Lego

Lego (/ˈlɛɡoʊ/) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks accompanying an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. Lego pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct objects such as vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects.

The Lego Group began manufacturing the interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Since then a global Lego subculture has developed. Supporting movies, games, competitions, and six Legoland amusement parks have been developed under the brand. As of July 2015, 600 billion Lego parts had been produced.

In February 2015, Lego replaced Ferrari as Brand Finance's "world's most powerful brand".

History

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891–1958), a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934, his company came to be called "Lego", derived from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means "play well". In 1947, Lego expanded to begin producing plastic toys. In 1949 Lego began producing, among other new products, an early version of the now familiar interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". These bricks were based in part on the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which were patented in the United Kingdom in 1939 and released in 1947. Lego modified the design of the Kiddicraft brick after examining a sample that they received from the supplier of an injection-molding machine that Lego purchased. The bricks, originally manufactured from cellulose acetate, were a development of the traditional stackable wooden blocks of the time.

Jurassic World

Jurassic World is a 2015 American adventure science fiction film and the fourth installment of the Jurassic Park series. It was directed and co-written by Colin Trevorrow, produced by Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley, and stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. The production companies were Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, also responsible for the rest of the franchise, and Thomas Tull's Legendary Pictures. Set twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park, Jurassic World takes place on the same fictional island of Isla Nublar, off the Pacific coast of Central America, where a fully functioning dinosaur theme park has operated for ten years. The park plunges into chaos when a genetically modified dinosaur, Indominus rex, breaks loose and goes on a rampage across the island.

Universal Pictures intended to begin production on a fourth Jurassic Park film in 2004 for a summer 2005 release, but the film entered over a decade of development hell while the script went through revisions. Following a suggestion from Spielberg, writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver explored the idea of a functional dinosaur park. Once Trevorrow was hired as director in 2013, he followed the same idea while developing a whole new script with Derek Connolly. Principal photography rolled from April to August 2014, primarily in Louisiana while also using the original Jurassic Park filming locations in Hawaii. Again the dinosaurs were created through computer-generated imagery by Industrial Light & Magic and life-sized animatronics by Legacy Effects, a company created by the alumni of Jurassic Park veteran Stan Winston.

Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise, centered on a film series created by George Lucas. It depicts the adventures of various characters "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away".

The first film in the series, Star Wars (later subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope), was released on May 25, 1977 by 20th Century Fox and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. It was followed by the similarly successful sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); these three films constitute the original Star Wars trilogy. A prequel trilogy was later released between 1999 and 2005, which received a more mixed reaction from critics and fans, compared to the original trilogy. All seven films were nominated for or won Academy Awards, and were commercial successes, with a combined box office revenue of $4.38 billion, making Star Wars the fourth highest-grossing film series. The series has spawned an extensive media franchise—the Star Wars expanded universe—including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books, resulting in significant development of the series's fictional universe. Star Wars also holds a Guinness World Records title for the "Most successful film merchandising franchise." In 2012, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $30.7 billion, including box-office receipts as well as profits from their video games and DVD sales.

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park is an American media franchise centering on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of cloned dinosaurs. It began in 1990 when Universal Studios bought the rights to the novel by Michael Crichton before it was even published.

The book was successful, as was the 1993 film adaptation, which led to three sequels, although the third and fourth films were not based on novels, as the first two were. The software developers Ocean Software, BlueSky Software, Sega of America, and Telltale Games have had the rights to develop video games since the 1993 film, and numerous games have been produced.

The Jurassic Park Ultimate Trilogy was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 25, 2011 in North America. The first film was re-released in 3D on April 5, 2013. Since 1996, several water rides based on the series have been opened at various Universal theme parks.

The fourth film, Jurassic World, was initially scheduled to be released in the summer of 2005, but was delayed numerous times and was ultimately released in June 2015. It has grossed more than $1.66 billion, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of all time. When adjusted for monetary inflation, however, this film is the second highest grossing in the franchise after Jurassic Park. A fifth film is scheduled for a June 22, 2018 release date.

Lego Star Wars

Lego Star Wars is a Lego theme that incorporates the Star Wars saga. The first Lego Star Wars, released in 1999, included model 7140, the first Lego X-Wing. Star Wars was the first intellectual property to be licensed in Lego Group history. The first few sets based on the original trilogy were released in 1999, coinciding with the release of The Phantom Menace. Sets based on the prequel trilogy (Episodes 1 to 3) of Star Wars would follow, starting with Episode I. As each new film in the prequel trilogy neared its release date, Lego issued new models of ships and scenes in those films, as well as additional sets from the original trilogy. Lego also produced models based on The Clone Wars, which was released early in 2008.

Originally it was only licensed from 1999–2008, but the Lego Group extended the license with Lucasfilm Ltd. multiple times: First to 2011 and then again until 2016. In 2012 another 10-year agreement was signed between the two companies. The brand has spawned five video game releases, developed by Traveller's Tales — Lego Star Wars: The Video Game (2005), Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (2006), Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (2007) and Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (2011), and Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2016).