LEGO Star Wars author talks LEGO humour

In an interview with Hypable, Arie Kaplan discusses the process of writing LEGO Star Wars books and translating the unique LEGO humour to the page. The author has worked on LEGO Star Wars: Face Off and LEGO Star Wars: The Official Stormtrooper Training Manual.

The writer described watching the animated specials to get a sense of the tone that was needed.

I found that tone in a couple of ways. One way was to watch some of the LEGO Star Wars TV shows, like LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales. That way, I saw how the Star Wars characters had been parodied. I saw the types of jokes and comedy set-pieces that the Droid Tales writers had used. It gave me a very clear idea of what tone I should go for in my LEGO Star Wars books.

Also, and this is 100% true, I occasionally said some of the jokes out loud (to myself), in my best LEGO Emperor Palpatine voice. I did this while I was all alone in my studio working, but only for the Palpatine character. I could write LEGO Emperor Palpatine jokes (and dialogue) forever. That guy’s a GREAT character!

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The conversation moves on to discuss The LEGO Batman Movie and how to find the humour in that particularly dark character.

I think that Batman is a great character and one of the fascinating things about him is that he has such a grim world view. That’s why he’s waged this one-man war on crime. But it also means that he takes himself WAY too seriously. So I think LEGO Batman, as first seen in The LEGO Movie and now in The LEGO Batman Movie, is a way to spoof that fact.

If I could translate one aspect of the character to LEGO, I think it’d be some of the more bizarre Batman villains from the Batman comics, like the Ventriloquist or Man-Bat or the Joker’s daughter (remember her?) Or some of the characters from the 1960s Batman TV show (like King Tut!).

For the full interview, visit Hypable.

Author Profile

Graham
Graham was the BrickFanatics.com Editor up until November 2020. He has plenty of experience working on LEGO related projects. He has contributed to various websites and publications on topics including niche hobbies, the toy industry and education.

Follw Graham on Twitter @grahamh100.

Graham

Graham was the BrickFanatics.com Editor up until November 2020. He has plenty of experience working on LEGO related projects. He has contributed to various websites and publications on topics including niche hobbies, the toy industry and education. Follw Graham on Twitter @grahamh100.

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