The Trailer for “Plankton: The Movie” Has Dropped

 

(This is the teaser poster for Plankton: The Movie.)

The official trailer for the Plankton movie, simply called Plankton: The Movie is finally here and I suppose that I should talk about it, since I talked about the Sandy Cheeks 🐿️ movie on this blog a couple of times. I wasn’t sure if I should dedicate an entire post to talking about this trailer or if I should mention it in the foreword of the repost of my review of the three Inuyasha movies (I don’t really call them a trilogy since the movies are not connected to each other, like they don’t have the same storyline that extends across all three films, they each have their own standalone stories). I was seriously thinking of doing that, but after thinking about it, I decided that it would be better to just do this as its own post rather than just stuff it into the foreword of a repost. Even if it does end up being a much shorter post. 

 

That’s what I did with the posts I wrote about the Sandy Cheeks 🐿️ movie, so I should do it with this movie. That way too I can already have the tags for the Plankton movie in place if I’m actually able to review it and review it when it actually comes out, if I’m able to get past Netflix’s password sharing restrictions, which is a whole other thing that I don’t really want to get into right now. So, this is my first post of February 2025. The foreword of the repost of that Inuyasha movie will be about the journal itself, the movies themselves, and about the most recent political news that interest me and that I have things to say about. 

The first thing that we learned, or that I personally learned from watching this trailer, was the title. The title of the movie is Plankton: The Movie, plain and simple, short, sweet, and to the point. Which makes the title of the Sandy 🐿️ movie, Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️ all the more ridiculous and confusing, like what did they have call it Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️? Why not just call it The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️, or Sandy Cheeks: The Movie 🐿️, or better yet just Sandy Cheeks 🐿️? That’s what this Plankton movie did. I’m glad that they just called it Plankton: The Movie, and didn’t bother with having a ridiculous and unnecessary subtitle like Saving Bikini Bottom, or I guess in this case, Marital Troubles. You’ll see what I mean by that in a moment. 

 

 

 

(This is the poster for Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️.) 

 

 

Now, just like The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️, Plankton: The Movie was leaked online. It happened last year sometime after The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️ came out and was hated on by pretty much the entire Internet 🛜, or at least the part of the Internet 🛜 that’s into SpongeBob 🧽 and cartoons in general. So, there are people out there who have already seen this movie or seen parts of it even before this trailer came out, and already know what it’s about and have already formed opinions on it. From what I’ve heard, most of the people who saw this movie when it leaked either thought it was just as bad as The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️ or that it was only a marginal improvement and still pretty bad.

I didn’t watch the movie prematurely when it was leaked because I don’t like it when movies are leaked or scripts or whatever, and I don’t support those who do leak that stuff before we are even meant to see it. I’m always in support of the official release. That’s why I don’t pirate anything 🏴‍☠️, I will never resort to piracy 🏴‍☠️ unless it is the only option to watch a certain movie or show, but even then, I still hesitate to indulge because a lot of those piracy sites 🏴‍☠️ have all kinds of malware on them, and I don’t want to infect my computer 💻 with that stuff. Plus, the picture and audio quality is not guaranteed to be good or even passable, especially for cartoons and anime that are pirated 🏴‍☠️. So, this trailer was the first time that I learned about anything regarding the plot, and the trailer does indeed show a lot. It showed a lot more than a teaser trailer probably should show. 

The plot, from what the trailer shows, looks very similar to that of Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️, in fact it looks like it’s pretty much the same plot as Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️, only swap out Sandy 🐿️ with Plankton and that evil science laboratory or institute with Karen 🖥️. Yes that’s right, Karen 🖥️’s the main bad guy in this movie, or I guess bad gal since she’s technically female ♀︎ (she identifies as female ♀︎ and is referred to as a female ♀︎), but I see “bad guy” as a somewhat gender neutral term that could be used to refer to any villain in any work of fiction, even a female villain ♀︎. Basically, Karen 🖥️ gets fed up with Plankton’s incompetence and his harebrained schemes that never work and always fail, and decides to take matters into her own hands and tries to take over the world herself. She even builds herself a robot army to do it. 

 

She’s not debasing herself by simply going after the Krabby Patty secret formula/recipe 🍔, no, she’s aiming much higher than that by trying to take over the whole world. And she ends up being a much more competent and dangerous villain than Plankton could ever hope to be. Or at least, this version of Plankton, the inter-movie and post-sequel version of Plankton that we’ve all gotten used to at this point. This Karen 🖥️ would probably love the Plankton from the first SpongeBob 🧽 movie 😍, which was really the only time where Plankton was actually competent and a legitimate threat. He actually succeeded in his plan for the most part, like he succeeded in getting the secret formula, and then used the success he gained from making his own Krabby Patties 🍔 and selling them at the Chum Bucket 🪣 to take over Bikini Bottom, rename it Planktopolis, and enslave the entire population with mind control bucket helmets 🪣😵‍💫. 

 

The only parts of his plan (Plan Z) that didn’t succeed were killing SpongeBob 🧽 and Patrick and preventing them to retrieving the crown 👑 and bringing it back to Bikini Bottom (renamed Planktopolis of course), the bounty hunter Dennis failed his mission, and also killing Mr. Krabs 🦀 by having him be executed by King Neptune who he tricked into freezing 🥶 and executing by framing Mr. Krabs 🦀 for the theft of his crown 👑 which Plankton actually stole. This part of the plan fails when SpongeBob 🧽 and Patrick make it back and give the crown 👑 back to King Neptune, only for Plankton to put a mind control helmet 🪣😵‍💫 on him, and SpongeBob 🧽 having to destroy all the helmets 🪣😵‍💫 by performing the song “Goofy Goober Rock 🎸,” a rock 🎸 version of the Goofy Goober theme song, and using his magical electric guitar 🎸 to blast the helmets 🪣😵‍💫 off of people’s heads.  

 

Plankton’s plan in that movie only failed because he underestimated both SpongeBob 🧽 and Patrick and their ability to succeed in their mission in retrieving the crown 👑 from Shell City 🐚 and bringing it back to Bikini Bottom (again, renamed Planktopolis by Plankton himself) based solely on the fact that they are “kids.” Not actual kids of course, SpongeBob 🧽 and Patrick are canonically adults as are the majority of the main cast of the show (and movies), they are just childlike, they just have a childlike mindset, they have the mentality of children. 

 

A less than kind descriptor of them would be to call them “man children ♂︎,” but a kinder way to put it is that even though are adults with jobs (or at least one of them has a job, Patrick is voluntarily unemployed) they are still kids at heart ❤️, they haven’t forsaken their inner child and childlike wonder just because they entered adulthood. Had Plankton not underestimated them the way he did, and had he taken more seriously, his plan would have succeeded, and SpongeBob 🧽, Patrick, and Mr. Krabs 🦀 would be dead and Bikini Bottom would be under his full control for all eternity under its new name, Planktopolis. 

 

This was the only time Plankton was ever competent and actually got close to succeeding at one of his plans. Every other time in the series (and in the franchise overall), Plankton’s a goofy moron who’s really incompetent, who can’t achieve anything, all of plans fail usually due to fatal miscalculation, oversight, and overconfidence (all of his schemes have some sort of fatal flaw baked into them that would prevent them from succeeding under any circumstance), and Karen 🖥️ always ends up bailing him out or provide a cushion for him to soften the blow, and isn’t a real threat. Most of the time, the other characters either ignore Plankton (especially since he’s so small and easy to miss) or if they do pay attention to him, they don’t take him seriously since they know that he’s incompetent and he won’t win. 

 

That seems to be the Plankton that’s in this movie, this seems to be more of the goofy moron Plankton who’s overconfident and full of himself but is actually really incompetent and stupid, and subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect. The version of Plankton that we usually throughout the franchise is a real good example of the Dunning-Kruger effect at work. Had that been the Plankton that was in this movie, the Plankton from the very first SpongeBob 🧽 movie who was actually competent and actually really evil, Karen 🖥️ would’ve never left him and turned against him and tried to strike out on her own. 

So after Karen 🖥️ goes rogue and starts attacking Bikini Bottom and then later the surface world with her army of robots, the movie becomes even more like Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️ because now Plankton has to team up with SpongeBob 🧽 to take her down. The fact that the movie has a very similar plot and has a very similar dynamic where it’s a buddy movie where the title character teams up with SpongeBob 🧽 to go on an adventure to stop the main bad guy, and save all of their friends, save Bikini Bottom, and save the whole world is pretty disappointed. It kind of just shows how uncreative these Netflix SpongeBob 🧽 movies are, and it makes you wish that they had come up with a completely different plot that actually fit the character of Plankton a better. This is what I was talking about in my post about there being a Lucy Loud video game, if you’re going to do a spinoff project about a specific character (whether it be a movie, TV show, or video game), it needs to be in a genre and have a plot that fits that character. 

 

This plot doesn’t fit Plankton, hell, it barely even fit Sandy 🐿️. It only fits Plankton in that it shows how toxic his relationship with Karen 🖥️ is, like as soon as Karen 🖥️ turns on him and tries to take over the world on her own, Plankton immediately decides to kill her, and it’s only because he’s paired up with SpongeBob 🧽 who’s kind-hearted, innocent, and childlike that he decides not to and just repair his relationship with Karen 🖥️ after defeating her and stopping her evil plan of course. 

 

That is one thing that has always been inconsistent throughout the SpongeBob 🧽 franchise, Plankton and Karen 🖥️’s relationship. Sometimes it seems like they really do love ❤️ each other despite all the arguments and disagreements they have, while other times, it seems like they either hate each other or Plankton just sees Karen 🖥️ was a machine, a computer 🖥️, a tool to achieve his plan and not as a sentient being who he married, had a kid with (yes, they really did have a kid in one episode, a computer boy 🖥️♂︎ named Chip), and is in love with 😍.

 

It just depends on the writer and the plot they went with for that particular episode or movie, they just depict their relationship in whatever way suits the story they’re trying to tell. If the plot requires them to have a healthy relationship, then they’ll have a healthy relationship, if the plot requires them to have a toxic relationship, then they’ll have a toxic relationship, the plot doesn’t really require them to be in love ❤️, then they won’t be in love ❤️ and they’ll just have Plankton treat Karen 🖥️ as a tool to use in his evil plans, or just have her act as his henchman like she did in the first movie. 

To me, they should have had a plot where Plankton was a villain, where he was a villainous protagonist (villains can be protagonists just as heroes can be antagonists, it just depends on which perspective the story is told from), and where we saw him trying to pull off one of his evil schemes. It doesn’t even have to be about the Krabby Patty 🍔 secret formula, though that would be the go-to. Just have it be a villain centric story where the villain gets to be evil, isn’t teaming up with the good guys and trying to save the world and is being more of an antihero than a true villain and is trying to pull off their scheme even if they’re incompetent and bad at it, that’s where the comedy would come in. It would sort of be like Invader Zim, Zim is the bad guy in that show, he is a villain, the whole show is about him trying to take over the Earth 🌎 and add it to the galaxy spanning Irken Empire, but he’s really bad at it. He’s really stupid and incompetent, and all of his schemes fail largely due to his own stupidity, stubbornness, and hubris, and that’s where the comedy comes in. 

 

The Almighty Tallest (the leaders of the Irken race) sent him there as punishment for being an annoying clumsy doofus that caused all kinds of destruction and chaos on planet Irk. They just sent him there just because they hate him and they want to get rid of him, they had no real desire to conquer Earth 🌎 because to them, it was just a backwater planet that had no real value to them, no resource value, no real strategic or tactical importance. But, the joke is that Zim doesn’t know that. He thinks that they’re sending on a real mission, on a real conquest, even though it’s all fake and is just a means to cast him out and maroon him on another planet where he won’t do too much damage to the empire, and because he doesn’t know and is too stupid to realize that he’s been played and sent on a phony mission, he takes it completely seriously and really does spend all of his time on Earth 🌎 trying to conquer it and prep it for an invasion and annexation by the Irken Empire. 

It’s not as if the show hasn’t done plots like this in episodes, where it was mostly or entirely from Plankton’s point-of-view and it’s about him trying to pull off some scheme, usually trying to steal the Krabby Patty 🍔 secret formula. So, I really don’t know why they couldn’t have done that here but on a cinematic scale since it’s a movie and not just a TV episode, instead of doing a generic “save the world” plot that is pretty much just a repeat of the same plot from Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️. 

 

Even down to the fact that each feature one thing that is supposed to be the main selling point that’s supposed to draw you in, like Karen 🖥️ turning evil is the main selling point of this movie just as seeing Sandy 🐿️’s family was the main selling point of Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️, as well as Sandy 🐿️ gliding through the air like a flying squirrel 🐿️ (revealing that she isn’t just any kind of squirrel 🐿️, she’s a flying squirrel 🐿️). 

 

Speaking of things that are similar to Saving Bikini Bottom, it appears that this movie will have live action segments and maybe even some live action human characters, which is not great. The live action segments were one of the main things people complained about and hated about Saving Bikini Bottom, and yet it seems they’re doubling down on it here. But, we haven’t seen the movie yet, this is just the trailer (the teaser trailer), so we can’t completely pass judgement yet. Maybe, that one scene where Karen 🖥️ attacks that beach 🏖️ is the only live action segment in the film. 

The animation looks okay, it’s definitely not theatrical movie quality, like this doesn’t like something that should be in theaters. It’s right where it belongs, on streaming. I usually don’t like to talk about animation whenever I’m talking about an animated movie or TV show, or cartoons and anime in general, because I feel like people fixate too much on the animation and other technical aspects whenever they talk about cartoons or anime. Like, that’s all the anime channel STEVEM talks about in his videos, just the animation and technical aspects. 

 

I think that this hyper fixation on animation and technical aspects of an animated film, or a cartoon or an anime series often gets in the way of talking about other aspects that are just as important or even more important than the animation like the story and characters. I’m a writer, so story and characters always take priority and precedent over everything else. If a work of fiction doesn’t have good characters or a story, then to me, it isn’t really worth watching, or playing, or reading. You can only get so far on pretty images alone. Even if you’re film is supposed to be a work of art, you still have to tell a story, like if you made a movie just to be appreciated as art and you didn’t care about having a story, then you might as well as just done a painting 🖼️. 

 

That’s the main reason why I don’t comment on animation whenever I talk about something that is animated whether it’s a cartoon or an anime or something in-between those two. The other reason is that most of the animated films and series that I’ve covered on this blog have been competently animated and have art styles that are appealing and nice to look at, so I don’t feel like I need to say anything because there’s not much of note. Animation has to look uniquely good or uniquely bad for me to even consider it worth commenting on in a review. These reasons I gave for why I don’t like to talk about animation whenever I review a cartoon or anime, also applies to video games and video game graphics. 

 

I don’t like to talk about graphics whenever I’m reviewing a video game because they are usually better and more important things to talk about, and most of the video games that I’ve played have decent graphics and are competently made (except for maybe Skull Island: Rise of Kong and SpongeBob SquarePants 🧽: The Patrick Star Game, although The Patrick Star Game’s bugginess was mostly intentional and is part of its charm), so there’s really nothing more to say about that and I just avoid it unless the graphics are uniquely good or uniquely bad. If Plankton: The Movie ends up being as bad as the early viewers (the ones who watched it after it leaked) say it was and isn’t a significant improvement over Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie 🐿️, I feel that the common consensus will be that Netflix shouldn’t make anymore SpongeBob 🧽 movies and that they shouldn’t have the license anymore. 

 

 

(This is the first trailer for Plankton: The Movie.)