'The Lego Movie 2' Is Basically 'Mad Max: Fury Road,' Down to the Heroine

The first trailer for the sequel to The Lego Movie, a feature-length ad for literal toys that somehow was a legitimately great movie, has serious echoes of another surprisingly amazing movie, Mad Max: Fury Road. It’s not just that The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is set in a dusty, post-apocalyptic wasteland, but there are some major similarities between Lucy (a.k.a. Wyldstyle) and Fury Road’s Imperator Furiosa.

The trailer, which hit the web on Tuesday morning, reveals that things didn’t go so great for Brickland after the events of the first film’s big climatic moment, Taco Tuesday. It’s five years later, and Emmet (Chris Pratt) and Lucy (Elizabeth Banks) are eking out a living in the wasteland, although Emmet is as cheerful and oblivious as ever. Until, that is, a new villain (a Mini-doll, a line of Lego products aimed primarily at girls), kidnaps all Emmet’s friends.

Before that happens, though, the villain demands that the group’s “fiercest leader” come forward, and Lucy presents Emmet, since he’s The Special. The villain is unimpressed.

“Well, technically I did the warrior stuff,” Lucy says.

“So, you fought, and master-built, and kicked-butt, and then the hapless male was the leader?” the baddie responds, incredulous.

“He, uh… well?” Lucy says, essentially conceding to one bit of criticism of the largely beloved first film.

That dynamic — the one between a woman who does almost everything and a man who ultimately gets credit — brings the relationship between Max and Furiosa to mind, though you could argue that Fury Road does a pretty good job of making Max a supporting character in his own movie.

That moment in the trailer is also similar to another bit from another new trailer that’s full of brands. In Wreck-It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks the Internet, the Disney Princesses lament how it seems like all their problems appear to be solved once a strong man shows up to rescue them.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part hits theaters in February 2019.