In a nameless future where the past is buried and banned, a City rises, surrounded by the wild whispers of the Uncharted Forest—a place you don’t walk into unless you’re ready to vanish. Two outcasts stand out:
Will Ferrell and his kid?
At first glance, Ayn Rand’s Anthem and The LEGO Movie, released almost 80 years apart, have almost nothing in common. As a matter of fact, avid enjoyers of both objectivism and colorful brick flicks may point out that the lesson we’re taught in these two disparate works of art is the complete opposite.
On one hand, Anthem is a dystopian tale. A rebellion against communism, set in a future where the word “I” is banned and all invention is crushed by a World Council obsessed with sameness. Prometheus, the main character, rediscovers electricity, a light forbidden by the collective, and escapes with Gaea, who ends up being his soulmate, into the forest—choosing solitude over submission, individuality over enforced equality.
On the other, The LEGO Movie is a comedy-packed odyssey of an ordinary construction worker. The journey begins after Emmet, the protagonist, is mistakenly identified as “The Special” (as opposed to the self-enlightenment of Prometheus). His enemy and that of the fellowship of Master Builders? The evil tyrant Lord Business—enter Will Ferrell. This overbearing character, also the president of the world, controls everything via his company Octan: the energy sector, TV shows, coffee selling for $37 (talk about producer surplus!) and much more. Lord Business plans to glue everything together with the “Kragle”—Krazy Glue—to impose control and order, but to no avail. Emmet and his friends end up stopping him by using the power of creativity and compassion.
As different as the lenses of the two works may be, they depict the same enemy of progress, innovation, and a world where everything could indeed be awesome:
Totalitarianism.
But why the hate? After all, only a few characters in The City from Ayn Rand’s novella go mad from the regime and it seems like they live a relatively calm life. Plus, what is wrong with gluing LEGO bricks together anyway? Seems like the perfect way to wave goodbye to the problem of stepping on bricks lying around the house!
Well, truth is totalitarianism consistently fails. Whether it be in the form of a brainwashed World Council or in the hands of a square-haired antagonist, it crushes individuality, competition, and freedom—key drivers of progress—leading to stagnation, oppression, and rigidity. By enforcing uniform policies and blocking innovation or exit, these regimes become not only brittle, but outright unsustainable.
Though our protagonists are surrounded by different worlds and colors, their journeys reveal a shared arc: the awakening of the individual against systems that explicitly deny it. Prometheus begins as a silent rebel, questioning the doctrines of the collective and secretly experimenting with forbidden knowledge. His transformation is one of reclaiming what was lost—language, love, and the right to choose. Emmet, conversely, starts out as the epitome of conformity: a rule-follower who thinks of himself as average. His growth lies not in recovering stolen truths, but in realizing his own capacity for pioneering and self-governance. What unites them is the moment they step beyond the boundaries of their “assigned” roles and build something for the greater good—not by accident, but by embracing the risk of thinking for themselves, whether it be by way of re-inventing electricity via a glass box containing the power of Zeus or building a doubly-amazing Double Decker Couch.
And how do they overcome the communism and corporatism-ridden realms?
By using the very thing these regimes fear most against them!
Imaginative thinking, vision. Prometheus’s discovery of light and electricity is symbolic of enlightenment and the unstoppable force of the mind that leads him to rebuild the old, unspoken of, world. Similarly, Emmet defeats Lord Business not by fighting harder, but by thinking differently—by breaking away from the instructions. In both worlds, the enemy fears not violence but imagination. Totalitarian systems fail not only because they are devastating, but because they choke the very dynamism and liberty that drives societies forward. Innovation dies where uniformity reigns.
Unfortunately, the fictional worlds of Anthem and The LEGO Movie echo realities where everything is truly not awesome. From the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany, time and time again totalitarian regimes have sought to silence dissident thinkers, control the press, control art, and impose “order”.
But look no farther than even freer societies to find subtler, humbler forms of control. Government overreach in education and speech, corporate-government collusion in media, and price controls may not look like outright tyranny, but they distort information, suppress dissent, and limit the spontaneous order that allows free individuals to thrive—just as the World Council crushed Prometheus’s discovery and Lord Business tried to freeze creativity with glue.
The Uncharted Forest and the chaotic, open world filled with LEGO bricks both serve as metaphors for the unknown—the raw, untamed realm where freedom exists. But fear not, embrace it! Those in power tremble under that which cannot be systematized to create serfdom for their will. Yet it is here, in spontaneous order, where transformation occurs. Prometheus flees to the forest not to hide, but to rediscover and rebuild. Emmet’s greatest breakthroughs happen outside the neatly ordered city, in places where imagination is the only rule. These wild spaces reflect the inner journey possible due to liberty: stepping into uncertainty, leaving behind the safety of systems, and embracing the infinite potential of choice.
But how can we stay hopeful? After all, history shows that even when freedom gains ground, there’s a persistent urge to impose order on a chaotic, non-ergodic humanity—despite the repeated failures of such attempts. Well, for that we can always turn to Vitruvius, Emmet’s blind mentor voiced by Morgan Freeman, who offers the following wisdom:
“Believe.
I know that sounds like a cat poster, but it’s true.”
This piece solely expresses the opinion of the author and not necessarily the magazine as a whole. SpeakFreely is committed to facilitating a broad dialogue for liberty, representing a variety of opinions. Support freedom and independent journalism by donating today.
