The History of Brickfilms: 1970s & 1980s - More LEGO animations than you might think!

Many people know about a handful of 70s and 80s brickfilms such as Journey to the Moon, LEGO Wars, LEGO Sport Champions and The Magic Portal, but this video aims to provide a more comprehensive overview of the surprisingly large amount of brickfilms that can be found from the era, as well as covering the history of the most notable films.

This video was created as part of Brickfilm Day 2018. Here is the link to the playlist of all films created for the event:

Here are the films and other videos included in this video, in order of appearance:

Intro:

1970s:

1980s:

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:31 Journey to the Moon
1:34 Later 1970s brickfilms
2:49 Earliest located Star Wars and superhero brickfilms
3:44 A Lego Experience (lost film)
4:25 Classic Space
5:08 Other 1980s brickfilms
5:59 Lift-off!
6:30 VHS cameras
6:49 LEGO commercials and LEGO Sport Champions
7:59 The Magic Portal
9:34 Oh Well starring Biff and Mario
10:20 1989 LEGO Pirates commercial releases
11:14 Ending

[emkaym]

If I didn't watch this video, I would of legit thought that "The Magic Portal" WAS the first lego-stopmotion.

[LonecloneProductions]

Phenomenal, for such a long time I've wanted someone to make a comprehensive yet concise history of brickfilming and the community that's sprung up around it. I cannot wait to see the delve into the 90's, and would love to see continuation into the 00's, and even the 10's if there isn't too much of an information overload at that point (even so, there are still general themes and through lines you could pick up on, as well as interviews with many of the influential brickfilmers). Excellent work man.

[OrbitalLizardStudios]

2:52 its crazy to think about people making star wars brickfilms way back when the original trilogy was still being produced

[Sparky]

Thanks for including our humble movie in there! I didn't know this video series existed until this weekend.
I remember in '84 when we made ours that we weren't the first to do a Lego stop-motion video, but we hadn't seen any others before the made ours. We just heard about them.
Oh, and we also received a 'cease and desist' letter from the Lego company after we were done :)
Very nicely done on the research and history!

[starwarsstudio]

Nicely done! A nice overview of animations way before the golden age.

[Spongetrontt]

Thanks For putting one of my father’s legofilms in this Great work, Sillypenta

[brotherswaughstudios]

Nice to see Biff and Mario getting the attention they deserve. Great video as always, thanks for all the effort and hard work you put into this. It was really informative.

[MrVertigoStudios]

I can't believe I hadn't seen this until now, but this is some fantastic work. It must have taken a lot of time and effort to research and catalogue so many of the less well-known or forgotten pre-internet Brickfilms, and it shows. You really went the extra mile to showcase the ones that weren't Journey to The Moon or The Magic Portal, and I'm glad to see that we have a much wider selection from this era than we realised. I also really appreciate the extra effort and polish put into the video itself, especially delightful animation and voice-over. I'll be checking out some of these, and I can't wait to see what you've found on 90s.

[theemeraldfalcon]

You genuinely deserve more subscribers for your quality content

[SuitedNinjaNerdStudios]

Penta this is a magnificent showing and presentation of the history of Brickfilms. Well done!!

[CE_Bricks]

I had no idea that brickfilms gone back so far

[LegoMovieFanatic]

Man, awesome, fascinating, and super informative. Thanks for this. I was always surprised hearing The Magic Portal was the first brickfilm and I feel foolish for thinking so now. Those LEGO Sport Champions shorts are amazing, and awesome to find out Aardman did a short for LEGO. The face dissolve animation was so suave.

[AiwhaBrunoLefevre]

This is awesome. I had made a few research about early brickfilms a few years ago, but you made me discover so many more!
This video is really useful and should be shown in all brickfilm schools over the world.

[Pongowl]

Fantastic! There were quite a few innovative films in there that I hadn't heard of. This was a joy to watch.

[cromofilms]

I know I saw this already when it released, that was the only time i watched it. I came to revisit this finely crafted, wonderfull, amazing brickfilmumentry.

The Review: The absolute smoothness of the animation is just the right amount of smoothness to not look like a smooth mess. The animation for what I presume Johnny Thunder and his wonderfull partner Timmy are quick, and amazing. The maps and pictures in their house adds a lovely homie design. The projection of an old brickfilm has been added carefully, not a slight mistake was there. The Fabuland chairs are a wonderfull edition to this house. Timmy and Johnny make a perfect duo, even Henri and Edmond are blushing seeing these guys. The nice redesign for Timmy and Johnny work just wonderfully. The voiceacting is nothing short but wonderfull. That was the intro to this amazing documentry, and now onto the actual documentry.

The amount of diging to find the right year was just dedication. Finding these old brickfilms is even harder. How you have even reaserched about old cameras was stunning. The explanation for these brickfilms was nice too. Even finely crafted sites with the biggest explanations couldn't surpass you (and I do not count Brickfilms wiki, cause I think you made it) The little drama, and how you explained it in here was well thought out and simple. The search for who may have made the films is incredible. How you explained movies like Oh Well and The Magic Portal was just perfect, and well thought out aswell. The amount of time possibly taken to find this stuff is just dedication, and I respect that.

The ending to this short Brickfilmumentry is a really nice one, with Timmy getting bored of it (Timmy must be very dumb if he doesn't think that this is interesting.)
And Johnny teasing a 2nd part was another great addition. Thank you for making this amazing documentry, with that, I conclude this review.

[RobotsWithKnivesCartoons]

I have never seen that Aardman commercial, that is insane!

[MagicalBlob]

Huh, never knew there were that many films prior to The Magic Portal. Great job at compiling and showing all this information! :)

[spacemation]

this is amazing, you just merged my two favorite topics into one video (that being history and brickfilms).

[superjumpbros]

I come back every now and then to watch these, they are amazing

[MikeHunt-mlwf]

The magic portal is actually fire 🔥 ngl