“The Day Aliens Finally Invaded,” “Indus,” and “Neighborly”

Three brickfilms recent caught my attention for their overlapping themes of alien invasions and minifigs being built by assembly line robots.

I don’t know how “The Day Aliens Finally Invaded” by Pushover Productions only came in 10th place in BRAWL 2013. Sure, there’s no fancy cinematography and the sets and animation are pretty simple, but it’s absolutely hilarious! All the characters, from the bumbling aliens, to the inane citizens, to the sadistic general are exactly the right level of wacky. Of course, it’s pretty clear that the director and I share a sense of humor, considering I awarded his previous video “Block Ball” first place in one of my animation contests. I guess there are other legitimate criteria for judging a brickfilm than how much it makes me laugh. But as far as I’m concerned, this animation wins.

“Indus” by Aiwha Bruno Lefevre opens with a impressive 30 second moving shot that shows off a factory where robots assemble minifigures. That shot alone makes this animation worth watching. Bruno manages to give a pretty basic robot some personality through a well done head tilt, but the animation is over before the story goes anywhere.  A robot falls in love with a human woman and shows affection the only way it can. That’s a interesting setup for a story, but it it would have been nice to see the conflict explored more. Does the woman reciprocate the feelings? Does the robot get deactivated and replaced by one without emotions? Does the army of clone women take over the galaxy?

“Neighborly Part 1” by TopSecretSpyGuy combines the alien invasion and minifig assembly robots in an auspicious debut film. This really deserves 10 times the views it has. The set and lighting of the alien spaceship are detailed and atmospheric. The squabbling of the aliens is amusing (though not as laugh-out-loud funny as the alien banter from “The Day Aliens Finally Invaded”) and the ending leaves me excited to future episodes. But the real highlights are the aforementioned minifig assembly machines, which are delightfully greebly and smoothly animated.

Has anyone else encountered serendipitous venn diagrams of brickfilms?