Does The Lego Batman Movie take place in between The Lego Movie and The Lego Movie 2?

Question

This may seem like a duplicate of this question, but information from The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part seems to provide a different take.

In The Lego Batman Movies, there are a couple references to the events of The Lego Movie, notably the fact that Batman is a master builder and that the city is built on a table. From this movie alone, one would think that The Lego Batman Movie is part of the Lego Cinematic Universe.

However, Lego Movie 2 indicates that after The Lego Movie,

Bricksburg descends into chaos and becomes Apocalypseburg. The Justice League (apart from Batman) has ventured through the Stairgate. Batman seems to be living with Alfred in a Batcave as part of Apocalypseburg.

So the movie seems to address Lego Batman Movie as occurring (mentioning Batman is having a stand-alone adventure) while also ignoring most of it (no Gotham, no Robin and Batgirl, no Justice League party at the Fortress of Solitude, etc.)

Did the events of The Lego Batman Movie occur as part of the Lego Cinematic Universe in between The Lego Movie and Lego Movie 2?

Answer 1

I believe the answer is both yes and kinda sorta.

My reasoning is that the Lego Universe is just a particular kids stories that he acts out while playing. Observing the oblique reference to "Batman having a standalone adventure" means that almost certainly he told the Lego Batman Movie between the two Lego Movies.

However, as you mentioned, there are obvious and strange inconsistencies between the two movies. Gotham only seems to exist in the Lego Batman movie, many characters that seem like they should be with Batman aren't in the Lego Movie, and so forth. But all these inconsistencies are simply because the kid was creating a different kind of story, riffing off certain elements he's used before in his stories, and discarding others that weren't as interesting in the new story he was creating. Then in the end, he pulled in certain details from his Lego Batman story back into the Lego Movie 2, but only those details that seemed amusing to him. I find this type of squishy chronology rather clever, as this is very real to how kids actually tell stories through play.

So from the kid's perspective, the Lego Batman Movie was between the two Lego Movies, but from the perspective of his characters in the Lego Movies, the Lego Batman Movie only kinda sorta happened.