Blast from the Past includes Castle, Adventurers and more in Week 4

In this fourth installment of classic LEGO commercials by Advance, we have Black Monarch’s Castle, a journey through time and space and, lastly, an adventure in Egypt inspired by Indiana Jones.

LEGO System Black Monarch’s Castle – 1988

This was an extremely simple set-up — it was just the castle set depicted on the box transferred to a studio, just LEGO trees, a cardboard hill and a cardboard background. We made the background the same colour as the box to create the playful effect when the box appears. Notice the name of the play-theme 00:15 “LEGOLAND”, back then it was a LEGO category and now as you know its a world wide theme park.

LEGO SYSTEM Intergrator 1996

Still the most expensive commercial we’ve made at Advance, this was a huge project. The ad was inspired by LEGO Time Cruisers. We travel through the boxes into three different LEGO worlds but time stops in the ‘real’ world. When we return to the store, the cleaner hasn’t moved. Actually the cleaner also played the pirate in the striped top you see at 00:14. The casting for the pirates was hilarious, we had ten different guys show up with amazing costumes. We built the LEGO city in the desert at night and shot the next day, I slept in the truck that you see. The set almost blew away in a desert storm during that night.

LEGO SYSTEM Adventure 1998

Set in Egypt and heavily inspired by Indiana Jones. What looks like a huge set was built entirely in LEGO filmed with extreme close-up lenses. And the boy was shot on bluescreen. What’s interesting here is that in the boy’s room 00:26 we see lots of toys that aren’t LEGO – LEGO is almost taking a back seat and that would not happen today.

2 comments on “Blast from the Past includes Castle, Adventurers and more in Week 4

  1. Josh Post author

    They didn’t say, but I will ask them. It could be all the CGI but I bet that the number of actors, sets and locations may play a role as well.

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