“ | Hey. Not so special anymore, huh? Well, guess what? No one ever told me I was special. I never got a trophy just for showing up! I'm not some special little snowflake. No. But as unspecial as I am, you are a thousand, billion times more unspecial than me. | „ |
~ Lord Business taunting and mocking Emmet - his most infamous quote |
“ | It's not personal. It's just business. Lord Business. Ciao! | „ |
~ Lord Business betraying Bad Cop - his most famous quote. |
“ | HAHAHAHA! You see, your friends, oh, they're finished. My world is almost finished. And the last thing I need to do is finish you. | „ |
~ Lord Business's final confrontation with Emmet. |
President Business, also known as Lord Business, is the main antagonist of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation's 1st full-length feature film The Lego Movie and a minor character in its 2019 sequel The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.
He is the President of the Octan Corporation, and ruthless and tyrannical dictator of Bricksburg (the capital city of the Lego universe) who wanted to control the realm by gluing it together with the powerful superweapon known as the "Kragle". He is also the former archenemy of Emmet Brickowski and Vitruvius.
He was voiced by Will Ferrell, who also played the Man Upstairs (his human counterpart) in the same film, the Black Knight in Family Guy, Jacobim Mugatu in the Zoolander duology, Larry the Architect in the MTV Movie Awards parody of The Matrix Reloaded, Franz Liebkind in the 2005 The Producers adaptation, the titular character in Megamind, Deangelo Vickers in The Office, Cam Brady in The Campaign and Maxime Le Mal in Despicable Me 4.
Biography[]
Background[]
As revealed in the film's conclusion, Lord Business is a manifestation of the owner of the Lego sets in the human world, known only as "The Man Upstairs". The man had bought a variety of Lego sets and placed them in the basement, keeping them separate from each other and forbidding his children to play with. This was much to the chagrin of his son Finn, who played with them in spite of his father's wishes, and created the storyline of the film, using Lord Business as a stand-in for his father.
In the Lego universe, Lord Business, president (and possibly the founder) of the Octan corporation, was elected president of the world, through implied shady means. He created the Bricksburg metropolis to run a community followed by strict instruction manuals of his creation. Confused by the chaos and creativity of the Master Builders, which he saw as "ruining his perfectly good stuff", Business blamed them for stealing and vandalising his property, leading to his hatred for the Master Builders. To contain them in their place, he created walls between the two worlds, until each world forgot the existence of the other, and hired Bad Cop to capture every Master Builder, individuals who created items without the use of Business's instructions. However, under the leadership of Vitruvius, the Master Builders went into hiding, seeking to defeat Business. However, they would fail to break in, with one venture leaving Metalbeard without his crew and most of his body.
Despite this, Business, under the name President Business, hide his true intentions from his citizens, and adopted the persona of a kind person. He lives in a skyscraping office building, where his entire company, save for Bad Cop, is run by robots. However, he still grew frustrated with "people messing with his stuff", and sought the Kragle, a tube of Krazy Glue, which serves as the most powerful superweapon in the Lego world.
The LEGO Movie[]
At the beginning of the film, Business discovers the Kragle in a volcano and fights Vitruvius, blinding him in the process with his laser. Though he retrieves the Kragle, Vitruvius reveals a prophecy of an individual who will find the Piece of Resistance, the cap to the Krazy Glue. Business brushes off the prophecy as baloney and kicks Vitruvius off a cliff, intending for him to fall into the lava.
8 1/2 years later, Business (going undercover as President Business) is seen on Emmet's TV promoting "Taco Tuesday", the day everyone in Bricksburg gets a free taco and his love. During the commercial, he also cites an emphasis to follow the instructions, or else they will be put to sleep. Later, Business is seen in his office attempting to hunt down Emmet, after the latter was freed by Wyldstyle. He meets Bad Cop in his office where he reveals his relic collection, a collection of real world objects which he mispronounces (such as a band-aid which he refers to as "the cloak of Ban-Daid"). He expresses his frustration at people consistently messing with his stuff and reveals that he has captured Bad Cop's parents. He then reveals the TAKOS, a machine powered by the Kragle, which on Taco Tuesday will freeze everyone in the universe so that everyone will stop messing with his stuff. He uses Bad Cop's parents as an example, as they are unwilling to follow his instructions, and demands Bad Cop freeze them with the TAKOS. Bad Cop's alternate personality, Good Cop, is unwilling, so Business uses a Q-Tip and Nail Polish Remover to remove Good Cop's face, allowing Bad Cop to freeze his parents.
Eventually, through a tracking device put on Emmet, Bad Cop manages to invade Cloud Cuckoo Land, a mysterious place in the sky which is representative of the toys Finn is allowed to play with, and captures the master builders, save for Emmet, Wyldstyle, Vitruvius, Batman, Benny, Metalbeard, and Unikitty. Lord Business takes the found Master Builders to his Think Tank, where the instructions for everything in the universe are created by the Master Builders. However, Emmet is not found, as they all hid in his double decker coach, which Business claims is a terrible idea. Despite this, the group break into Business's office building. Batman, in his true identity as Bruce Wayne, alongside Unikitty, infiltrate Business's board meeting, to propose he install stereo systems into the TAKOS, allowing Emmet and Wyldstyle, disguised as robots, to break in. However, as they are on the verge of success, they are captured by Bad Cop. During the capture, Business decapitates Vitruvius with a penny, who reveals that the prophecy was made up. Business locks up all but Emmet in the think tank, and locks Emmet up to a battery, rigged to explode. He also throws the Piece of Resistance into the abyss below his office and tells Emmet that he is nothing. He then leaves to attack Emmet's hometown of Bricksburg, betraying Bad Cop in the process.
Upon arriving, he tells everyone to freeze, and sends out Micro Managers, robots named after the phrase of the same name, to force everyone to be in his vision. During this, Emmet jumps into the abyss to retrieve the piece, sending him to the human world, and freeing the other master builders. Under Wyldstyle's leadership, the master builders, as well as a reformed Bad Cop, send out a message encouraging the citizens of the universe to let their creativity fly. Upon arriving, Emmet witnesses The Man enter the basement to find Finn playing with his Legos, chastising his son before he begins destroying his son's creations, which in universe is depicted as the Micro Managers destroying the citizen's creations. As the man uses more tubes of Krazy Glue to solidify his creation, he comes across Emmet, whom he deems an ordinary construction worker. While he is distracted, however, Finn sends Emmet through a cardboard hole which sends him back to the Lego universe, now having the abilities of a Master Builder. Emmet eventually arrives at the location of the Kragle, guarded by Business and his Skeletons. Emmet defeats the Skeletrons and knocks Business's Lord helmet off, only for Business to use the Kragle to freeze Emmet's leg. However, Emmet instead offers to let Business join him, explaining that the "mess" created by people using his stuff is merely them taking what he made and making something new out of it, which is juxtaposed against The Man realizing his son's creativity, as well as the fact that Lord Business is a stand-in for him. In-universe, Emmet gives a speech to Business about how he does not have to be the bad guy, and that he, alongside everyone, is special with his own individual talent, redeeming both The Man and Business. Business hugs Emmet, and uses the Piece of Resistance on the Kragle, causing it to explode and destroy the TAKOS and the entire lair. Later, Business is seen watering the streets of Bricksburg with the antidote for the Kragle (a glue remover, used in the real world by the father).
The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part[]
Immediately after Business's redemption, the Duplo Aliens appear in Bricksburg, announcing their intentions to destroy it and all of its inhabitants. Emmet tries to befriend the Duplo Aliens, but his attempts at friendship end with himself, Wyldstyle, and their friends fighting the Duplo Aliens. In the midst of the chaos, Business unhelpfully tells everyone to get along before he dons a golfer outfit and leaves to go golfing, leaving the others in charge of the problem. Five years later, after the defeat of Rex Dangervest and the unification of Apocalypseburg and the Systar System into "Syspocalypstar", Business returns to tell Emmet and Lucy the bad news on his golfing, but his hair is set on fire by Benny and causes him to run into a fireworks store, where he is blown away, ejecting him from Syspocalypstar.
Personality[]
Lord Business was a tyrant and perfectionist. He was portrayed as a stereotypical 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.
His public figure was a friendly public official and from sitcoms to voting machines, Business kept tight control over LEGO citizens without them knowing it as the charismatic President of Octan, but as soon as he put on his hilariously over-sized crown and stilted shoes, he would turn into 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 tended to mistake objects from our world as mystical items, leading to some amusing re-naming of household products. Examples include a Band-Aid as "The Cloak of Band-Aid" and Krazy Glue as "The Kragle".
Prior his transformation to good, Business was a quarrelsome sadist: he made Bad Cop freeze his own parents with Kragle, 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 him to watch as he Kragle'd his hometown. However, despite this, the source of all of his villainy was due to never being called special, making him a somewhat compassionate and sympathetic character.
After turning good, President Business turns out to be a coward, as he abandons everyone to fend off the DUPLO Aliens themselves, 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 his sister. And due to the fact he ran away from the conflict between the Lego and Duplo people was, however, actually, an allegory of the brother (Finn) and the sister (Bianca) to handling without their parents.
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 and hair (apart from his double-chin, monobrow, and orange flat brick-shaped hairstyle) resembles that of his voice actor Will Ferrell.
Powers and Abilities[]
Lord Business is a villainous mastermind who uses an arsenal of high technology to rule the world. He leads an army of robots armed with laser weaponry. His most advanced minions are the powerful mechanical Micro Managers, built specifically to arrange every piece into its "perfect" position in order to prime them for the Kragle. He also has a henchman named Bad Cop that does whatever he commands. He can also make flames come out of his helmet, which is only seen twice in the film.
He also has access to several "artifacts" from the human realm, most notable of which is the "Kragle" (a bottle of Krazy Glue) which fuels his ultimate super-weapon and is the linchpin of his entire plan. Other "artifacts" he uses include the "Cloak of Band-Ai'ed" (a dirty Band-Aid), "Sword of Exact Zero" (an X-Acto razor blade), "The Fleece Crested Scepter of Q-Teep" (a Q-tip) used to apply "The Po'lish Remover of Nai'eel" (nail polish remover), "The Orb of Ti'etleist" (a Titleist 1 golf ball), and a penny (unnamed) which he uses as a thrown weapon to decapitate Vitruvius.
Lord Business makes his home/headquarters in an impossibly high tower, protected (among other things) by "lasers, sharks, and laser sharks". This is also where he has his "Think Tank", an assembly of subjugated Master Builders forced to come up with ideas for him.
Quotes[]
“ | A special one? What a bunch of hippy dippy baloney. | „ |
~ Lord Business about the special one after hearing Vitruvius's speech. |
“ | On Taco Tuesday, I'm going to kragalize the entire universe so that EVERYONE will stop messing with my stuff! Are you gonna be with me, or are you gonna be STUCK HAVING A TEA PARTY WITH YOUR MOM AND DAD? | „ |
~ Lord Business to Bad Cop after erasing his Good Cop side. |
“ | Really? So it's like a bunk-bed couch? Is that what it's like? That's weird. If you're sitting in the top middle how are you gonna get down without climbing over someone? If you're sitting on the bottom and you're watching TV are you gonna have to watch through a bunch of dangling legs? Who's gonna want to sit on the bottom? It is literally the most useless idea I have ever heard. | „ |
~ Lord Business to Bad Cop. |
“ | Back from the dead, Brickowski? Well, you're too late! Skeletrons, get him! | „ |
~ Lord Business's final showdown with Emmet. |
“ | Exactly. A bunch of weird dorky stuff that ruined my perfectly good stuff! | „ |
~ Lord Business revealing his motivations to Emmet. |
“ | Emmet, thank you. And I just want you to know from the bottom of my heart: from this moment forward, I solemnly promise that I will never- (cut off by explosion)' | „ |
~ Lord Business redeeming himself by putting the piece of resistance on the Kragle. |
“ | President Business: Hey guys... listen up! Everyone get along. Done, fixed it! I'm going golfing! Emmet: President Business, you have to stay and help us! President Business: (gets on cart) I'm sure you guys can sort it out amongst yourselves. You're great at that stuff, bye, gotta go. |
„ |
~ President Business leaving Bricksburg while it's being overrun by the Duplo Aliens. |
“ | President Business: Guys Hold on... Hold on.. terrible news!... I miss the gimme putt for birdie on seven... anyway yeah you fix everything how's it going on with all the crazy stuff? Bennie: SPACESHIP! President Business: YAAH! Ow! HOT HOT HOT. (realizes that he is in a store full of fireworks) Uh oh! |
„ |
~ Lord Business's last words before being blasted away by fireworks. |
Gallery[]
Images[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- Both his square hairpiece, cape, helmet, and leg/boot piece were designed exclusively for his character.
- His legs and the top part of his boots are also all one piece. The black slanted brick is attached to his legs, explaining why he comes with 2 pairs of legs in Lord Business's evil lair. This was done to make it sturdier, so the boots wouldn't fall off the feet during play. The black pieces are, technically, removable from the legs, but doing so may damage them.
- His minifigure variant has his jacket unbuttoned as opposed to his original variant. However, he is actually based on a real world variant that appears in the film.
- It is hinted in his bio that since his company Octan makes voting machines, he may have most likely used them to cheat on the political elections.
- In the Game Builder, he appears as an obstacle. He moves up and down, smashing any unlucky heroes underneath his feet. He cannot be killed, so the hero can only dodge his attacks.
- His hairpiece differs from the one in the actual film, as the tan on it only covers the bottom part.
- He owns a collection of relics whose origins are unknown to the LEGO world's residents, which are actually items made by human beings, among which is the "Cloak of Ban'Daeed" (an old, worn-out Band-Aid. Business himself had also heard that it is "super-painful to take off"), the "Sword of Exact Zero" (an X-ACTO knife blade), the "Fleece-Crested Scepter of Que-Teep" (a Q-Tip cotton swab), the "Po'lish Remover of Na'il", (a container of nail polish remover), the Orb of Ti-Teleest (a Titleist golf ball) and his ultimate weapon, the Kragle (a tube of Krazy Glue with the letters 'z', 'y', and 'u' smudged out). Also seen in his relic collection is a 3.5-inch floppy disk, a binder clip, a key, a golf tee, an apple core, a pen cap, a calculator, a cassette tape, a bottle of White-Out, a staple remover, a highlighter, a rubber band, a package of stick gum, a thumb tack, a fortune cookie, some Post-Its, an Eraser, two mismatched jigsaw puzzle pieces forced together, a spring, a 9-volt battery, a permanent marker, the penny Lord Business uses to decapitate Vitruvius, the "Kragle Antidote", etc. Also seen in the video game are tangled earphones, a collection of three gummy bears, and the tin foil used by Emmet and Wyldstyle to disguise themselves.
- From behind, Business's helmet and cape form the appearance of a business tie.
- In the "Behind the Bricks" video on LEGO.com, President Business stated that he was rather displeased with the filmmakers' decision to cast Will Ferrell as him as he had hoped to be voiced by either Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, or Cuba Gooding Jr.
- He had a brother named Risky Business, who is the main antagonist of The Lego Movie: 4D – A New Adventure, though this is most likely non-canon, as Risky was never mentioned in the first film, nor its sequel, and the events of the attraction were not acknowledged by either.
- In the videogame, Lord Business can use the Kragle gun. Additionally, there are red and black platforms that activate his legs. Doing so will allow him to use switches that are too high for other characters. Lord Business can use that platform again to deactivate the legs.
- In the videogame, despite having normal minifigure legs, Lord Business is unable to use Dispantsers. This was done due to his leg machines.
- He may suffer from OCD seeing as everything has to be orderly and separated in his mind.
- The "Oops, I've got the antidote for the Kragle, how did that happen?" scene was cut from the video game, and thus Business does not reappear after the Kragle blows up and sends him flying.
External links[]
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Super Secret Police
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