Middle Zealand, the group arrived at Cloud Cuckoo Land. There, they meet Princess Unikitty and took them to the “dog”, where all of the Master Builders are hiding and gathered for Emmet's speech. During his speech, he meets MetalBeard, a pirate with a body made of objects. He tried to infiltrate the Octan Tower with other Master Builders, but failed and barely managed to leave with his head and organs. They are happy when Emmet reveals that he has the Piece of Resistance, but they are massively disappointed when he reveals that he is not a Master Builder.
Suddenly, Bad Cop’s forces attack Cloud Cuckoo Land due to a tracking device placed on Emmet. While he and his friends plan to escape, they meet Benny, a 1980s astronaut with an addictive desire of making spaceships. To escape Bad Cop, Emmet and his friends create a submarine to go underwater, and they are successful. All the Master Builders were captured, except for Emmet, Wyldstyle, Vitruvius, Batman, Unikitty and Benny. However, as they go deeper underwater, the pressure increased and quickly destroyed the submarine. All that was left of the submarine was a “double-decker couch”, which went unnoticed by the Micro Managers and robot scuba divers. It is revealed that the group hid under the seats of the couch, where they are found by MetalBeard and brought them on their ship.
It is there that Emmet devised a plan to infiltrate Business's headquarters and disarm the Kragle. They would first enter using a ship that is the same as those of Octan's. Unikitty and Batman, using his Bruce Wayne identity, would then distract Lord Business. Benny and MetalBeard would turn off the shield protecting the Kragle, while Vitruvius would keep a lookout to see if they were being followed (although he was blind). Emmet and Wyldstyle would place the Piece of Resistance on the Kragle to stop it. Their cover was nearly blown off but was able to save themselves from being found out by singing "Everything is Awesome" that distracted the robots. Wyldstyle tells Emmet that she wanted to be "the Special", while he confesses that when she told him that he was talented and special, it was the first time he heard of it and tried to be the man she was talking about. She then reveals her real name, Lucy, to which Emmet responds with "I really like that name."
The plan almost succeeded, however Emmet and his friends ended up captured and imprisoned in the Think Tank, where Master Builders are forced to follow instructions. Vitruvius was able to resist Business’ forces, but he was killed by Lord Business himself after beheading him with a quarter. Before Vitruvius died, he revealed that he only made up the prophecy. Business then removed the Piece of Resistance from his back and purposely threw it at the abyss outside the tower. Before he left to destroy Bricksburg with the Kragle, he set a self-destruct protocol to leave everyone to die including Bad Cop.
They were all forced to watch as Lord Business destroys Bricksburg, but Vitruvius's spirit returns to tell Emmet it is his self-belief that makes him the Special. Having only a few seconds left before the headquarters self-destructs, Emmet discovers that he is strapped to the mechanism's battery and ultimately sacrifices himself by throwing himself off the edge in the tower to save his friends and the Master Builders.
Inspired by Emmet, Lucy encourages many people to fight back against Lord Business. Emmet found himself in the real world as a LEGO minifigure, unable to move. He is found by a boy named Finn, who says hi to him. Finn’s dad, better known as “the Man Upstairs” (who was in Emmet’s vision), came downstairs and saw that his son messed with his LEGO set. The boy’s dad is disappointed in Finn and starts to put everything back to normal permanently by using more Kragles.
In the LEGO world, this is an act of Lord Business’ Micro Managers rising again and defeating the citizens of Bricksburg, including Wyldstyle and her friends. Emmet notices this, as well as the Piece of Resistance on the ground, and tries to move to gain Finn’s attention. Finn then returns Emmet to the LEGO world with the piece, where he finally developed the abilities of a Master Builder, and he successfully infiltrated the top of the Octan Tower with the help of his friends. He was able to resist Business’s army of robots inside the top of the tower and confronts him, but his foot was glued to the ground by Business with the Kragle.
Before Business could finish him, Emmet said that he would use his “secret weapon”. Emmet says his secret weapon is his hand, and wants him to take it to join him. After Emmet makes a heartfelt speech to Business, he embraces Emmet, taking the Piece of Resistance and finally puts it in the Kragle. The Kragle then explodes and destroys the top of the tower, but Emmet and Business were able to survive the explosion. Wyldstyle then embraces Emmet and becomes his new girlfriend with Batman’s blessing.
However, because Bianca, Finn's sister, was invited to play, DUPLO aliens from the planet DUPLON suddenly appear, stating that they have come to destroy them, abruptly ending the movie.
The LEGO Batman Movie
Emmet's appearance in The LEGO Batman Movie
Emmet makes an appearance when he is shown falling into the Infinite Abyss of Nothingness on a jumbotron.
The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
Once the DUPLO aliens come up, Emmet's friends were ready to battle again, but he stops them and decides to talk to the aliens. He managed to be friendly with them by building a heart as a gift. However, the aliens eat the heart and they ask for more. Lucy quickly makes a big hammer and hits them, but to no avail, as they only screamed in response, thus starting their attack on Bricksburg.
5 years later, Emmet is the only one who's not affected by the change and pretends that everything is still awesome in spite of Lucy's advice. Emmet tells Lucy he has some dreams about "Armamageddon", which involves some of the characters later presented in the film and the all LEGO World being sucked by a giant hole. Emmet then expresses that he wants to rebuild the future by making a house for both of them. After taking his girlfriend on a tour in their new house, Lucy is worried that the house might attract aliens and getting it destroyed in the process as well as the fact that Emmet still believes everything is awesome. She asks him to grow up so he can adapt to these modern times, to which Emmet promises that he will try.
When Emmet spots a shooting star, it prompts him, Lucy, and Unikitty to take a closer look, discovering that it is actually a spaceship from another planet. The alien is revealed with the name of Sweet Mayhem and takes her and his friends into her ship. Thinking that he's not tough enough like the others and could not save his friends, Emmet decides to save them. He makes his dream house into a spaceship to give pursuit. En route, he is saved from colliding with an asteroid by a rugged adventurer named Rex Dangervest. As they continue on to the Systar System, Emmet begins to take on several of Rex's mannerisms, hoping to impress Lucy. When they arrive, they evade capture from the swamp creatures and from being "brainwashed" by not listening and singing along to the Catchy Song.
Once they escape for the DUPLO Brickyard, he is reunited with Lucy and they embrace, but it was cut short when she meets Rex. Emmet tells Lucy that he finally grew up just as she wanted him to be. They then make up a plan which involves switching off the pop music that is supposedly brainwashing the others, while Emmet destroys the reception cake encased in a temple to stop the wedding between Batman and Wa'nabi. However, Rex and Emmet are shocked when Lucy accidentally reveals her original hair to them, and insists she is not brainwashed. Despite Rex's warnings, Emmet believes in her because he trusts her, and she helps them with the plan.
While following the plan and before to do so, Rex gives him his own vest, and Emmet thanks him for helping him, without knowing Rex's true intentions. Lucy tries to prevent Emmet from destroying the temple after learning the true intentions of the DUPLO aliens, but Emmet, facilitated by Rex's manipulations, destroys the temple anyway, believing that Lucy was brainwashed and the fact that the real Lucy would never like Everything is Awesome, leaving her heartbroken. In reality, Finn, after finding that his younger sister Bianca had taken his Lego figures, smashes her own creations.
Emmet is left confused for not saving his friends, and he realizes the DUPLO aliens were only trying to be peaceful with his friends. As he tries to stop them, Rex seizes him, who reveals that he is an embittered version of himself from the future. After being neglected for years underneath the dryer after crashing in the asteroid field, he time-travelled back with the intention of saving Emmet but also deliberately bring upon the Armamageddon as revenge for not being saved by his friends. When Emmet tries to leave, Rex sends him under the clothes dryer in the real world to ensure that he will exist.
When the two fight, Rex manages to get the upper hand by almost breaking him in a half. However, determined to not become like Rex, Emmet is returned into the LEGO world when Lucy arrives in front of him and reunites with Emmet. She manages to trick Rex into punching a cute sentient heart when he tries to escape, triggering an explosion, destroying his time machine and Rex topples in defeat.
Lucy then tells Rex that Emmet will not become like him, but he can be like Emmet as they ask him to join them, but Rex denies their offer since he realizes that Emmet being saved by Lucy means he didn't end up becoming him, erasing his timeline and causing the remorseful time-traveler to begin disappearing limb by limb. Emmet wants Rex to take his hand, but Rex accepts his fate, telling Emmet that he is proud of him and he will grow up to be better than him before finally disappearing. After that, Emmet and Lucy apologize for what they have done to each other, before declaring that they were to be Special Best Friends forever.
Wa'Nabi and Batman finally wed, represented by Finn and Bianca reconciling and agreeing to play together again. Their mother returns their toys, averting Armamageddon. The LEGO universe is transformed into a mishmash of Apocalypseburg and the Systar System called "Systocalypstar". Emmet rebuilds his home with Lucy, who reveals she was one of the original artists of "Everything is Awesome" as Emmet gasps in response.
Portrayal in the Videogame
Being the main character of the film, Emmet is a common playable character in the story levels of the game. Emmet uses a Drill and a Wrench in the game. The Drill can destroy cracked tiling/parts and the Wrench can fix broken machinery. With the introduction of the Instruction Build and Master Build characters in this game, most of the time Emmet has to find instruction pages to build, that is, until the last two levels of the game where he finally becomes a Master Builder. It should be noted that he has the most variations amongst the others in the game, which includes:
- Normal
- Piece of Resistance
- Lego Piece
- Pajamas
- Shower
- Lizard
- Woodsman
- Clown
- Trash Can
- Wheel head
- Old West
- Robot Disguise
- Master Builder
Personality
Emmet is a friendly, jolly, innocent, sweet, happy, and kind-hearted everyman citizen just trying to do his job. He is easily frightened and confused by unfamiliar things that surround him.
In actuality, Emmet desperately wants to have friends. When he finds out how little people really think of him, he's visibly crushed and saddened. Emmet initially comes across as a bit dense, but it later turns out he's just not used to thinking creatively. As luck would have it, Emmet's mediocre imagination is ultimately what allows the free-thinking of the master builders to cooperate with each other in a crisis.
Emmet is portrayed as a cheerful, obedient, and friendly guy who always tries to follow the rules and doesn't really know how to think for himself. He is kind of naïve, dizzy and easily distracted, especially around his crush and now-girlfriend Wyldstyle. Despite that, he is able to come up with great plans and stick to them thanks to his love for instructions and teamwork, which is a trait none of the other Master Builders have. Despite his extroversion, he seems to have confidence issues, since he doesn't believe that he can be The Special due to his blandness. However, Emmet is also really polite, generous and caring, always willing and happy to help others - as it was his kindness that ultimately defeated Lord Business and put an end to his plans.
In his own words, everything is awesome. He is kind to everyone for the most of the time, even towards his enemies, and never seems to hold a grudge.
Appearance
Emmet wears a normal orange and blue construction vest and pants with silver lined on the back, front, and underneath the hips. On his left leg is a black and silver standard-issue ID badge with his name on it in white. There is a small image on the badge that shows a bald minifigure and a bio portrayed by indistinguishable silver bars. Like most minifigures in the film, he has yellow skin and like Benny, he has completely black eyes. His hair is brown with several ripples in it and a bit of hair sticking out of the back.
In The LEGO Movie 2, the printing of Emmet's clothes were scratched and worn down after the 5 year timeskip.
Abilities
Despite not being a Master Builder at the beginning of the movie, Emmet has several talents, such as his proficiency in repairing broken objects, handling a power drill, being good at teamwork, and even being able to wield an axe. Emmet is also shown to be quite smart, seeing as he comes up with the entire plan to infiltrate the Octan Tower which almost succeeded.
After returning from the human world, Emmet gained the ability to be a Master Builder and creates a mech out of construction vehicles. He is also skilled in fighting, as shown when he easily defeated an entire force of Skeletrons with the Piece of Resistance in hand and even used their own parts in creating a makeshift hammer to knock them off. Even before becoming a Master Builder, he was skilled enough with fighting to destroy Robo SWATs. His willpower is very strong, as shown as despite being inanimate in the real world, as he forced himself to move off the table.
In the second movie, Emmet learned the ability to be a Master Breaker by using his feelings of anger, fear and frustration as per Rex's advice. This is shown when he first expressed how he was afraid of losing Lucy forever due to his inability to change and was able to create a hole in the ground for him and Rex to escape to. He then used this multiple times when he destroyed the wedding temple after believing that Lucy is truly brainwashed.
Trivia
- Emmet's hair is very similar to another LEGO piece, Part 3901. But has hair sticking out the back and lines.
- His actor Chris Pratt reprised his role in LEGO Dimensions However, he was voiced by Keith Ferguson in the video game adaption and A.J. LoCascio in The LEGO Movie 4D A New Adventure.
- In the movie, all the costumes that Emmet is wearing when dressing up for work all appear as master builders in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
- Outside of all Lego Movies, he made a cameo on a boy's t-shirt in a live-action segment between the two episodes of Molly of Denali; Mouse in the Treehouse/Leader of the Pack.
Quotes
- "Guys, you're all so talented and imaginative... but you can't work as a team. I'm just a construction worker, but when I had a plan and we were working together, I mean, we could build a skyscraper. Now you're Master Builders. Just imagine what could happen if you did that! ...You could save the universe." (Emmet's speech to the surviving Master Builders)
- "Hello, I'm Emmet! And this is the Piece of Resistance." (Emmet introducing himself to the Master Builders)
- "I am a Master Builder!" (Emmet after making a giant mech)
- "I know what you're all thinking. "He is not the person to lead us." And you are right!" (To the Master Builders in Cloud Cuckoo Land)
- "The real Lucy would never say that." (To Lucy - The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part)
- "You don't have to be the bad guy. You are the most talented, most interesting, and most extraordinary person in the universe. And you are capable of amazing things. Because you are the Special. And so am I. And so is everyone. The prophecy is made up, but it's also true. It's about all of us. Right now, it's about you. And you... still... can change everything." (To President Business)
- "Oh, come on, everyone. We've done this before. We all took on Lord Business, and we changed the world. We are all special now. There's nothing we can't do. We need to go up to that alien planet, and show those aliens what we're made of. Who's coming with me?" (Emmet as he tries to gather everyone to save his friends)
- "I'll never grow up to be like you. It's easy to harden your heart. But to open it... That's the toughest thing you can do. I'm gonna grow up. But I won't stop caring about the people in my life. They may see the world differently, but that's not bad. I think it's inspiring. Because everything's... not awesome. But we can make it a little more awesome if we remember... We're not alone in this world. We're in it together." (To Rex Dangervest)
Names in other languages
- Polish: Iymyt Brykwfsky
- Japanese: Emettoburikousukī
Gallery
Click here to view the gallery.