After watching The Simpsons for years, fans’ excitement for the movie keeps growing until the release date. Fans desire their favorite television shows to make a movie, which finally happens for the fans of The Simpsons in 2007. Fans exit the theater with mixed emotions, some (usually the newer fans) love the movie, meanwhile, others (usually the ones who know the earlier episodes) leave feeling disappointed and let down. The movie becomes a serious letdown for many fans. They expect a fantastic, original movie. Instead, the writers recycle plotlines and jokes from previous episodes and make The Simpsons Movie feel like déjà vu.
The Simpsons gained their popularity early in the series, with its popularity continuously growing as the series grew longer. The series uses celebrities to attract viewers and provide familiarity to newer viewers, using well known, easily recognizable celebrities. It gained popularity because of the lack of boundaries from the writers. Even now, the writers cover all topics, even the offensive topics. The characters “pushed all kinds of buttons that few real people could get away with” (ABC News). They push stereotypes, make fun of serious topics, but they explore these topics using a real-like family: the Simpson family. They continue to make jokes to entertain even the younger audience, making their show a huge success.
My brother, Josh, thoroughly loves the movie. He enjoys it for many of the reasons that The Simpsons Movie receives criticism. Josh recalls the movie as completely original, although “the last time [I] watched the movie was a while ago.” He recalls how a lot of the plot lines from the movie related to the episodes, but he believes that they become new again because the “characters are in completely different situations.” Although he wouldn’t want much changed about The Simpsons Movie, he wishes that more of the characters escaped with the Simpsons family. The characters; interactions with each other make the movie more interesting, so the fact that a lot of the characters seemed to go missing throughout the movie, made it less interesting to watch and made the jokes less effective.
The satire uses these offensive topics to entertain their viewers, but the movie, lacking many of the shows’ entertaining elements, makes those offensive comments obvious. The Simpsons Movie follows the family up to Alaska, thus, characters like Moe, Mr. Burns, Principal Skinner, Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Bob, Flanders, and Barney, who the fans love, receive very little screen time. The writers, wanting to keep each character the same as the fans already know them as, find themselves unable to make as many jokes because of lack of supporting characters. One reviewer on IMDb writes that all of the favorite supporting characters “have about a line and that's it…But, the most disappointing fact was the jokes. They couldn't be cheaper and more harmless. Missing the ambiguousness and depth of the jokes in the TV-version, it seems as they have only been designed for a very young audience. The humor reminded me a lot of the one from movies like Ice Age.” The jokes that people catch tend to be the ones about race, “’Black’s the worst color!’ ‘I’ve heard that a lot,’” and Homer saying “Why does everything I whip run away from me?” when trying to get back to his family that ran away from him. Those jokes, that normally go relatively unnoticed, stick out in the movie due to the lack of depth in the other jokes. The writers lose their luster for The Simpsons Movie, even when all eleven of the usual writers collaborate.
The writers attempt using celebrities to make the movie more interesting, but little comes out of the celebrities they use. At the beginning, they introduce the movie (after the episode of Itchy and Scratchy) with a concert from Green Day. The band tries to talk about the pollution of their lake, only for the lake to kill them. They introduce the movie poorly but effectively introduce the main plotline of the movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger acts as the president of the United States and leads Springfield to the main problems of the movie: being trapped under a dome and detonation. To make those decisions, he never looks at the options given to him, a completely unrealistic option for someone with so much power. He uses his power and ends up choosing to kill off the city of Springfield, making a change from the flood and instead, not letting anyone survive. Viewers of all ages recognize his name, even if they never know who Arnold Schwarzenegger really is. Tom Hanks makes a commercial in the movie, broadcasting that the United States Government plans on making a new canyon. He states that “it is nowhere near where anything is or ever has been,” but because of the location, the Simpson family knows they plan to blow up Springfield. These celebrity appearances attract more people to the movie, but they use their characters in ways where they don’t build much to the plot.
The writers of The Simpsons Movie also reuse many of the plot lines that they used for previous episodes. The writers make small changes to the plot lines, hoping the recycled ideas would go unnoticed. They allude to Snow White during one of the scenes in Alaska, like they alluded to The Little Mermaid in an earlier episode. They exile the family from Springfield, like in the episode “Zombie Simpsons.” Only in the movie, the rest of the town stays in Springfield. They reuse the idea of a similar looking family, which they already used multiple times in previous TV episodes. They even reused the animal with an unusual number of eyes! Homer used to have a fish with three eyes in some of the TV episodes, in the movie, they made a squirrel with “a thousand eyes.” They use the same ideas as in majority of the episodes, making the movie feel like a strung-out episode. They use the usual tension between Homer and Marge, Homer and Bart, and Homer and Flanders, along with Nelson’s laugh, and Maggie suddenly doing something completely unexpected of a baby (in this case dropping a boulder on someone’s head). The writers lack originality and reuse plots.
When the writers use new ideas for The Simpsons Movie, they tend to die out. They make Homer find a pig, which Homer dubs “spider pig,” which becomes a favorite for many younger fans. As soon as Homer drops the silo of pig crap in the lake, spider pig seems to vanish. They use the pig as an excuse for Homer to pollute the lake, although he never needed a pig to find something to pollute the lake with. They make Lisa fall in love with Colin, who seems almost exactly like her, but when they leave Springfield, Lisa forget about Colin, only remembering him once death seems inevitable back in Springfield. The writers use plots completely uncharacteristic of the characters. Homer and Bart make up for a small part of the movie, working together to throw the bomb out of the dome. While that resolution between the pair lasts for only a short time, the pair never got along well in the past, so it makes viewers wonder why a bomb makes them get along for once.
Compared to the well-known episodes of The Simpsons, the movie lacks originality. The authors depend, instead, on previous ideas. The genius the show became known for disappears from the movie. The TV show becomes more entertaining than the movie, and fans can even watch the TV show for free! The movie proves unworthy of the money needed to see it.
The writers of The Simpsons Movie disappoint their fans by reusing the same plot points as they already used, not using some of the favorite character of the fans, thus making the movie drag on. The few ideas they used to try to make the movie better, died out, making the movie less interesting. The long wait for The Simpsons Movie ended up leaving most completely disappointed in the movie.
Works Cited
Carlson, Josh D. Personal interview. 17 Feb. 2017.
Ebert, Roger. "The Simpsons Movie." RogerEbert.com. N.p., 25 July 2007. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
Edelstein, David. "'Simpsons Movie': Bigger, Longer, Underwhelming." NPR. NPR, 27 July 2007. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
"IMDb - The Simpsons Movie." IMDb. N.p., 2007. Web. 20 Feb. 2017. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462538/reviews?start=0>.
Nathan, Ian. "The Simpsons Movie Review." Empire Online. Empire, 11 Apr. 2007. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
News, ABC. "How 'The Simpsons' Has Stayed on Top." ABC News. ABC News Network, n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
Scott, A. O. "We'll Always Have Springfield." New York Times. N.p., 27 July 2007. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
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