Emmet Brickowski

Emmet Brickowski, later known by his alter-ego Radical Emmet Xtreme "Rex" Dangervest, is a Lego minifigure character in the Lego Movie franchise and the protagonist of The Lego Movie (2014) and its sequel, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019). He starts out as an everyman construction worker in his home city of Bricksburg, and later, unexpectedly, becomes "The Special" Master Builder.
Background
Original franchise
The Lego Movie
Emmet is basically a regular, mediocre guy, kind, humorous, and very light-hearted (up-beat). To him, everything in the world, even the negative things, are "awesome", which is the purpose of the song "Everything Is Awesome", which is his favorite song. He lives in an apartment with no one to hang around with except for "Planty", a potted green plant that Emmet claims as a pet, along with other junk objects. Nevertheless, Emmet still has some nice friends; his neighbors and co-workers in his job of construction, though he is mostly unrecognized and ignored. To satisfy himself, he follows what appears to be a very long, almost endless, list of instructions that show him how to fit in with everyone in the world and always be happy.
Emmet eventually and unexpectedly discovers that he was chosen by the prophecy of "The Special" Master Builder, proclaimed by wizard Master Builder Vitruvius, to find the Piece of Resistance to save the Lego World and stop the evil Lord Business. In addition, he meets his future girlfriend, Lucy (aka "Wyldstyle").
At first, Emmet is stubborn and constantly fails to do things right when they have to be, being used to following instructions, unimpressive to the Master Builders. But when he discovers that everything in the Lego world is from the imagination of a child with amazing creativity, he finds his own inner power of creativity and becomes a true Master Builder. He is sent back to the Lego world where he makes a speech to Lord Business and saves the world celebrating with his new friends. Wyldstyle becomes his girlfriend, with Batman's blessing, at the end of the film.
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
In the sequel, Emmet must use his Master Builder skills to save his friends from a new danger. It turns out Emmet maintains his livelihood and is unaffected by the aftermath of the Duplo invasion unlike everyone else in Bricksburg (now called "Apocalypseburg"). Emmet also wants to have a bright future with Lucy, but Lucy disagrees due to the fact that everything is rather bleak than awesome. After Lucy and his friends are abducted by General Sweet Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) of the Systar System, under the orders of shape-shifter Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi (Tiffany Haddish), he meets Rex Dangervest (Radical Emmet Xtreme), a galaxy defending (referencing Peter Jason Quill from Guardians of the Galaxy) archaeologist (in turn to the speculation that Chris Pratt was to be the next Indiana Jones), cowboy (referencing Josh Faraday from The Magnificent Seven), and raptor trainer (referencing Owen Grady from Jurassic World), who is later revealed to be a version of Emmet from the future, as a time-traveler.
After he destroys the cake wedding of Wa'Nabi and Batman, Emmet realizes the real intentions of Rex Dangervest, and Rex knocks him under the same dryer to ensure his existence where he and Rex began to fight but Rex defeats him by breaking him in half, but Lucy rallies the others into escaping from the storage bin (bringing them back into the LEGO world), and rescues him from Rex. They both overpower Rex and destroy his time machine and he is erased from existence. The LEGO universe is transformed into a mix-up of Apocalypseburg and the Systar System called "Syspocalypstar" which is peaceful. Emmet's dream house is rebuilt and Lucy reveals that she was one of the original artists of "Everything Is Awesome", much to Emmet's surprise.
It was initially rumored that Emmet was going to have a sister in the second film, but around a month before its release, it was denied and the sister role ultimately went to Bianca.
Spin-off films
Emmet's first, and so far only, appearance in films not related to the original story was in the first spin-off film, The Lego Batman Movie. In the beginning of the film when a local Gotham News Anchorman is explaining the results of Joker's bomb blast, footage of Emmet falling into the Infinite Abyss of Nothingness is shown to illustrate what would happen.
Video games
The Lego Movie Videogame
Emmet appears as the protagonist in the game, voiced by Keith Ferguson. He has several variants of himself, which can be used as entertainment or disguises required to make progress in a level.
The Lego Movie 2 Videogame
Emmet appears again as the protagonist in this game, but this time voiced by A.J. Locascio. Like the first film's game, he has several variants of himself, which can be used as entertainment or disguises required to make progress in a level.
Lego Dimensions
Emmet appears as a playable character in Lego Dimensions. His Fun Pack also includes his excavator. Chris Pratt reprises his role.
Other media
Emmet has also been portrayed in other uses of popular media.
He appears in three episodes of the YouTube series How It Should Have Ended (HISHE): The LEGO HISHE, The LEGO HISHE 2 - The Alternate Ending and Lego Batman Is Jelly. In The LEGO HISHE, Emmet is seen defeating the Duplo Aliens and saying hello to Lego Superman and Batman in the cafe. In The LEGO HISHE 2 - The Alternate Ending, he is seen with other characters from the first movie in an alternate ending to the film where they have President Business jailed for his crimes, despite his change of heart. In Lego Batman Is Jelly, Emmet appears to be disguised as Star-Lord (referencing their shared actor, Chris Pratt) as his "secret identity" after hanging around at a park playing banjo before going through "recreation".
Emmet and Lucy make an appearance in a 2014 episode of The Simpsons, "Brick Like Me".
Fictional biography
According to the first film's script, Emmet is 22 years of age, thus making him 27 in the sequel if accepted, with his year of birth as 1992. This would have meant that Emmet was about 13.5 years old when Lord Business stole the Kragle, as Emmet found the Piece of Resistance eight-and-a-half years later.
Name
Despite being credited as so in the end credits of The Lego Movie, Emmet's surname "Brickowski" is barely mentioned throughout the storyline of the franchise. In one scene from The Lego Movie, Lord Business briefly refers to Emmet as "Brickowski", although this at first could have been interpreted as a clever insult. In The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, Rex Dangervest calls Emmet by his first name and surname, and jokes about it stating, "you're the reason I started wearing vests."
Although it is seen as a clever pun on a real person's surname ending in "-owski" (with "Brick-" coming from a Lego brick), Emmet's surname is believed to have drawn inspiration from former NBA player Frank Brickowski.
References
The Lego Movie (franchise)
Animated characters
Fictional characters introduced in 2014