- “The Kragle, the most powerful super weapon is mine”
- ―Lord Business
Lord Business (also known as President Business) is the main antagonist of the Warner Bros and LEGO 2014 hit animated film The LEGO Movie. He is the villainous and cruel president/overlord who wanted to destroy the LEGO world by gluing it together with the "Kragle".
Role in the film[]
Lord Business was a stereotypical manipulative, tyrannical, uncaring, violent, cruel, and evil overlord who has no qualms about viciously destroying his enemies and even his own allies if they fail him or cease to be useful to him. He is also a control freak, who detests seeing anything out of place. He cannot stand anything that even slightly deviates from his idea of perfection. Hence, he created walls between each section of the LEGO world, keeping all the pieces in what he believed to be their rightful places, preventing them from mingling with each other in any way not condoned by his "instructions". When eventually he found this not satisfactory, he elaborated a plan to use the "Kragle" (actually Krazy Glue) to forever seal every piece in place, creating a "perfect", but immobile world. His villainy seems to stem from a certain insecurity. According to him, nobody ever told him he was special. Because of this, he did not believe he had it within himself to create something deviating from the "instructions".
Since he publicly poses as President Business, most inhabitants of the land of LEGO have no idea he is evil. He is able to run the world competently and efficiently, though underneath the bright and cheery surface lies a dystopia wherein those who refuse to follow President Business' "instructions" are at risk of being captured by his Super Secret Police and executed.
It is later revealed that a boy named Finn based Lord Business off of his strict father, who had a hobby of collecting LEGO, but refused to allow his son to play with them. He, too, had the idea of gluing every piece together in their optimal positions. However, Finn's father (and consequently, Lord Business) both had a change of heart by the end of the movie. The father realized that his obsession was alienating him from his son, who told him that anybody can be special in their own different way and that the fun of LEGO is not just to assemble it as instructed, but to use it to create something new - which is also what Emmet tells Lord Business, making him renounce his villainous ways and cure everyone of the Kragle using water. After that, he reformed and became a president again. However, at the end of the movie, an unknown species of alien visits the LEGO world, announcing their intentions to destroy it and all of their inhabitants.
He appeared again in The LEGO Movie: 2 when the Duplo Aliens arrived in the LEGO World to destroy it which he unhelpfully tells everyone to get along before he dons a golfer outfit and leaves to go golfing leving the problem to the Crew and Citizens but he returned again to the new city Five years later when Rex Dangerverst was defeated.
Physical Appearance[]
As President Business, he wears a gray business suit, a white shirt, and a red necktie. As Lord Business, he wears a set of sinister-looking armor over it. The breastplate of the armor is black and engraved with a necktie-like ornament. He wears a massive horned headgear, of which the horns spit fire, and has extendable mechanical stilts on his legs, which he uses to appear taller. His face resembles that of his voice actor Will Ferrell.
Personality[]
Lord Business was a downright tyrant and perfectionist. He was portrayed as a stereotypical and evil ruler, a cruel man who needs everything his way. Business was completely strict, arrogant, treacherous, ruthless and above all, evil. Like many tyrants, Business desired absolute order in his domain; he divided worlds so there would be no confusion, and then ruthlessly hunted down the Master Builders. So far, the only person that he showed any respect to is his lieutenant Bad Cop; however, he was still equally pitiless and unemotional to him as well as his enemies, having removed his Good Cop persona and then forced him to freeze his parents with the Kragle. He later threatened to kill Bad Cop.
His public figure was a friendly public official, but he was (in reality) an extremely manipulative and villainous mastermind. In many ways, Business acts as a shepherd to his mindless sheep, he actually admitted live on air that he planned to put everyone to sleep if they didn't follow his rules, only to cover it up with Taco Tuesday and then made them forget it by airing everyone's favorite show "Where Are My Pants?". He also uses the song "Eveything is Awesome" to brainwash the citizens.
Prior his transformation to good, Business was a quarrelsome sadist; he made Bad Cop Kragle his own parents, laughed in a maniacal, incoherent, and unreasonable fashion just after decapitating Virtruvius, mocked a captured Emmet by saying he wasn't special and then forced the captured Master Builders to watch as he Kragle'd his hometown. However, despite this, the source of all his villainy was due to never being called special making him a somewhat compassionate and sympathetic character.
After turning good, President Business shows a possibly cowardly side. When the Duplo Aliens attack, he abandons the conflict for five years, and doesn't return until after everything has blown over.
It is revealed that Business was modeled after his creator, Finn's father, who was very strict, obstinate, and contumacious, as he would glue all of his Lego creations together, so they would always stay the same. However, after hearing the same speech that Wyldstyle gave Emmet, he had a change of heart, destroyed the Kragle, and unfroze all of his victims. Finn's father allowed him to play freely with his Lego sets as well as his sister.
Trivia[]
- When seen from behind, both his helmet and cape form the appearance of a business tie.
- Albeit not a villain, Lord Business' human counterpart, the Man Upstairs, is the ultimate antagonist of The LEGO Movie, since, ultimately, the Man Upstairs was not intending to do anything evil, but ended up influencing Finn (his son) to create the character of Lord Business due to his similar motives and goals
- He had a brother named Risky Business who was the main antagonist of the LEGO Movie 4D, though this is most likely non-canon.
- In LEGO Dimensions, he is voiced by Nolan North and is still evil. Some gamers suggest that the main villain, Lord Vortech, taken his past self in order to find the Foundation Element in Springfield (home to The Simpsons)
v - e - d | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|