The Building Blocks of Preventing Franchise Fatigue

When the first The Lego Ninjago Movie trailer dropped, I was all ready to write a riff on how the franchise was risking some building block fatigue with two movies in a year. But then I watched the trailer and my whole tangent was spoiled by loving it. It has beautiful animation, oodles of fun pop culture references, and a charming self-deprecating sense of humour. Sure that is more of the same when it comes to the franchise, but it is tackling some fun new things like martial arts movies and big robot battling monster features. It also has one of the fresher and funnier Empire Strikes Back gags. Plus Jackie Chan is pretty spot on casting, and James Franco has unique charisma to make for a fun lead. The best way to fight oversaturation is to deliver high quality and fresh entertainment, and the Lego franchise seems to be able to keep pulling it off. I'd say two movies a year has to be the max in keeping up those creative standards.