What The Lego Ninjago Movie Gets Wrong 

The movie felt strange, unnecessary, and I genuinely feel so sad knowing ninjago won’t get an actual theatrical gilm

My biggest problem with the movie is they made Zane more machine than man (I know he's a ninjdroid but he was more human than a lot of people) they really empathize Zane being a robot in the movie and that kinda bothers me

The first time I watched this movie as a kid, the entire time I was thinking: “WHY ARENT THEY KICKING BACK, WHIPPING AROUND AND SPINNING?!”

I still recall being a 10 year-old watching the reveal of Llyod being the green ninja and considering it peak cinema. The beautiful irony of a destined battle between father and son captivated me, and had me constantly revisiting the franchise for it. It was dear to my heart. And of course, accordingly, the movie left me feeling greatly disappointed. Sure, it's a ninja show for kids, but it was clear as day even to me as a child that the writers cared about it and its characters... it's a momentous shame how little respect the movie afforded them.

In one sentence: The movie fails because it's not a cinematic Ninjago adaptation, it's a LEGO Movie spin-off about Lloyd who appeared in one scene in the LEGO Movie.

Cole really turned into a ghost to get that airjitsu scroll just for them to never use it again Also as a Cole fan, Cole being a DJ makes no sense. One of his character arcs is dealing with his dad who is disappointed in him for not pursuing music.

I actually really like the movie. It's not a faithful adaptation of the series but to be fair, it was never trying to be. It's its own thing and I will at least say this, the movie forced a time gap and plot points (the return of Garmadon and a time skip) that allowed Ninjago's writers to make Sons of Garamadon, aka the best season of Ninjago ever made and one which ranks amongst the best seasons of animation EVER made.

The original idea of the movie was a time travel plot where the ninja would go back in time to stop garmadon from being bitten by the great devourer, there even is a deleted scene where Lloyd interacts with young Garmadon. Despite keeping the comedic tone you can tell there qas a lot more earnesty in that scene. The Lego NINJAGO movie is a fun comedic take on the show but it saddens me we never got a movje which was actually canon to the show

My biggest problem with the movie is that if you change the names and character designs a little bit more, then there's nothing that makes it related to Ninjago other than it being Lego, neither tone, humor, character dynamics or even the ambient feel familiar to me as a long time fan, it's almost as if they used the IP to cashgrab Ninjago fans into watching the movie, but that's such a weird thing because the series doesn't have a fandom big enough to make it worth cashgrabbing

It's sad with a lore-rich and action-heavy story such as Ninjago, the creators managed to boil it down to a teenager/high school-focused story with characters that were originally adults (and a technical preteen that got transformed into an adult). Which makes it suck more since they could have created a cool new story with or without the characters and made it stand out by it being a Lego movie. Just hearing about this movie makes me mourn a bit for what we could have gotten, but either way great video about the movie and you managed to capture my feelings about it to tee!

I found it odd that the movie tried to make Zane more Nindriod then human. Now, obviously he is a Nindriod, but his whole storyline was about how he was different, that he could feel emotion and have actual stable relationships with people. His biggest fear was being seen as more of a technology than a man and this movie made his biggest fear come true. It also felt like all the ninjas were dragging him along. Sure, there might be some witty banter here and there, but they never really talk to him without him saying something along the lines "I am an average human and not a robot", its almost as if Wu brought them together and now they just forcibly hang around each other.

They didn't even have to adapt anything to make a cinematic Ninjago movie, they could've just made it something similar to Day of Departed or the pilot episodes if you put them together, where it's in the continuity and just feels like an extended episode.

It felt like the writers didn’t know what ninjago was and were given a high school au fanfiction to go off of

The lack of airjitzu was apparently explained in a book where it was discovered that it slowly unwrapped reality or something like that.

I think this quote applies to the movie decently well: “A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.” - C.S. Lewis

Something my friends used to be confused about was y they gave Cole a thing for music I found 2 reason One being his music skill was a reference to his father in the original series being a singer and dancer and assuming he had a similar father Cole would’ve picked up so musical skill in his own way and becoming a decent DJ (always felt like this was a stretch but I found I still made it make sense) The second reason was simply how else could they’ve done his mech, the other ninja were easy to make themed weapons for- nya (water ninja) her strider walks on water and shoots pressurised water from it’s cannons, jay (lightning ninja) his jet fires lightning blasts, zane (ice ninja) his tank shoot ice, Kai (fire ninja) give him flamethrowers instead of hands, even Lloyd who has no powers has a green dragon that breaths green fire also with the most overcompensating shit load of missile. Cole who is the earth ninja has no way of using earth while in a mech unless the mech itself was geokinetic which would be over complicated, the reason they gave him sonic speakers is it would be the closest to mimicking the shockwave causing the damage emitted by an earthquake

I used to hate the Lego Ninjago Movie because I thought it was suppose to continue the storyline but now I realize it was trying to be its own movie and now I regret hating it especially when Season 8 came out. I thought the redesigns were going to be awful but I was immediately shook by how good it was.

i honestly i agree with everything you said for the most part, this whole thing just felt like they could have done so much more with the original material. a movie more focused on the relationship between the ninjas would have actually made me watch it in theaters my issue is with how they did Zane its funny because when i saw the trailer for the first time all i remembered from the show was that it was good (as i haven't watched it in a long time now) and was willing to give it a try, but the moment they introduced Zane as this goofy "blip bloop i am a robot" character right away i felt this anger rise within me, as a young autistic kid, the journey that Zane goes through the show of self discovery and self worth meant so much to me as a kid. the way that Zane was considered to be the most philosophical one among them, some might say that he was considered the most "human" out of all of them, willing to be the glue of the group, and reminding them always about the goodness in the world and gives them a reason to keep going, and then to be reviled to be a robot?? ie a man that was never human but lived among them until he learned to be almost the most human of them all?? it really gave me hope and happiness as a young autistic kid that learned about society through tv shows and movies, having to try and live in a society as one of them "regular people" that i could never see myself as (i went undiagnosed for a long time) (i am of course aware of the robot autistic stereotype, but what can i say i was a kid and i do think this troupe was actually shown amazingly with show Zane and actually works against the stereotype as a whole, and i honestly could do a whole video essay on this myself) so seeing him being reduced to the robot who sometimes omg he said something important here sometimes!! really grind my gears in a whole new way i didn't know was possible, but then again, the one good thing this movie did for me was making me re watch the show again so there's that. i do agree that they did Lloyd pretty well here though, and his new voice really fitted him so much better. thanks for this video!! it really showed most of my feelings towards this movie and now i can just navigate to this video whenever someone asks why i didn't like it as much as the rest of the lego movies.

I'm sad about kai He had so much development and after the movie it's like that never happened He was maturing but now he isnt

Finally someone else pointing out the airjitsu thing And its not like they forgot the existence of airjitsu either since jay and nya knew what it was in s12

It’s good to know that someone still enjoys hero factory, even though constraction is dead I’m glad there’s fans out there. Maybe lego might change their minds.

SOG and Master of the mountain are legitimately one of the best stories Lego will ever do, emotional beats and action scenes work so well, I hope you do more Ninjago videos Keep the good work

I thought Cole being a DJ was definitely out of Left field because of the whole thing where he didn’t want to be a music guy like his dad and left to be a ninja

While I've never hated this movie, nor think I will, I do find myself resenting it more and more as time goes on. The biggest issue for me is how dirty they did the rest of the ninja, even if they had REALLY wanted to make the film focus on Lloyd and Garmadon, it just doesn't make much sense to me as to why they nerfed the others so badly in pretty much every department. Now, I don't usually like comparing media to others in order to prove my point, but I feel like this is a justifiable one to make. I recently began to rewatch Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and upon revisiting the FIRST episode...it honestly felt like it could've been a newer one, or at least one that came further down the line of season one. Despite just being the pilot, the characters were VERY much so the ones who I had grown so familiar with, something that not all shows, or evidently, movies, seem to manage so early on within their run. And maybe it was because I was keeping an eye out for these details rather than just trying to keep up with what was going on, but there were a variety of instances that establish the characters shockingly well. None of these moments were particularly big or took up too much time. The 22 minute run time gave us a clear sample of who these characters were, and what they were going to continue to be, in what can mostly be traced back to one-off lines and small bits of animation. The Ninjago Movie, a film targeted towards the same demographic, with the similar themes of teenage ninjas who have mythical powers and all protect one city, has no excuse for not being able to do within over an hour of runtime, what the pilot episode for an entire series does within 22 minutes. And then to not even come close to being as good at establishing characters as the 22 minute pilot episode, one which almost NO ONE had high expectations for at the time of it airing, no less...

11:42 "But I can't imagine someone seeing this and then wanting to binge all 100-something episodes." That's basically what happened to me, funilly enough. I decided to watch the movie because I had enjoyed the previous Lego movies, and it was alright, but nothing really special. Then I saw some comments about how it was very different from the show, and I had never heard of the show before. So I became curious and decided to look it up and watch some of it. And I was honestly surprised with how much I enjoyed the pilot episodes, so I kept watching...and kept watching... and somewhere along the way I fell in love with the show.

Glad to see how someone finally realizes how airjitsu fell off of the face of Ninjago

Yet, they though it was a good idea to use the movie designs for the following seasons. RIP Kai's cool hair, Kai and Jay's character development, and continuity.

Back before my little brother became a "teenager™" we'd occasionally watch some show together. He has always loved legos, so we watched the first seasons of Ninjago on Netflix, and we were both super surprised at how funny it ended up being. Good times.

1:08 BIONICLE nearly suffered the same fate. They had a high and good ending with '08, tried to milk it with a shitty story in '09, then realized it was probably best to stop while they were ahead. I will never forgive this movie for what it did to Lloyd and Garamdon's relationship. In the show they were a father and son who legitimately loved and cared for each other, but because of forces beyond their control were forced onto opposite sides of the war. The constant struggle of each character trying to fulfill their destiny but holding back last minute because they couldn't hurt their family was heart wrenching. The Movie reduced that complex relationship into absente father, which then partially influenced to show for the Oni Trilogy, and then full on defined their relationship in season 15. I unironically think the video game adaptation of this film has a better plot than the movie itself. The first and third acts are essentially the same, but the quest where they travel to the temple of the Ultimate Ultimate weapon is completely different. The Ninja face different obstacles along the way which, one-by-one, force each member of the team to perform Spinjitzu and unlock their elemental powers. Also, personal gripe. If The LEGO Batman Movie could have Dick be both Robin and Nightwing, this film could've had Nya be both the Ninja of Water and Samurai X. Give me my giant cyborg mech! I need her!

To answer the question about where the hell airjitzu (and the elemental dragons) went, is that the writers believed that giving the Ninja the ability to fly, would make them over powered

My fav sentence you said “Garmadon in this movie is the literal personification of a dad that never found the milk and is also a domestic terrorist but that’s irrelevant” Comedic gold right there lol I agree with most of the points you made, this was extremely funny to me but it just didn’t fully feel like a ninjago installment it felt completely different. And yeah the cat thing was funny. But I didn’t like how they handled most of the characters. (Garmadon was funny tho) and I loved this version of Lloyds mom. But again something just felt off about them through the entire thing.

Im pretty sure Garmadon got the four arms while in the realm Wu came to find him after Lloyd got captured by the Serpentine. He did so so he could wield all four weapons of spinjitzu at once.

These are all very valid criticisms. You did a good job balencing the good and the bad. While I love the Ninjago Movie, it's nowhere near perfect. Although I'm curious on what you'll think of Crystalized

they changed the designs for everyone for the movie but after that ninjas stuck to movie designs while almost anyone else got their old looks back. Why? Makes it more confusing to younger audiences, the OG ninja designs will be always my fav, so many great childhood memories.

He’s wearing green he has no father…he’s a dream Stan!!!

Loyd is the most powerful ninja yet he can't break out of a simple bird cage

The real world reason for no Airjitzu is that it is too overpowered and unbalanced. The in-canon reason is that it used dark magic.

Ah, a fellow air jitsu questioner. Where did it go?

The biggest problem is the cash grab. Fans only watched their favourite characters. Imagine watching the SpongeBob movie and Gary was the main character

About this movie, I loved the music, the character designs, the comedy was peak, and the scenery was gorgeous. I love Ninjago series and movie, but I do a free with most of what you were saying. What bothered me the most was probably how gullible Lloyd’s friends were. Lloyd brought terror to the city once and on accident, and then of course his friends were mad at him. However, Lloyd’s friends easily get along with Garmadon who attacks the city daily. I mean, they were so easily impressed with everything Garm said. “We are horrible friends.” Yeah, I have to agree with Jay.

My headcanon for this movie is that the Ninja sold off their movie rights in-universe. This is why the movie is so different from what happened in the show. Also, Misako refused to sell her movie rights which is why she was replaced with Koko.

1:55 they removed airjitzu because the writers thought it was too op

garmadon is too good of a character its near impossible to fuck him up

The problem is you'll only understand things like Zane being a robot if you're a fan of the show, and if you're a fan of the show you know that it's wrong

The show does go into how garmadon gets the extra arms in the first season after he escapes the ninja in the pilot episodes he uses travelers tea to go to a realm of complete evil that gives him the power to hold all the golden weapons via 4 arms and he only returns from that realm to sabe lloyd from the serpenten

WU: Your element is green Lloyd: like, nature or poison WU: no no no your element is called green The ninja: waaaaa Zane: do you mean neon? WU: NO, I MEAN GREEN Lloyd: oooookaaay

3:48 i didnt realize what it meant till now XD

Airjitzu probably got forgotten when the time twins time traveled

I just found your channel. But I'm subscribing just because I also can't get over what the showrunners did to Kai, he is my favorite, since the pilots and my whole life is fueled by the spite I have against the writters that forgot about him. Great video btw.

I remember watching Ninjago on Cartoon Network from the very first season, and it was the first-ever show that I actively watched new episodes of as they premiered (the first 26 episodes felt like 100), though I stopped watching around the sixth season. I was pretty much right in the (narrow) target audience for the movie; I had lots of nostalgia for the show, I knew who all the characters were, and I really liked the theatrical Lego movies, but I didn't really regularly watch Lego TV shows/direct-to-video movies/etc. That's probably why the movie failed, becuase most Ninjago fans wouldn't like the lack of faithfulness to the show, and non-fans wouldn't understand what's happening.

2:52 sad all these story plots were removed but good to see the writing wasn't bad. The series was dope tho real creative thoughts there

“How could I ruin your life? I wasn’t even there”💀💀💀

There is a special called The Day of The Departed which explains cole turning into a human again and why they don't use air jitzu anymore I think. I am not sure tho. I wished they used it more.

1:01 As a former Chima fan, I agree a ton with that. It was like LEGO’s way of trying to be like Sonic The Hedgehog but ended up just sucking.

Isn't this movie in a different universe? I thought I heard that from somewhere. I still love this movie ngl.

Fantastic video, I heartily agree. The writers had so much potential to work with, it’s so sad that it was wasted

I recently binged the entire series and I was getting so passed watching the later seasons because they completely forgot about airjitsu and their elemental dragons

the movie isn't a ninjago movie, it's an lego movie with ninjago characters in it, that's how i see the movie.

Line - "wanted for everything" First thing that goes into my mind, Garmadon is wanted for tax evasion

Awesome video man

4:31 alright then 💀

Fun fact in spanish they kept the original voices of the ninja, with some changes of course but that was nice of them, wish the original stayed for the english version

Ayyy, where my Pilot to season 8ers at tho? Also, no Spinjutsu in a Lego ninjago movie is like a Batman movie not located or a single reference to Gotham. It’s just ain’t correct no matter how you see it.

You know I remember being so annoyed that Lloyd didn't actually have any powers in the movie. That is what got me the most upset. I liked and hated the movie at the same time. I was still watching Ninjago but because they changed the designs to look like the movie I became very bias and instantly disliked the new stuff and I stopped. I know and saw enough to see it was going in a different direction anyways. But... Maybe I should actually give the new seasons a chance, I was harsh on them. I'll still always love the earlier Ninjago stuff though!!!

10:27 would've been top tier lego animations of all time

Ninjago characters after having an op skill now learned "guess I won't ever use this again"

this was a really good vid, keep dis up bro

One of the things that confuses me about this movie is how the other ninja lived. We know how Lloyd lives with his mum, but does Cole still live with his dancing father? Does Jay still live in a junkyard? What about Zane? Or Kai and Nya? And also are their origins the same or did they just wake up one day and decide ‘Hey let’s be teens with a deep dark secret?’

Your godly roasts were more entertaining than the movie itself 😂

Kai’s hair looks like soft serve now

I wish we'd gotten a theatrical Bionicle movie :(

“What the ninjago movie gets wrong” me:Everything.

1:58 they also forgot about their dragons 💀

Season 5 was the peak, I've seen up to 8 and it fell of massively in my mind since 6 it's been getting worse (and all I hate about current Ninjago stems from the movie)

I always associated this show and "Cheema" because they were the things I watched when I was small, so I was surprised when you said it was bad. I will look into both of these shows for nostalgia's sake, and also cause I want to anyway. By the way, I actually like this movie and the show. They are very different, but they are both very enjoyable. Or at least from what I can remember. I think the show is still on Netflix, but I'm not sure bout the movie.

I actually like that the movie was more on the "father-son" relationship between Garmadon&Lloyd. I mean we didn't quite seen this in the actual series so this is really nice to see yk

6:13 jay yelling

I totally agree with you there, nice video!

Finally someone made a review and talked about ninjago. This is a very nostalgic topic for me.

YES 1:50 THE BIGGEST SHIT THE REBOOT DID WAS NERFING THEIR ASSES WHERE TF IS AIRJITSZU

9:12 he got the four arms because he is a oni so is lloyd :/

that zane being a nindroid and lloyd being green ninja and sensei wu & garmadon being brothers are 3 of the best revels that literally shattered my 10 year old lego-loving brain

1:55 i had this question for a while, and its explained in day of the departed that the more airjitzu is used, the more power some evil ancient sensei gets to control the world or something, so they stopped using it.

The reason Lloyds voice was so high pitched in the seasons before the movie is bc he hadn't gone through puberty.

lego is the biggest part of my childhood ever since I got one as soon as I found out about it i watched it and it was made in the year i was born and the same day in a different month im so obbsed with lego ninjago that I still watch it over again and again

garmadon got his four arms in the show cause when he was banished to the underworld, while he was there he mastered dark magic i believe to then give himself four arms to possess the golden weapons of spinjitzu.

1:58 bro you can fly!!!!

They should make an IRL movie and cast FANS to play the roles.

I agree with everything on this man’s channel. It’s hilarious in the best moments, sus when it needs to be and he actually backs up what he’s saying with other sources. But I’m just now realizing that he also has an amazing taste in background music (Rooftop Run from Sonic Unleashed).

In the show, garmadon got his extra arms after fusing with the overlord

Loved Ninjago as a kid and have decided to binge the series again after years, which is cool since I forgot a lot of things about it so while watching it I can go "OH! I remember that!!!", but I completely agree with your review. I wish they'd focused on all the Ninja more. Also your memes throughout this video fucking killed me, thanks for a good laugh.

When Lloyd started singing hard knock life I cackled throughout the whole song lmao

My biggest issue with the movie is the way it disregards all the other ninja, they are side characters at best in this movie and that's not what the shows about, the ninja work together and they all get seasons to build on their characters like Cole in S13, Jay in S6/12 or Nya in seabound. They also strip them of all their original personality, like he said in the movie Nya's one personality trait is the thing she fought so hard in the show to get rid of, especially in Skybound. They made Kai and Coles character forgettable even though Kai and Cole have such interesting self growth stories and they made Zane's one personality trait that he's a robot pretending not to be - that's not what he's about at all and in S11 his biggest fear was being viewed as just a machine with no humanity. And I'm not even going to start with what they did to my favourite of them all Jay. I guess just to sum it all up I was disappointed that they erased all the development and personality that the show gave them because the other ninja are just as important as Lloyd, as Lloyd himself says in the show (in I believe skybound??) "we're equals, our power comes from no-one being more important than the other"

Finally somebody realised that the nija gained the ability to fly and then forgot for plot reasons. PS I love this franchise and even it's worst episodes are still amazing

So I’m only 2 minutes into this video and you already brought up my biggest issue with later seasons. They just… forget they can use air jitzu and their elemental dragons! In Crystalised there’s even a line about it and there have been so many moments when I rewatch the later seasons where I say this YOU CAN FLY!!

5:10 this is why I hate the movie and s11 onward. Kai and the other ninja, especially kai though, get left out. Lloyd seems to do everything and say everything.

Your commentary is incredibly witty! I love it!

3:13 but like that one scene with zane talking about his mom. and then making whirring toaster noises,,,, that's a part of my soul

1:55 This was all I could think about while I was watching past Season 8

I remember everything About the lego movie. But this movie that came out later, i keep forgetting it even exsists!