Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates | Tagged: dc comics, Legion Of Super Heroes, lego, LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes – Justice League: Cosmic Clash, supergirl, young justice

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes Justice League Cosmic Clash Red Carpet Interviews and Review

On February 13, 2016, I had the pleasure of attending my first ever world premiere for a movie as well as conduct interviews on the red carpet. The thing is that the movie wasn't a long looked forward to blockbuster or a movie chock full of huge Hollywood stars. It was better. It was for Lego DC Comics Super Heroes Justice League Cosmic Clash, out now in digital download format and out on March 1, 2016, in DVD or Blu-Ray format and coming with an exclusive Lego Minifigure of Cosmic Boy. You're probably thinking big deal, how could that be better? It was better because not only did I get a chance to interview some of the best voice actors in the business, as well the writer, director, and producer of animated films and series that nerds love, but I was able to have my family there with me so that they could see the film, meet the cast and get autographs, and to also get a free Lego set. That's right, free Lego sets, not something I could have gotten at the world premiere of say Zoolander 2, and honestly who would want a Lego set for that movie anyway.

First off, not all red carpet premieres have red carpets. This one had a grey carpet. Maybe when they have them on TV they add the red in CGI, but that was the only disappointment for the day. Cosmic Clash is the fourth of the straight to home video films in the Lego and DC Comics partnership. Cosmic Clash is the first of the Lego DC films to feature Supergirl along with members of the Legion of Super-Heroes – Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, and Lightning Lad. Joining members of the Justice League – Batman, Superman, Hal Jordan Green Lantern, Barry Allen The Flash, Cyborg, and Wonder Woman. The villain this go-around is Braniac.

The first cast member I interviewed was Andy Milder, Lightning Lad.

Joshua Stone: Having been Lightning Lad on the Legion of Super-Heroes animated series, how was it different doing the character as the Lego version? How did you approach it differently?

Andy Milder: To be honest with you I wanted it to be the same guy and the same essence. I think maybe there is a little more comedy to be had, so I tried maybe to punch that up a little bit. But in general, I tried keeping him true to his character as opposed to making him his Lego self.

JS: How did it feel returning to the character after seven years away from it?

AM: It's a long time. You know at first it was a little daunting, but it really came back to me and it was like riding a bike.

JS: Was this your first Lego movie?

AM: Yes, it was my first Lego film.

JS: So how was it working on a Lego film?

AM: It was pretty awesome actually. I had never done one before and I was pretty excited.

JS: For Christmas at Target they were selling a four pack of Lego Minifigures that included Lightning Lad and I bought it for my son, but he didn't know who Lightning Lad was, but when I told him about this movie and that Lightning Lad was in it he was very excited, because now he was going to be in a cartoon.

AM: When I was a kid I read the Legion of Super-Heroes comics and when I first originally played Lightning Lad I was so pumped, it was awesome.

JS: So you weren't aware of the Lego of Lightning Lad? So essentially you have your own Lego.

AM: That toy I was not aware of, it's pretty cool. I can't wait to see it. I am totally going to get that.

JS: Thank you very much, nice meeting you.

AM: Thank you, nice meeting you too.

Next up was Khary Payton, Cyborg. Khary has provided the voice of Cyborg in three of the Lego DC movies, the Teen Titans, New Teen Titans, and Teen Titans Go!

Joshua Stone: First off, great Saga shirt. Since 2003 you have provided the voice of Cyborg in everything.

Khary Payton: Just about, just about.

JS: How does it make you feel that after 13 years, your time as Cyborb is like a teenager?

KH: It's crazy. I was thinking about it on the way over here. It was my first voice over audition in Los Angeles. I was doing commercials, a little tv, a horror movie or something, and I then I got that audition and everything changed. I still do a little bit of those things here or there, but Cyborg just kind of buoyed me, and it has led to all kinds of other things. In that time Cyborg has gone on, and now he's in the Justice League, before it was just the Titans, and I was part of that incubation where he grew up into something bigger where people kind of know who Cyborg is and it blows me away and I feel kind of proud.

JS: Yeah, he was kind of a minor figure in some ways.

KH: Right, right, but I grew up reading him. I was so excited when I auditioned; I was like I know that guy. I bought that comic book because he was on the cover. So now he's really part of that pantheon. He's not Wonder Woman or Superman, but he's right there.

JS: He's getting a movie.

KH: He's getting a movie!

JS: When you heard about that were you like, "Hey, man, who has more experience with Cyborg than this guy?"

KH: Of course I always want to play Cyborg, but I wasn't the first Cyborg and I won't be the last Cyborg. (Author's Note: Khary is right, he is not the first Cyborg. Ernie Hudson, star of Ghostbusters, voiced Cyborg in 1985 on the animated series The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians") I really can't complain. I've been Cyborg for hundreds of episodes.

JS: According to IMDB, 193 episodes, not including the Lego movies.

KH: Yeah, but I have ctually recorded more then 200, there's still more coming out. So you won't find me complaining.

JS: When your playing Lego Cyborg versus Teen Titans Go! Cyborg, do you treat the character differently when you're presenting it?

KH: In Teen Titans Go! we don't care as long as it's funny. We can change it immediately. We change it over and over. If something's not working we just blow it up and try for the funny again. It's kind of like a no holds barred kind of thing. With Lego they have to rein me in a little cause they have a storyline we are trying to figure out, so they have to give me a few boundaries. Other than that, Lego Cyborg is kind of the fanboy.

JS: The new guy.

KH: Exactly. So that's kind of the fun part of the Lego version of Cyborg. Maybe slightly more serious than Teen Titans Go! It's still fun, but there's not much that can be goofier than Teen Titans Go!

JS: No, no. I watch it with my kids and they just love singing along with the theme.

KH: The great thing is we try to be as goofy as possible, but also do entire episodes about getting yourself a mortgage and buying property. It goes right over the kids' heads, but with the parents in the background they can kind of wink and smile while they watch it.

JS: Between the original Teen Titans series, Teen Titans Go!, and the Lego films, which is your favorite.

KH: I was just looking back at an old Teen Titans episode that we did on racism, where Starfire was being made fun of and belittled by this other alien who looked down on aliens of Starfire's race and it was so amazing. I have so much fun on Teen Titans Go!, but we were able to balance the funny with the serious on the old show. Honestly, I am just glad that the characters are versatile enough that we can play all of those different levels and it works. It's almost impossible for me to say that one is my favorite, but I watched a clip of that old show and I started to tear up a little bit. You know because I've known Hynden Walch, who plays Starfire, for 13 years, she's like my sister. And when I'm watching that episode it's like I'm having this poignant conversation with this close member of my family. And then with Teen Titans Go! I get to sit and watch Scott Menville (plays Robin) lose his mind, and it is so much fun. I'm on the floor. People think that Greg Cipes, who plays Beast Boy, and I are the goofy crazy ones, but Scott is the one though. I got to get that dude an Emmy, he needs awards man.

JS: You need to videotape it.

KH: Exactly. He is just killing it. So I can't pick a favorite.

JS: So you got Lego toys based on a character you play. How does that feel that you're a Lego, and did you play with Lego as a kid?

KH: Yes. Me and my 7 year old just put together the 500 something piece Justice League ship with Cyborg in there. Green Arrow was driving it on the box, but screw that, Cyborg was driving it. We were up till after midnight and my daugther was like, "Daddy, were almost done. Let's do it till were done." Yeah, we got to do this till were done. It was awesome.

JS: Thank you very much.

KH: Thank you.

Up next was Rick Morales, the director of the film.

Joshua Stone: You've directed other superhero films before, so how does directing a Lego DC film differ from the superhero films you've done in the past?

Rick Morales: Well it's got a lot more humor in it and it's younger eschewing. Obviously, your dealing with Lego minifigure characters, so you have to have a certain sort of Lego sense humor there that has to be injected into the story. As far as the filmmaking goes, it's not incredibly different, but you have a lot more gags.

JS: I know you've done a lot of storyboard work as well, how does this differ, other than dealing with the actors?

RM: I came up doing storyboards the first 8-10 years of my career, and I think storyboarding is a good jumping off point for directing because your working with a story obviously and your working with the filmmaker. So when you make that leap to director, now instead of just worrying about your little sequence that you were assigned, and that is basically what a storyboard artist does, they are assigned a section of the script and they direct their sequence or number of sequences, and then the director oversees that. You go from working this little piece to working on the whole film.

JS: I was looking at your IMDB and saw you worked on Justice League: The New Frontier, and I love Darwyn Cooke's work

RM: I love Darwyn too.

JS: and I love the story. When you worked on that storyboard did you just try to duplicate it?

RM: I just took the panels straight from the comic book. I remember the script was pretty close to what was in the comic, if I remember correctly. I think on that one I did the news footage of an octopus squid creature attacking a boat. Darwyn's great because he was a storyboard artist as well, before he started doing all the comic book stuff, and his artwork is great. I've met him and hung out with him quite a few times and he's a great person, and you know what, I was just like I don't need to do anything with these boards I can just take the imagery, add the poses in the boards. They're nicely composed shots as they are. That is a situation where the source material you're adapting is pretty much prepackaged to go into the film. There are other things the we have done, like The Dark Knight Returns, which we did on video and I had worked on, which was not quite like that. We had to expand on it, I love Frank Miller, but he's telling a visually different style that doesn't quite work for film, it's a little more scattered.

JS: Great, thank you for your time.

 Up next was Kari Wahlgren, voice of Saturn Girl.

Joshua Stone: Having been Saturn Girl on The Legion of Super-Heroes animated series, how was it portraying her in the Lego DC world?

Kari Wahlgren: Well, anytime your involved with the Lego DC world there is always a lot more humor involved. So it's fun, because Saturn Girl, especially on the cartoon, was such a straight and serious leader that its fun to be playing a take that is a lot more comedic this time around. So she is still powerful and strong but she's a little funnier.

JS: How did it feel returning to Saturn Girl after seven years of not doing the voice?

KW: Wow, it's crazy that it's been that long. It was a real honor. I was really excited to come back and do it again.

JS: Thank you very much.

Up next was Yuri Lowenthal, the voice of Cosmic Boy.

Joshua Stone: This was your first Lego DC film and also the first one to feature the Legion of Super-Heroes and Cosmic Boy. When it came to developing his voice did you go back and listen to Wil Wheaton's Cosmic Boy on Legion of Super-Heroes?

Yuri Lowenthal: I did take into consideration what he had done with the character. So I was sort of cheating in a way, I didn't create it from scratch – I was like how did Wil do it when we were doing Legion back in the day? And I went with that. His Cosmic Boy was very much about being that leader and trying to keep it all together. It was a bit straight edged. So I took that and just sort of went with it, in the Lego version, which is always further, leaning into the comedy. Plus, I had to call Wil afterwards and said Wil I'm so sorry I went and stole your character. He was rejoicing that I got to do it.

JS: Excellent, thank you.

Up next was Jim Krieg, the screenwriter of the film.

Joshua Stone: You've written Lego DC films before, but with this one you are introducing new DC Superheroes to the Lego world with the Legion of Super-Heroes, does that excite you as writer?

Jim Krieg: Absolutely. Every single one of these DVDs that have come out we want to have new heroes in. And honestly, DC heroes we haven't seen before and are kind of novel. We also have Supergirl in here. In this case, the Legion came from my son, as he was obsessed with the Legion of Super-Heroes. When we decided we were going to do a time travel story I floated that idea. What about having the Legion when they go to the future? DC said yes. Now there's a Cosmic Boy that comes with a package, and there's a Lightning Lad they were selling at Christmas.

JS: Yes, I got my son that.

JK: I know, they're the best. On some level they only exist because my son was obsessed with the Legion, which made me think of the Legion, and now there are hundreds of thousands of those little figures. And now a new generation of kids will know who those characters are.

JS: Yes, with that, as characters they are not well known, so how obligated do you feel to keep them close to their previous incarnations, whether it is the comics or the animated series?

JK: They're really close. There is stuff that is just ingrained in these characters and we never really deviate very far from it. We take what's there and maybe just make it a little more comedic. If the characters are a little bit confident, we maybe make them a little braggadocios. If they're a little bit sensible, they maybe become a little bit stick in the mud. Just enough to make it Lego funny.

Up next was Brandon Vietti, the producer of the film.

Joshua Stone: Having produced the last three Lego DC movies, what is your role in maintaining the continuity in the Lego DC Universe?

Brandon Vietti: My role from day one of the story is making sure the character threads are working all the way through. (So at this point I, the author have to jump in with apologies because as it turns out my microphone was picking up way too much of the other things going on around myself and Brandon. So he did say some more things in regards to my question but I was unable to hear it while transcribing the interview. Just know that what was said was brilliant and would have probably changed everyone's life for the better. It changed mine because now I know I need to get a better microphone before Wondercon.)

JS: I have another question for you, not Lego related, but DC still. I am a huge Young Justice fan and my son just started watching it on Netflix.

BV: I love that.

JS: I keep having to explain to him that no, it doesn't really have an ending. I have seen some of your recent tweets about it, so how do you feel about the fans #RenewYoungJustice campaign?

BV: We're fans ourselves and we love this, and we want people to love it as much as we do. So to see the outpouring of love from Young Justice fans in particular it's so gratifying and it means we did our job right.

JS: Has this renewed interest generated any talks behind the scenes about something maybe happening?

BV: It may be above my pay grade, I am not aware of anything. That's the great thing about this; the fans really do have a voice in this with social media. It's great to see them on Twitter and other various places too, trying to talk about this and generate a buzz about it. It works and it's amazing. It's not ignored I do know that. Warner Brothers is watching. Netflix is watching. We have a lot more to talk about and a lot more stories to tell.

Next was James Arnold Taylor, the voice of The Flash.

Joshua Stone: Growing up were you a Flash fan and a Lego?

James Arnold Taylor: I have all my Flash comic books and still read them. Flash was my all-time favorite superhero as a kid. The Flash was the role I wanted more than anything. So getting to play him in this series has been just great, and because also Lego, I love Lego.

JS: I am a Star Wars nerd, and being that you were the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and have played Obi-Wan more than those other guys who have been in the movies, I have to ask a Star Wars question. I read that you had originally recorded the voice of Obi-Wan for the scene where Rey picks up the lightsaber in The Force Awakens.

JT: Yes. I was the first one to record it. Matthew Wood (Supervising Sound Editor on Star Wars: The Force Awakens) brought me in, and I did other voices in the film, but that one was very special to me. I got to say it various different ways; the way Ewan (McGregor) would say it. The way Alec (Guinness) would say it. The way my Obi-Wan would say it. So it took all three Obi-Wans to record that line. Matt used the recording to pitch it to JJ (Abrams) and said hey isn't this great we have Obi-Wan. JJ said this is great, James is great, let's get Ewan. Because how could you not.

JS: He wanted to do it.

JT: He did want to do it.

JS: So what other voices did you do?

JT: I'm various Stormtroopers and Imperial parts. You know when the two guys come in when Kylo Ren is having his hissy fit and they turn around and go back. Originally that was myself and Matt Lanter, who was Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars, and we were both talking about – Sorry to see those new T700 – um, let's go this way. It was great but there was so much sound design going on, and they didn't need it because the joke was great without it.

JS: Awesome, thank you so much.

Next up was Josh Keaton, the voice of Hal Jordan/Green Lantern.

Joshua Stone: Having been the voice of Hal Jordan/Green Lantern in the Green Lantern: Animated Series, how do you approach the character differently when you're being Lego DC Hal Jordan/Green Lantern?

Josh Keaton: The funnier aspects of his personality can come out. Hal's kind of buttoned down, he's kind of a military guy. He can be a bit jokier in the Lego versions. There is definitely more banter, across the board with all the characters, so he is a bit more of the fun Hal.

JS: When you have Batman in anything, no one else can be as serious as that anyway.

JK: Right, exactly.

JS: Do you prefer doing voice work for animated or video games?

JK: I would say I don't really prefer one over the other because I get to work with a lot of the same people who I love. It's different. With animation you would be reading with the cast and with voice-over it would just be you in a room by yourself. For a large part it still is that, however with motion capture it has become a lot different. With mocap it's almost like theater, where you are acting face to face with another actor or actors. You block out the scene the same way you would on stage. Which is amazing, it's a totally different experience. Whereas before I really preferred the in room energy of having everyone there in animation, now that we have a much more theatrical approach in mocap acting, it's almost the same level just two different experiences.

JS: Thank you very much.

After talking to Josh came more fun, watching the movie with my family. First, as a caveat, I have seen all the previous Lego DC films and we also own all the Lego DC video games, and they are great. My oldest son will spend hours playing the games, trying to achieve 100% completion on the game, and will also spend hours watching videos on YouTube of people playing the games so that way he has an advantage when he is playing. So keeping all that in mind, Lego DC Comics Super Heroes Justice League Cosmic Clash is definitely a film the whole family can enjoy. With all the characters you already know part of it, throw in Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and top it all off with Braniac as the main villain in the film, playing an anal retentive collector of planets, and you have a film with plenty of jokes and action that both parents and kids can enjoy together. As a father who sat through the nightmare that was Alvin and The Chipmunks 3: The Road Chip, this is not always the case with family/kid films, cause that one was painful to me, but my kids loved it.

Having already seen all the previous Lego DC films, I think that that Lego DC Comics Super Heroes Justice League Cosmic Clash was the one I have enjoyed most so far, and I know that I will be picking it up on March 1, 2016, so my kids can watch it again, and so we can add the Cosmic Boy Lego Minifigure to our collection.

For further musings from Joshua Stone you can follow him on the Twitter @1Nerdyone

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