best bit = green day

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

boo the simps movies suXoRed a bit :(

i. beavis and butthead had LESBIAN SEAGUL and the savage pencil PEYOTE SEQUENCE
ii. South Park had all those songs and a real OMG WTF drive to the silly beyond
iii. it just felt like it was colouring within the lines the whole time

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes i think the issue here is more the sanctity of the "wider family" -- ie the whole of springfield is now in play as the "group we know we love, ultimately, and are bound to"

nothing can happen (or be allowed to happen?) to introduce even the symbolic threat of chaos, or escape, or "something beyond the franchise"

related: each character's shtick was kept in its own little revered niche, there was no atttempt to build or tangle or rewire anything

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Ahh OK - yes I can imagine exactly what you're getting at.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i spose what i'm imagining could have been done -- at a micro or a macro level -- is some retconning, to take account of and/or use the clash of formal demands, ie gags that weren't just oneliners without consequences, or non-politically-specific satire

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

"ie gags that weren't just oneliners without consequences"

What was so great about the very best eps (those 50-60 or so that from the early-to-mid 90s) of the Simpsons were all those gags without consequences. Whole eps of it! With only a skeleton of a story (so all the more remarkable how some eps would manage to carry such an emotional charge as well). The South Park film succeded partly as it ws a musical - if Groening tried to go for a genre to flesh it a bit instead of a long ep...he should've made that Itchy and Scratchy film instead!

This is thinking out loud as (like nicolars) I'm 99% certain I wouldn't enjoy it, unless my brother (who loves American Dad and the Simpsons and South Park and every comedy ever, I think, drags me along)

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I also felt there was less, hem hem, intertextuality than we have come to expect from po-mo pop-cult i.e., but more references back in and out of the Simpsons world inc. TV episodes. So it felt like more a 'reward' for 'ver fans' than an expansion. This would fit the big-family reading.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is the balancing act any franchise film walks - reward for fans vs doing its own thang. Generally though the fanbase who might get rewarded is way smaller than the potential film audience, so the balance is naturally tilted to 'own thang' (which often means worse but can mean better) and the fans get easter eggs and in-jokes and goodwill. But with The Simpsons (and Harry P actually) the existing fanbase is HUGE already so the safe option is to just give them exactly what they expect.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

"of course the real fans haven't bought it"

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

but their intertextuality has been so shit forever! maybe they were just shying back for fear of making a bad movie