Classic Movie Moments Made From LEGO Friends Heartlake City Apartments
The 2023 reboot of LEGO Friends has brought new life to what is one of LEGO’s most creative themes, and has allowed for stories about diverse people and places that reflect our own world. More specifically, the diversity in spaces found in 42670 Heartlake City Apartments and Stores is what inspired me to stage many scenes based on a variety of different films inside the build.
Join the film crew as this set of colorful apartments will transform into a film studio!
Ratatouille (2007)
Ratatouille is a story about Remy, a tiny rat with culinary talent, and Alfredo Linguini, a young man who somehow ascended from garbage boy to restaurant owner. The cozy kitchen of Heartlake City House instantly reminded me of Linguini’s kitchen in his tiny apartment.
The rooms of the Heartlake Apartments have a lot of space between the bricks used as beams in the ceilings. This key detail will help us change the design of the room to reflect the scenes we’re looking to recreate. Just place two new walls with shelves between these ceiling bricks and—voilà!
Meet the LEGO versions of Remy and Alfredo Linguini, designed exclusively for this photo-op. I changed the color of the mouse and did some digital editing to transform Beaker from the Muppets into Linguini.
After depicting the “cooking” scene, we can now remove one of the walls and show the best part of Linguini's apartment—a window looking out to the Eiffel Tower and the Paris skyline!
Well, let’s break for lunch...
Tootsie (1982)
Now let's move down the hall to the next room. The kids’ corner in the bedroom would make for a great space to stage a humorous scene from Tootsie. Tootsie is a romantic comedy about an actor, Michael Dorsey, disguising himself as a fictional actress, Dorothy Michaels, and becoming a TV sensation.
Dorothy is nursing ”her” co-star Julie Nichols’ daughter and finally falls asleep after a stressful challenge in a funny, unladylike pose… And now we’ll recreate that scene!
Hey Arnold! (1996)
The multicolored apartment buildings remind me of scenes from Nickelodeon’s Hey Arnold! Arnold’s city is painted in vibrant colors and has many quirky characters living in the neighborhood.
So, do you remember the Stoop Kid?
The cute staircase of the Heartlake City House is going to get dark and dangerous with its new “Gothic” decorations of the Stoop Kid’s old house. You can say goodbye to your belongings if you drop them on this stoop, because no one wants to risk an altercation with its owner!
And here’s the star of the show, recreated in LEGO with some digital magic specially for BrickNerd: Arnold! Nobody knew that the “horrible” Stoop Kid was just afraid to leave his stoop, but Arnold encouraged him to take a risk and go beyond his stoop.
Can you guess the minifigure that became Arnold?
Ghost (1990)
It’s great to see that some locations of the set are ready-made for recreating well-known cinematic scenes. For example, this wonderful pottery shop has all the necessary elements to recreate this romantic moment in the movie Ghost.
After some editing with the lighting, and staging our leads, our scene is set!
Spider Man (2004)
When I saw the laundromat beneath the apartments, with these fantastic spinning washing machines, what came to mind was the scene from Spider-Man 2 where Peter Parker foolishly washed his underwear with his superhero costume.
The only detail we need to add to the laundromat is a pile of books. Peter is studying poetry in order to impress MJ...
...Done! Needless to say, it’s hard to be a superhero!
Agatha Christie’s Poirot (1989)
1) Hercule Poirot is preparing for Christmas
Our next location is sweet enough for a festive scene surrounding our famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, who’s buying some chocolate for Christmas from “The Theft of the Royal Ruby.”
It was very easy to recreate the shop full of candy boxes as I could place the shelves in the wall panel without extending the area of the shop!
The small store keeps its size, but the shelves of goods help to make it feel larger.
"Mmm, délicieux!"
2) Poirot visits “Cat Lady's” House
Each of the apartments is personalized to one of the many characters featured in the set, and Petch, one of Heartlake’s inhabitants, has three cats! So, this room will be great for another scene in the adventures of Poirot! Monsieur Poirot has some questions to ask the eccentric “Cat Lady” and her extravagance will make a lasting impression on the interior of the room...
"Of course nobody noted my absence..."
It's easier to make less space in one of these rooms than it is to add space. Our cat-loving woman will put the ponderous curtains up, pile the room with vases and... cats, of course!
The “Cat Lady’s” Paradise also includes the new big sofa that isn't meant for guests (who would have any doubt!), so Hercule will stand “somewhere near” the sofa as he does in the film.
The Muppet Show (1976)
Finally, our film crew is moving outdoors to enjoy the green park of Heartlake City to capture a game of chess between The Muppet Show’s own Statler and Waldorf!
That’s a Wrap!
Playing with this set and recreating these scenes was an amazing experience! The Heartlake City Apartments and Stores gave us the special opportunity to extend the boundaries of our imagination and turn the official LEGO set into a multi-purpose studio for filming all kinds of movies, animated stories, and cartoons of all possible genres!
As always, thank you for coming along on these photographic journeys!
DISCLAIMER: This set was provided to BrickNerd by LEGO. Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
What scenes do you imagine when you look at the “Heartlake City Apartment and Shops” set? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Do you want to help BrickNerd continue publishing articles like this one? Become a top patron like Marc & Liz Puleo, Paige Mueller, Rob Klingberg from Brickstuff, John & Joshua Hanlon from Beyond the Brick, Megan Lum, Andy Price, Lukas Kurth from StoneWars, Wayne Tyler, Dan Church, and Roxanne Baxter to show your support, get early access, exclusive swag and more.
