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The Simpsons Movie
girish writes "Eonline is reporting that, finally, after more than 10 years since Matt Groening said that a Simpsons film 'is way down the line', a movie based on The Simpsons is being made. It's still in its early stages and is being planned to be debuted in the summer or during Christmas time of 2006. The Simpsons has been on FOX for 15 seasons and averages 12.9 million viewers this season."
I suspect that this film may mark the end of the Simpsons. I certainly hope so, and just hope that they go back to the roots and manage to make a fitting coda to what was one of the most important shows in television history, rather than just a mindless parade of celebrity voice-overs.
I really hope that the movie will be animated like the cartoon. Judging by what they say about South Park, it seems likely. 3D animation, live action, or both would probably ruin it. (think Flinstones, Scooby Doo)
The only way it'd work is to do an extended Treehouse of Horror with 10-15 minute vingettes.
If they tried an extended episode then it'd be soooo full of padding and rehashing that you'd be better off at home with the dvd collection.
Worst
The Simpsons: Hit and Run actually did quite well in the long format. It was fairly entertaining throughout.
I don't know if one successful Simpsons video game necessarily indicates a successful movie implementation, but it does demonstrate that with clever writing and good pacing, a Simpsons storyline can be carried out well past the 1/2 hr. mark.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
In a 1/2 hour comedy, like the Simpsons, the plotlines and characters tend to be simple, due to the necessity of telling a complete story in 24 minutes.
How can Groening translate the Simpsons formula to a 1 1/2 hour (or more) movie?
I agree, I stopped watching the Simpsons about four or five years ago when they stopped being that funny. Know what, I STILL get all the Simpsons references people (on /. and elsewhere) make, because they're all from older episodes!
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
I like the Simpsons but I don't think their style would work for a movie-length feature. 1.5 hours of independent jokes and little storyline doesn't sound quite right. I think they should stay in their preferred length of 22 minutes. And I haven't seen too many TV shows made into movies that are any good. Except maybe Transformers the Movie. But I'm just a geeky girl.
when you find yourself and a friend being chased by a lioness, you have one choice: Trip your friend.
Ever noticed that with the sole of the exception of South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut - a television show usually peaks by jumping to the big screen. Decline and inevitable cancellation usually soon follow.
For example: X-Files, Beavis and Butthead Do America, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
And don't forget all the children's shows:
Transformers the Movie, GI Joe the Movie, Masters of the Universe, Pokemon, Power Rangers, Ducktales(!), Rugrats...
(Ok, not all these shows were cancelled but someone could definitely make the case for "decline").
I feel like I'm forgetting someting...help me out here people...
Also, I Googled up this interesting article:
The Challenges of the Big Screen Cartoon
Remember the episode when the Cosby Show was cancelled, because Cosby said he wanted to quit while the show was still good?
Bart's response was "If I had a TV show, I'd want to run it into the ground."
They will. But I still like it-- it gets more and more bizarre, but the entire universe of Simpsons-ness still exists out there to draw on, and I just don't get tired of it.
Homer's chilli-trip is one of the classics, 'cinematography' wise. My gf teaches art history, and used this episode in one of her classes, asking her students to recognise the different artists parodied.
Actually, I recall a Matt Groening interview where he had said that the only way that they would do a simpsons movie is if the series is coming to an end. He'd mentioned that the movie would, in effect, cap off the story. I hope this isn't the case...I still really enjoy that show. --pete
Note that it was a different audience saying why the Simpsons sucks for each time period. The Simpsons has changed now so that a different audience thinks it sucks: which includes me.
I think it has something to do with a show's tendency to want to increase its ratings by appealing an increasingly large audience, and thus a lower and lower common denominator.
I've noticed a palpable change in style from a coherent and intelligent storyline to a more schizophrenic twelve-episodes-in-one style, which I can't stand. But I'm sure it's more popular with the media impulse-trained L[ower]CD.
As much as I love the Simpsons, I really cannot see how the format will work in a long movie... It works very well in 20 minutes.
[FromTheMorning]
I never saw "Waiting for Guffman" in the theater, but enjoyed it a little when I first saw it on VHS. Was it as funny as Spinal Tap? Seemed like it wasn't on that level. Next time around, it really grew on me. "Best in Show" I made a point of seeing in the dark box, and it was -- eh, okay, I guessed. Then about a year later someone had the DVD -- and hey, that's really funny, you know? "A Mighty Wind" we all agreed wasn't quite up to par with the earlier movies that we now thought were classics... But it's amazing how often someone throws out a line from it now, for a beneath-the-radar movie.
I'd definitely connect Christopher Guest's humor to the Simpsons', somehow. Not sure what it is, but they're just satisfying in the same way. And they grow on you.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Now that the Simpsons has started to lose its touch, the kiss of death appears, a movie. Once you resort to making a movie, you signify the beginning of the end for a tv show. This season's schizophrenic and dull writing has really impacted my view of The Simpsons, it is just not the same anymore, not as funny. I've been a fan since viewing it at Spike and Mike's in the late 80's, witnessing the shows on the big screen instead of on the Tracy Ullman show. I was a big fan of Groenig, having read his Life in Hell strips in my sister's UCLA Bruin, around the same time that Bill the Cat was forming Deathtongue. In the mid nineties, we'd gather at the Rat and Raven in San Francisco, watch the show over a beer, and shush anyone who was blasphemous enough to actually talk during the show. This is in a full bar, mind you, where the commercial breaks were the only time you could get a refill.
The 30 minute format (including commercials, of course) is perfect for the show, how they'll pull off a full-length animated feature, I don't know. I do know, however, that the show has lost some of its luster. The writing doesn't seem as good, and I can only think that being that funny for 10+ years has to take a toll on creativity. The movie will have devoted followers, and loyal fans, as well as critics and naysayers. Having been into the Simpsons since its inception, my opinion is that a movie will change things forever. I wish I could be excited about it, I will go, of course, but I can only wish that my doubts are completely unjustified, and I get a pleasant surprise.
man rtfm
I always liked the show until Season 9, when it started to show bad storylines. Shows like Apu having octuplets continued to demonstrate that the writers were 'running out of ideas', but it still had respectible writing. But then it just got worse and worse. When Ian-Maxtone Graham took over as exec. producer, we saw many things concerning the show that ruined the reputation The Simpsons once had:
I didn't say it couldn't get tired, I said it couldn't jump the shark. There is that "turning point" for the show where it is just never the same. I don't think the Simpsons can do that, just because there will always be shining moments, even in the new episodes.
They have their moments of satire, the medical marijuana was pretty good, if not very direct. The whole Armen Tanzarian episode was a risky attempt. But what other show could even try something like that? It says something when the writers poke fun at themselves, and mention some of these questionable attempts in later episodes. Like when they were deciding where they should go on vacation, and they had a map of the US with Xs through states they had been to. At the end of that episode, which was the last of the season, they said "The Simpsons are going to Delaware!" and there was an exchange where Bart says "I want to visit a screen door factory!" Then the next season, they were on their way to Delaware. They did the same exchange. Of course, they never got there, that is the episode where they hopped the rail and rode with the Hobo who told them stories.
They have an amazing cast of secondary and third-tier characters. They can draw on it when some of the jokes get old with the main characters. And they get creative with the flow of the episodes. Like the one episode from three different perspectives (with Linguo the robot). Or they just rip off things, and don't try to hide it. Yeah, it may get tired, but there was never a shark to jump. I think they have great episodes throughout all of their seasons. Some are better from early on, but some of the early ones clearly stink too. I think some of the premises are getting old, like Sideshow Bob, so I hope they lay off of that. Unless he dies this season! Some ancillary character is supposed to die this season. Kelsey Grammer may want to go out in a blaze of glory. That would be kind of cool.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
you obviously don't know the episode as to which I am referring:
[3F19] "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish"
Specifically:
Then it's up to plan B...
Nurse: Abraham Simpson, your family is here to visit you.
Abe: Hot diggity, my family's come to visit me!
[runs down the hall]
Wait a minute... My family never comes to vi... Whoa!
[a knife flies at his head]
Vidal: [disguised as Homer] D'oh! Not again!
Burns: [disguised as Marge] I can't take much more of your blundering numskullery.
Smithers: [disguised as Bart] I'll be in the car, dudes.
Yeah, but you can't count that. The reason why TV->movie conversions don't work is because we are used to getting a certain level of entertainment for free and we have to pay for a movie. We expect so much more because we are putting $6.50-$12 (depending on where you are) down to see it, and if it's just a long episode we feel gypped. A movie length episode that you can see for free on TV is like a bonus long episode.
-no broken link
"Me too", i.e. that's certainly their golden age as far as I'm concerned.
The thing that made the Simpsons great was its loving, hilarious-yet-almost-plausible depiction of a small town and all of its quirky inhabitants. It stopped doing that a long time ago and started sending the main characters on ludicrous adventures crammed full of celebrity cameos -- in a nutshell, situational humor rather than character-based humor.
I think you've stated the stylistic change accurately, and I agree that the quality (or at least my interest) flagged in tandem with that change. It's interesting to muse on Futurama in this light. I like Futurama a lot; I suppose that could be because it's plausible in the sense that it's so far in the future that nobody can really argue that such things won't come to pass. Another possibility is that through its outlandish characters and depictions of technology and culture, the show never tried for a premise of plausibility... so it never transitioned to less plausibility and therefor never fostered the resentment of an audience that had come to appreciate plausibility. Food for thought.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
An important difference here is that the South Park movie was made before South Park started really declining. The Simpsons, as others have said, hasn't been true, awesome Simpsons for 2-3 seasons. Anyways, I don't think it's the length that matters, it's the fact that the Simpsons are in rapid decline. It's unfortunate but true and might make the movie even more of an abomination.
"I've got to stop masturbating! It makes me too lazy! Stop it, Albert. Stop it." -- Albert Einstein
"Do not drill any holes in your cat - it will not like it."
-- Nick Davies