My Thoughts on “The Simpsons Movie”
(This is the poster for The Simpsons Movie.)
Well, I just finished my Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus 🦈🐙 review last week, and finally, I've reached 200 posts...after three months 😣. It's hard to believe that I've written 200 posts already. When I started this blog back in late 2023, I didn't know where it would go, and how far. But, after everything, I am proud of everything that I've written on here, mostly. There are few posts on here that I'm not exactly proud of how they turned out in retrospective, and I feel I could've done better, and that's of course the Armageddon ☄️ review, the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen review, the Transformers: Dark of the Moon 🌑 review, the Transformers: Age of Extinction review, the Transformers: The Last Knight review, and the Godzilla (1998) review. The Armageddon ☄️ review got age restricted, it's almost completely inaccessible now, and that's after I removed the offending material that got it age restricted in the first place. Blogger just age restricted it again for seemingly no reason.
So knowing that, and knowing that I'm not entirely proud of how that review turned out (it wasn't even a review when I originally wrote it), I feel that I might as well as redo that one, and redo all of the reviews I wrote around that time. It'll also give me the opportunity to review Transformers (2007), which I haven't done. I've never written a review of Transformers (2007). Not on DeviantART, not here on the blog. The only review that I did of this movie was a video review on my old Sci-Fi Dragon YouTube channel before I deleted it. But, I'm not proud of that review and how it turned out. I'm not proud of really any of that content I did on that old channel, and I'm ready to just start over and start fresh with a new review on my blog written as an adult in my late 20s. It'll be good because next year is the 20th anniversary and it's a kick ass movie that I haven't watched in a while.
Next year is also the 20th anniversary of this movie that I'm going talk about in this post. A lot of you probably already forgot that The Simpsons Movie came out the same year as Transformers (2007), but I didn't. 2007 was a great year for movies in all honesty. You had Transformers (2007), this movie, Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End 🏴☠️, Shrek the Third (there were a lot of third movies came out in 2007, weren't there?), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 🐦🔥, Live Free or Die Hard, Ghost Rider 🔥, Wild Hogs, and Ratatouille 🐀. You also had Dragon Wars: D-War 🐉, which isn't a great movie, but I still have a lot of nostalgia. It still means a lot to me, and holds a special place in my heart, and I can't seem to let it go, no matter how sub par it actually is. I reviewed Dragon Wars 🐉 if you're interested. But, besides those reviews that I mentioned, I'm proud of everything else. And I personally feel that my writing has gone better since I started working on this blog. Granted, I haven't written any stories, short or otherwise, but as far as writing reviews and other kind of posts go, I've definitely gotten better even though I have gotten more long-winded. But, what can I say? Sometimes I have a lot to say, and I tend to get sidetracked and go off on long tangents that don't entirely have anything to do with what I'm writing about. I feel it's better to say those things and to write them down than to just keep it all in mt my head. And plus I don't have an audience (yet), so I don't have anyone to really answer to, telling me what to do and what not to do, except for the Blogger overlords. But, besides the Armageddon ☄️ review, I've managed to stay in their good graces for the most part.
It does feel good to finally write a post that's actually up-to-date, and won't be outdated by the time it actually goes up, which is the case with all the posts that I've written since January. I've written a bunch of posts, including a good number of reviews, that I can't post yet until I finished with this. Even my Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus 🦈🐙 review is kind of out-of-date because I started writing it back in February (or late January, one of those two), and I mentioned some current events in that review that were current at the time I started writing it, but weren't current anymore by the time I actually posted it. Part of it was my fault because I procrastinate a lot and I waited too long to actually watch movie and our Internet 🛜 got turned off, and it was off for a month and a half. It went off on Tuesday February 17, 2026 and it didn't get fully restored until Wednesday April 8, 2026. So it was off for the last week and a half of February, all of March, and the first week and a half of April. So it was off for a pretty long time, and it was the longest that we've gone without Internet 🛜 for a while. And that was because we didn't have the money 💵 to pay the bills on time. We were always broke until my dad got his lawsuit money 💵 finally. I would tell you the exact amount he got, but for privacy reasons, I can't, but let's just say that it's a lot. All I could do was just write posts and then just save them in my Notes to post on my blog later on.
I even wrote a short story, the first short story I've written in a long time, and the first original story I've written in a long time. But, I didn't want to post it yet because I wanted my Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus 🦈🐙 to be my 199th post and this to be my 200th post. I want to make this a tradition, where each time I reach a milestone on this blog, I review something special, and then before that, I review something else special as an appetizer. I decided for every 99th post I hit, I'll review a creature feature, usually one that I'm nostalgic for or otherwise means a lot to me, and then for every hundredth post, I'll review a really special movie. So far, those have both been animated movies from my childhood, and the next one I'm planning will also be an animated movie from my childhood, but I promise not all of them will be animated movies. That's just how it's worked out so far. I hope I can write more posts in the future to get to that point to show you.
I honestly should've done these a long time ago, these reviews have been the bane of my existence for the past three months. They've kept me from posting other posts, even when I had other things to say. I should've increased my output last year, so that I could've already started writing regular posts before our Internet 🛜 got shut off and there would be more posts out in January and February, and there wouldn't be this long gap with no posts in-between. But, due to various factors, my output decreased, until the post where I was only able to get one post out in January, no posts in February or March, and it looks like I'll only have one post out for April if I don't get this review done by Thursday, which I highly doubt that I will. But, I promise you have that after this is over, that's all going to change. I'll post my entire back catalog of posts that I wrote in January, February, and March that I wasn't able to post until this post was done. I'll post them on all on a daily basis, so that you won't have to wait for the next one, like I have made you wait for these two posts here.
And then once all of those have been posted on the blog, I'll start writing new, original blog posts again. As well as reposting whatever I haven't reposted from DeviantART that I want to repost. But the original posts will greatly outnumber the reposts. I've got at least a few planned out already, a post about The Ghost in the Shell (2026) (hopefully I can get that one done for the show comes out in July), a review of Cowboy Bebop (1998), a review of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, a review of Doom: Eternal, a review of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, and a review of Piranha (1978). I bought Metroid Prime 4, Doom: Eternal, and Piranha (1978) and I want to review them all now that my Internet 🛜 is back. I also want to write a post related to Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. I mentioned that I wanted to write it in my Venezuela post 🇻🇪, and I want to keep my word that I will write it. Same goes for the post related to Iron Chef that I wanted write before our Internet 🛜 got shut off too. But not until I write those other posts I mentioned.
(These are photos I took of the games and movie that I bought in the last couple of months. The first photo is of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Doom: Eternal, which I bought a day apart. I bought Metroid Prime 4 first on Sunday April 24, 2026 and then I bought Doom: Eternal the next day on Monday April 25, 2026. I know this because I saved the receipts 🧾, just in case something happens to them and I need to return them. But they're also useful for remembering dates, when you actually bought something, on which day. I got Doom: Eternal at a pretty decent price. It was being sold at $19.99 💵 at Walmart, and when taxes were factored in, it came out to $21.45 💵. Not a bad price of a video game, especially a big AAA title like Doom: Eternal was. But, it's an older game. It was released on the PS4 in 2020, the year the pandemic 🦠😷 started, and that was 6 years now 🤯. Time flies man. Remember when we all thought the pandemic 🦠😷 was going to go on forever, and it was never going to end? That's how it felt in those years, in the moment. It felt like we were stuck in it, and there was no way out of it. It was just the new reality, the "new normal" as people around that time called it. Now it's been over for about three years at this point. 2022 was when the pandemic 🦠😷 really was starting to wind down, but 2023 really was when it felt like everything was back to normal. That's why I say three years and not four.
So, that's why Doom: Eternal was being sold at a lower price. The latest Doom game, Doom: The Dark Age while not being sold at the same price it was at launch, which was $69.99 💵, is still a bit pricey at around $56.48 💵 on Amazon and $37.00 💵 at Walmart, at least on the website. I mean, $37.00 💵 is still a better price than $69.99 💵 or $56.48 💵, but not as good as $19.99 💵, and again, I don't know if that's the same price for the game in the actual store or if it's just on the app or on the website. Even if it is just on the app and the website, I don't know if that'll be available at that same price by the time I actually buy it because it seems like there's some kind of sale going on. That's why the price is pretty low, even though the game's only been out for a year rather 6 years like Doom: Eternal has been. That's the one thing I like about PlayStation games compared to Nintendo games is that they do actually drop in price.
If they've been out for six years, or three years, two years, or even just one year, they will be sold at a much lower price than they were at launch. I know the Doom games are technically third party titles, but still, even the first party PlayStation titles, the actual PlayStation exclusives, are sold at much lower prices after they've been out for a while. Whereas with Nintendo titles, they'll be sold at the same exact price 5 years later that they were at launch. If it was sold at $59.99 💵, or more like $69.99 💵 nowadays, at launch, it'll be sold at that same exact price 1 year later, 2 years later, 3 years later, 4 years later, 5 years later, or even 6 years later. It's honestly criminal what Nintendo's doing, or it should be. It is wrong to charge people the same price for your game a few years later that it was at launch. It goes against basic economics. The older something is, the cheaper it will be, until it's out of print or no longer being manufactured and it becomes rare. Then it jumps in price. That's why all those anime Blu-Rays 💿 put out by Funimation and other companies like Funimation (like say, Viz Media) that were being sold for around $20 💵 or $30 💵 a decade ago now cost somewhere in the hundreds. Because they're out of print and have become a much rarer commodity.
But, Nintendo with their greedy ways 🤑 just want to keep all of their games the same high price, even if it doesn't make sense and even if it hurts the consumer. But, on other hand, to pay devil's advocate for a moment, because Nintendo's prices never change, they never increase the moment one of their games is out of print and becomes a rarer item. I still say it's not a good thing that their prices never change, especially since they're all so high, but that is one plus. I'm just glad that I had enough to get Metroid Prime 4 when I did. At the rate that I'm going, I don't know if I'll be able to get all of the Switch 1 games that I want. I don't know when Nintendo will stop supporting the Switch 1, I hope they keep doing it at least a few more years just like Sony's doing with the PS4. I just got my Switch 1 a few years ago, and it feels like I barely had any time to enjoy it before Nintendo released the Switch 2. It would be one thing if Switch 1 games were backwards compatible with the Switch 2, but like with all modern consoles, they're not. Unfortunately, backwards compatibility is a thing of the past for the entire industry.
Since I mentioned Blu-Rays 💿, the last two photos are of the Piranha (1978) 4K steelbook 💿 that I bought back in March, front to back. I bought it at Walmart, for around $20 💵 or $30 💵, I bought it on a whim. This was before we got my dad's lawsuit money 💵, so we were short on cash 💵. We were on the verge of being broke, it wasn't like how it is now where we're much more secure with our finances and have much more money 💵 at our disposal. But, I bought it because I have that movie on my list, I've been wanted to get into the Piranha franchise since 2024 since I first mentioned Piranha 3D and its even sleazier sequel, Piranha 3DD in that post I wrote about Rick Worley and his transphobia. And where better to start than the original? And I figured that this was limited time item, and it wouldn't be around forever. Especially since it likely wasn't being sold on Amazon. This seemed like a Walmart exclusive. So I wanted to get while I could, so I did. That's I how ended up with this movie. And my instincts seem to be correct because that Riddick (2013) 4K steelbook 💿 that bought back in February isn't available anymore. It's not on Walmart's shelves. So I was right to get both that and the Piranha (1978) 4K steelbook 💿. Even if I can't post the Riddick (2013) review yet and I can't review Piranha (1978) yet. But like with the Riddick (2013) 4K steelbook 💿, the Piranha (1978) 4K steelbook 💿 came with a regular Blu-Ray 💿. That's how I was able to watch Riddick (2013) and review it because it came with a standard Blu-Ray 💿. So even if my PS5 isn't hooked up yet, I'll still be able to watch Piranha (1978) and write a review of it thanks to me having the regular Blu-Ray 💿 on hand.)
So, let’s talk about this movie that I have a lot of nostalgia for. Truth be told, I’m not much of a Simpsons fan. I didn’t grow up with The Simpsons, The Simpsons was before my time. It hit its peak relevancy in the 1990s, probably around the mid 90s, and then it started dip in popularity around the late 90s. It still stuck around obviously, it’s one of the longest running shows in history, and it got a movie obviously (which is what I’m talking about here) and is getting another one next year. But it wasn’t the juggernaut it once was. This movie was actually my first exposure to The Simpsons. I knew vaguely about The Simpsons beforehand, I sort knew Homer, or at least, I knew what he looked like, but I didn’t know anything about him or any of the characters, or the show as a whole. So, The Simpsons Movie was really my entry point into this world and its characters. That, and the video game that came out around the same time, The Simpsons Game, which I quite loved. I didn’t actually start watching the show after that, and I still probably wouldn’t consider myself a fan of The Simpsons as a whole.
But that, combined with watching videos on YouTube about The Simpsons from actual fans, I do have a better understanding of this show and its characters. I know that The Simpsons started off as a segment of The Tracey Ullman Show and then was expanded into its own series that outlasted and overshadowed The Tracey Ullman Show. Much to the chagrin of Tracey Ullman herself. I know that the show went through some growing pains where the creators, the writers, and the animators were still trying to figure out what they wanted this show to be, and who they wanted these characters to be. They bounced between making the show more wholesome to making it more edgy and offensive, you know intentionally vulgar. Until they ultimately settled on a sweet middle ground, and just decided to focus on the Simpsons family and the other residents of Springfield, and the misadventures they get into (basically treating Springfield as its own little self contained world), rather than trying to be like South Park and dive into complex political issues and make fun of current events and celebrities and politicians.
I know that fans consider the 1990s to be the golden age of The Simpsons, the period when the show was at its absolute best and again was at the peak of its popularity and relevance within pop culture and the wider zeitgeist. And they consider pretty much everything after to be inferior to this golden age. A lot of Simpsons fans feel that that show declined after the 90s, and it wasn’t at all the same and has never reached that same level of quality that it had in the 90s even if they might do nostalgic callbacks to the golden age from time-to-time. Some Simpsons fans have just completely given up on the show, and refuse to watch it outside of that arbitrarily decided golden age. You know a show is popular and has penetrated the zeitgeist, and left an impression on an entire generation if new terms are created in relation to it. The term "Flanderization" was created to describe when writers of a TV show (usually an animated one) take a character and reduce them down to their basic character trait, and just make that one character trait their whole personality. This term came from the character Ned Flanders, who went from being a good man ♂︎ who just happened to be Christian ✝️ (a character seemingly so perfect and nice that it annoyed Homer and he hated him) to being a fanatical Christian ✝️. But, they will say that they still like the coach gags 🛋️ because the couch gags 🛋️ have gotten more elaborate over the years as the show has gone on. Often bringing guest animators and directors, experimenting with different art styles or animation styles, doing parodies of popular movies or shows, or even doing crossovers with other shows.
The most infamous example I think of that is for one of the couch gags 🛋️, they did a crossover with Rick and Morty, just when Rick and Morty was starting to get popular, and they basically had Rick and Morty kill the Simpsons accidentally while crashing their ship 🛸 into their living room, and then they have to scoop up their remains because they’ve been reduced to puddles, so that they can be cloned and the intro can play out as it normally would. But, the Simpsons’ DNA 🧬 gets mixed up during the cloning process, and some alien DNA 👽🧬 gets mixed in as well, and they come out all mismatched and deformed, and that’s the entire gag. Another one I remember is that they did a parody of Avatar (2009), and had each of the Simpsons family members get into those Avatar pod things and become Na’Vis (Avatar Na’Vis, which are created by mixing human DNA 🧬 and Na’Vi DNA 🧬 if I’m not mistaken), roaming around Pandora. Or at least, the Simpsons version of Pandora. And a lot of those same fans will also admit to liking this movie, even if some of them think it’s pretty flawed. There’s not that much love for the game though, when it comes to Simpsons games, most fans seem to like The Simpsons: Hit & Run rather than The Simpsons Game. But I liked The Simpsons Game, and that’s all that matters.
In a lot of ways, it’s very similar to how a lot of fans feel about SpongeBob SquarePants 🧽. Where there’s specific designated golden age that the fans have decided the show was at its best. In SpongeBob 🧽’s case, it’s the period from 1999-2004, with Seasons 1-3. Most SpongeBob 🧽 fans, consider that to be the golden age and say that was when the show was at its absolute best. And a lot of them feel that the show declined after the first movie, those some will say that Season 4 was still pretty good and that the show declined after that. Some will say that the show improved with Season 9, though others will say that it didn’t improve at all it’s still bad as ever. Those fans only like the first three seasons. They don’t like any other season beyond those three, and they will refuse to watch any episode from any season besides Seasons 1-3. In fact, The Simpsons and SpongeBob 🧽 do have a lot in common, and I’m not just saying that because they’re both yellow 🟡. Even down to the fact a new term was created in relation to it. The term "ScumBob" was created by fans (and by fans, I really just mean PIEGUYRULZ) to describe episode from the so-called "post-movie era" that were especially bad. You could say that SpongeBob 🧽 is my generation’s equivalent to The Simpsons, even though SpongeBob 🧽 is an actual kid’s show whereas The Simpsons is more of a show for adults and teens.
Although, it’s not so adult that kids couldn’t watch it, ideally with their parents, but let’s face it, often times without their parents. The only difference is that The Simpsons has gone on longer, and SpongeBob 🧽 has had way more movies than The Simpsons does. The Simpsons is just barely getting its second movie next year, while SpongeBob 🧽 has had four movies now, six if you count the two spinoff movies on Netflix. Which BTW, did you know the latest SpongeBob 🧽 movie, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants 🧽 was supposed to be one of those Netflix spinoff movies? It was supposed to be a spinoff movie centered around Mr. Krabs 🦀 and his rivalry with the Flying Dutchman (which didn’t exist in the actual show). But then, Paramount, or Nickelodeon, or whoever caught wind of this, and thought that it had potential for a theatrically released film, and so it was turned into an actual SpongeBob 🧽 movie, and put in theaters. Where it promptly bombed 💣 because it was released around the same time as Avatar: Fire and Ash 🔥 and The Housemaid (2025).
That’s probably the most interesting behind-the-scenes story behind any of the SpongeBob 🧽 movies besides the third one, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run 🧽. The behind-the-scenes story surrounding that movie is absolutely fascinating. You should watch NICKtendo’s videos on it if you’re interested because he gave a pretty detailed explanation of that movie’s production issues and the different versions of the movie that didn’t actually get made. I’ll link them here and here. I don’t know what the behind-the-scenes story behind The Simpsons Movie 2 will be, probably won’t be anywhere near as exciting as the one for Sponge on the Run 🧽. The only thing I’m interested in learning is why it got delayed and pushed back from its original July 23, 2027 release date to September 3, 2027, on Labor Day weekend.
The behind-the-scene story behind The Simpsons Movie is kind of interesting, but still not as interesting as the one for Sponge on the Run 🧽. The gist of it is that they’ve been trying to get a Simpsons movie off the ground for years, since the 1990s when the show was at the peak of its popularity (sort like what The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 🧽 did when SpongeBob SquarePants 🧽 as at the peak of its popularity), but nothing panned out until 2007, when it finally got made and came out, a whole decade after the show passed its peak in terms of popularity, and was in its “bad era” according to some fans. And they had a hard time coming up with a story for the movie, and they couldn’t decide if they wanted the villain to be one from the actual show, or if they wanted it to be a completely new villain that they created specifically for the movie. If you’ve seen the movie, then you know which direction they went in.
They crafted a story where the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) are the villains, or at least, the head of the EPA is. They heavily imply that Russ Cargill is corrupt and he's really just doing this to benefit himself, his company, and the industry he worked in prior to working for the government. Perhaps he came from an industry that was being heavily regulated by the EPA, and he used his position to try to benefit that industry. Kind of like what you see with the EPA under the Trump administration in both terms. He put guys ♂︎ that came from the fossil fuel industry in charge of the organization that's supposed to regulate that industry and other high polluting industries, and those guys ♂︎ used and are using the EPA to benefit those industries, mainly by cutting regulations that help protect the environment and mitigate climate change. Pretty much corrupting and distorting the EPA's original purpose, which was to protect the environment and keep us all safe from pollution and eventually climate change. Pollution was a bigger problem in the 1970s and 1980s, but nowadays the big environmental issue that needs to resolved is climate change. And almost every country seems on board with combating climate change, even as a lot of them still use fossil fuels and rely on them to keep their economies afloat. Think pretty much every oil exporting country 🛢️ that hasn't diversified their economies away from just crude oil 🛢️ and natural gas 🔥.
You get the sense that Russ Cargill is the kind of the guy ♂︎ that shouldn't be leading the EPA but is anyway against everyone else's better judgment. But, he's especially bloodthirsty since as soon as the dome starts to not work, once the residents of Springfield try to break it and the first crack starts to show, he immediately defaults to blowing up the entire town 💥. He tricks the president into choosing the "bomb option" so that he can wipe out the town, kill everyone in it, so he can destroy the evidence of what he and the EPA have been doing. He rightfully fears investigations and public backlash for what he and the EPA are doing because it's blatantly illegal and morally wrong. It's a textbook example of government overreach, authoritarianism and tyranny, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. Russ Cargill was given the authority by the president to place a large dome over Springfield, he is in charge of the lives of thousands of people (I don't know the exact population of Springfield, but I'm guessing it's somewhere in the thousands). He gets to decide whether these people live or die, and that power gets to his head. He openly admits to going mad with power.
And when the people of Springfield defy him, his first instinct is try to kill them. Not just because he's gone mad with power and has developed something of a god complex, being in charge of so many of people, and having the ability to decide their fates, but also because he fears legal repercussions for what he's doing, and perhaps even fears embarrassing the US government 🇺🇸 in front of the rest of the country and the entire world. I mean, if other countries learned that the US 🇺🇸 sealed an entire population of its own people inside of a dome, and kept them trapped in there for months, not letting any supplies get in, and pretty much letting that town and its people die slowly die, all because their lake was polluted, they would have a field day with it.
America 🇺🇸 would not hear the end of it, especially from its great adversaries, Russia 🇷🇺, China 🇨🇳, North Korea 🇰🇵, and Iran 🇮🇷. They'd all be acting morally superior, saying that they would never trap their own people in a dome over a polluted lake. So better to just kill them all and destroy all the evidence to protect him, his career, and his reputation, and the reputation of the United States 🇺🇸. He's essentially pulling a Derek C. Simmons from Resident Evil 6. Even though I think blowing up the town 💥 would actually make things worse, especially if word got out that's what they were doing. It would probably be a bigger blow to the US 🇺🇸's reputation worldwide. Because hey, the US government 🇺🇸 just blew up one of its own towns and killed thousands of its own people, they must be crazy, they must be evil.
But, Russ Cargill's not really thinking about the repercussions of his actions, his attempts to cover his tracks, he's just thinking about saving his own skin. And then when the bomb plan doesn't work, once Homer and Bart thwart it by throwing the bomb on top of the dome, on the outside of it, and destroying the dome in the process, Russ Cargill decides to kill Homer in one final act of petty revenge, which is luckily thwarted by Maggie dropping a rock 🪨 on his head, either knocking him out or killing him. Given that it was a rock 🪨 and given the size of it (it looked pretty big), I'm pretty sure that would've killed him, but given how cartoony The Simpsons can often be, and how cartoony this movie particular is, and how often characters in this show and movie can just shake off injuries that would kill a normal person in real life (a lot of characters die in this movie and later come back in the main series as if nothing ever happened), it's hard to say if it actually killed him or not. Especially since we never see him again after this. So, he might as well be dead 🤷♂️. Since he is voiced by Albert Brooks though, I do wonder if they named him Russ Cargill as a nod to his role as Marlin in Finding Nemo and later Finding Dory, since you know, the word "gill" is in his last name and Marlin's a fish 🐠 (a clownfish to be more exact) 🤔. Probably not, but it's a fun thought.
They actually had a hard time nailing this character because he even through a radical redesign very late into production, like months from when the movie was supposed to release on July 27, 2007. At first, he looked like an older man ♂︎ wearing a sweater vest and with a rescinding hairline and a unibrow. He was still voiced by Albert Brooks, but his voice was different. He had more of a Donald Rumsfeld type of voice, they wanted him to sound Donald Rumsfeld because I guess besides George W. Bush himself, out of everyone in the Bush administration, Rumsfeld was the biggest punchline and was the easiest to make fun of. But, they decided to change his design and his voice after it tested poorly in test screenings they held for the film and after Albert Brooks expressed difficulty voicing the character as he was, and getting anything out of him.
They made him look more like a middle aged man ♂︎ with a full head of hair and more vigor and like a typical government guy ♂︎ or businessman wearing a suit and tie. And of course, they changed his voice to make him sound more like a dapper smooth talker, since a lot of his scenes are with President Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a lot of them are him manipulating President Schwarzenegger into doing what he wants. Some people don’t really like Russ Cargill as a character or as a villain, and think he’s forgettable, but I like him. The fact I was able to talk so passionately about him here shows how much I like him as a character and a villain. Especially since there are some funny moments with him, one of the most iconic moments in the entire film involves him. The part where Bart tricks him into calling himself a wiener by saying that if he kills him and Homer, he’ll never know where the treasure is buried, and the treasure is, The Treasure of ImaWiener. And he does have some funny lines here and there at least in my opinion.
I distinctly remember that on the DVD 📀 for this movie, besides, the usual FBI warning, they also had an EPA warning, saying that they do not condone the depiction of them in this movie, and the real organization doesn't resemble anything that's in the movie. Which is pretty funny that they had to point out that. I guess they were worried that people would walk away from this movie hating the EPA and seeing them as evil. You know, they tried to kill the Simpsons. Considering that this was likely people's first exposure to the EPA, it certainly was mine (I didn't know the EPA even existed until I saw this movie), that was probably the right call. Even if that EPA warning is not in the actual movie, and was something that was only on the DVD 📀 when it was released on home media months after its theatrical release had wrapped up. So, people wouldn't have received this message until they popped in the DVD 📀 and pressed play. If you had only seen this in theater, or if you skipped those warnings at the beginning before the move actually starts, you'd have no idea you weren't supposed to hate the EPA for real.
I don't think David Silverman, or Matt Groening, anyone else involved in the production sought out to make an anti-EPA movie. They're all pretty liberal-minded people and they clearly care about the environment, this is not an anti-environmentalist movie at all. It's not pro-fossil fuels or pro-pollution, far from it. It's just that they wanted to do a story where the Simpsons were on the run from the government after a mistake Homer made, and the rest of Simpsons family turning against him as a result. And the only way they could think to do that was to have Homer pollute the lake by dumping a silo full of his pet pig 🐖's feces (as well as his own) into it, and then make the EPA the central antagonist since they're acting against his act of environmental carelessness. Albeit in it a heavy handed and authoritarian way. But to make it clear that they weren't try to vilify the EPA as a whole or that weren't against environmentalism as a whole, they singled out Russ Cargill as the real evil one. The one who was going against the EPA's core principles, its founding principles, and distorting them. Using the organization to serve his own ends rather than serve the needs of the environment, which is what the EPA is supposed to do. Or at least, that’s the way I see it.
Even though this movie fall into the "shithead" depiction of Homer, I do think that it works. In this movie at least. I can’t speak for the rest of the series because like I said I haven’t actually watched it. Even Homer is a dick for almost the entire first half of this movie, he does go through a redemption arc, where he's forced to confront his mistakes and his shortcomings and correct them after he risks loses everything. His family completely abandons him after he refuses to go with them to help save Springfield, and after he receives spiritual guidance from an Inuk shaman, he travels back to Springfield to reunite with his family and save the town that once rejected him...and his family. We shouldn't overlook the fact that the town didn't just reject Homer and drive him out, they also drove out the rest of the family too except for Grandpa. They targeted them and tried to lynch them too just by association. And they lied about it too, they lied that they didn't want to kill the rest of the family and all they wanted was Homer, but as soon as they broke into the house, they immediately targeted them and tried to kill them. They even set up nooses for all five of them, including the baby, Maggie.
When you look at it like that, you can sort of see why Homer initially refused to go back and help these people. I'm of course not excusing any of Homer's actions or saying what he did was right, it wasn't. What Homer did was wrong. But you can see where Homer's coming from in that instance. Why would he want to go save a group of people that tried to kill him and his family after they said they wouldn't and all they wanted was him? The townspeople are actually pretty shitty when you think about. Not only did they lie about not wanting to kill the rest of the Simpsons family besides Homer, not only did they try to lynch them all, they too are responsible for the town getting put under a dome by the EPA. It wasn't just Homer that polluted the lake, it was the entire town. They're the reason why the lake passed the point of no return. Homer just pushed it over the edge. It was a collective failure on all of their parts. It reflects badly on all of them. They just chose to scapegoat Homer (and by extension, his family) because it was convenient for them and it made them feel better about themselves. These people would rather murder an entire family than take responsibility for their own actions. If you were Homer in this situation you'd probably feel the same way.
But despite that, Homer decides to go save the town anyway. He puts aside his own selfishness to do the right thing, even if the people he's saving aren't fully deserving of it. But he's not doing it for them, he's doing it for his family. He knows that he ruined his relationship with his family, that he drove away with his own selfish and cruel actions, and that he still cares about them. He realizes that he doesn't actually like being alone, and he still wants them apart of his life. So, he goes on this journey, more than anything else, to make things right with his family, to repair that relationship by showing that he does still care. He does all this to prove to them and himself that he is capable of caring about others other than himself, and he is willing to put others before himself. He's willing to risk his life to save their lives and save the lives of those who didn't care him at all and threw him under the bus the moment it was convenient for them.
The fact that he does go through a redemption in this movie makes his actions and statements earlier on in the movie in the first half a lot easier to swallow. He goes from being an asshole and somewhat abusive father to being a hero. He's still dumb, he's still a bit of a doofus, but he's more enlightened, selfless, and ultimately heroic. Even is this character arc doesn't carry over to the actual series, even if everything just goes back to the same status quo that it was before, it's at least something. You have to admit that. It works for a movie, that's what this is, it is a movie first and foremost. Characters do have to change and grow...most of the time. Some people can make it work where the characters don't really change or grow and are largely the same people at the end of the movie that they were at the beginning, but that is a lot harder to do and do right, and it's much less common. It's common in movies to have characters change and grow as the movie progresses, until by the end of it, they're almost a completely different person than they were at the beginning. And it's a lot easier and simpler to do because people generally understand progression and want it. They want things to progress rather than stay stagnant. Stagnation is boring, while progression is exciting. And positive progression, as in a character becoming a better person over time, is the most fulfilling and often times inspiring.
If he didn't through a redemption arc, if he didn't at all learn from his mistakes and try to fix them the moment he was given the chance, it would a lot harder to accept the things he does and says in the first half of the movie, and you'd be less willing to forgive him or root for him. But, being said, I do think that your enjoyment of this movie will largely depend on your willingness to forgive Homer for everything he does in the first half. For some, what Homer does in the first half is unforgivable, even if he does end up saving the town. For them, it's not enough, and it doesn't forgive what he did, how treated his family, especially his son Bart, who he does choke out at least twice. And of course, he dares his son to skateboard 🛹 to Krusty Burger 🍔 naked, he does it, and then blames his son for his actions when he gets caught and handcuffed to a pole by the police instead of taking responsibility.
Which BTW, that was another one of the scenes that was all over the marketing for this movie, besides the Spider-Pig scene 🐖 and the Harry Plopper scene 🐖 (which wasn't really a scene, as much as just a shot), the naked Bart skateboarding scene 🛹. I'm surprised that they were able to get away with a scene like that and still get a PG-13 rating, especially since you do actually see Bart's penis briefly during that scene. Sure, for most of that, they do everything they can to cover his private parts, but there is one moment where he's skating past a wall or a hedge that has a window in it, and you just see his penis and his balls. Maybe because it wasn't sexualized in any way, they were able to get away with it, but it's crazy that the movie wasn't instantly slapped with an R rating after that. Especially considering Bart's a kid, you know he's a minor. It is kind of funny though that this movie had a nude scene just like The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 🧽.
That's one of the weird coincidences surrounding these movies. In fact, they do have a lot in common. They're both animated movies based on long running shows centered around characters who are yellow 🟡, they both have a scene where one of the main characters gets naked and makes a fool out of themselves, and they have plots that involve the main characters leaving their home towns and going on a journey, while their home towns fall into chaos in their absence. The details are different, but the broad strokes are the same. It kind of reinforces the idea that SpongeBob 🧽 is the 21st century equivalent to The Simpsons, even though it did come out in 1999 which is still in the 20th century (albeit at the very tail-end of it), it is Gen Z's equivalent to The Simpsons, what The Simpsons meant to Gen X and Millennials, SpongeBob 🧽 means to Gen Z. It's that one is more explicitly made for kids than the other, and one has gone on far longer than the other, and therefore has much longer lasting legacy and impact on pop culture. Though SpongeBob 🧽 is pretty close, as close as any show can be in the aftermath of The Simpsons.
I guess the thing that kept me going and prevented me from outright hating Homer for the things he was doing or saying, and why I was still willing to root for him as the protagonist of this story, he's still funny. Even when he's doing horrible stuff and being a horrible person, he's still funny, he still makes you laugh 🤣 when he's being stupid or being a jerk. Plus, he does take a beating throughout this movie. There's a lot of slapstick moments involving him in this movie, including the famous fish electrocution scene 🐟⚡️, or the scene where he pokes himself in the eye 👁️ with a hammer 🔨 and then falls off the roof while trying to do handy work, or the scene where Bart is shooting him with a BB gun while he carries a stack of bricks 🧱 on his back while a fake Fox advertisement appears on screen for a few moments, or the scene where he's getting beat up by the angry mob, or the scene where the shaman is trying to get Homer to have an epiphany and he keeps thinking of dumb stuff and those trees 🌳 keep slapping him in the face 👋 every time he says something dumb and irrelevant, until they get fed up and just start pulling his body apart. Even after he has the epiphany and goes on his journey back to Springfield, he still gets beat up. He mauled by his own sled dogs who then run away after mauling him because they were angry 😡 at him for whipping constantly through the whole journey and they just have had enough and they decide to just attack him when they stop to rest for the night. So the movie definitely doesn't let him off the hook. It's constantly punishing him for being an asshole and having zero self awareness.
There is one more thing I want to talk about before I talk about the marketing of this movie, and that's the scene where Homer refuses to go with the rest of the Simpsons family to go save Springfield being blown up 💥. After the family tells Homer that they're saving Springfield no matter what, he responds by telling that they're staying in Alaska because they have a great life there, and they're never going back to America 🇺🇸 again. He of courses says "we" during this scene because he still believes that he has authority over the rest of the family, and they'll just do what he says just because he's the father, he's the patriarch of the family. He didn't at all conceive that they would defy him and just leave without him, he just couldn't imagine that they would do that. He of course doesn't realize how little respect they have for him at this point in the story. Even Marge, who's been at his side all this time and has defended him and forgiven him for all his transgressions, every person he has wronged, reaches her breaking point with him and decides to severe ties with him after she repeats the same line he said to her when trying to convince her that running away to Alaska is a good idea, and he says, "That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" without a hint of self-awareness.
And of course, he leaves the house, their big log cabin in the snowy mountains 🏔️ of Alaska, and he says "I have spoken," which later becomes the catchphrase for a Star Wars character from the Disney+ series, The Mandalorian, the character Kuiil, voiced by Nick Nolte back when you could still understand him. But the people who made this movie didn't know that, that's just a funny little coincidence. Just like how they didn't know that 20th Century Fox would get bought out by Disney and The Simpsons and all the other Fox properties would be owned by them when they wrote that Disney joke, where Bart is rummaging through people's luggage on the train 🚊 they're on to get to Seattle to warn the rest of the country and the world about what the EPA is planning to do to Springfield, and he puts a bra on his head to look like Mickey Mouse ears and he mockingly says "I am the mascot of an evil corporation," mimicking Mickey's voice.
But, the scene where Homer says, "We're never coming back to America 🇺🇸" again," and then he leaves, would've been a great opportunity for a joke that I feel the writers missed out on. It would've been a great opportunity for the filmmakers to point out that Alaska is apart of the US 🇺🇸, which should be obvious, but it isn't for a lot of people.There's a lot of people in this country don't even know that Alaska and Hawai‘i are US states 🇺🇸. I mean, these are the a lot of the same people who don't even know that New Mexico is a US state 🇺🇸, they either think New Mexico is apart of Mexico 🇲🇽 or that it's separate country. It's neither, it's a US state 🇺🇸, and the people that live here (including myself) are just as American 🇺🇸 as everyone else. I guess that's the joke that they were making, that's what they were making fun of by having Homer say that Alaska isn't apart of the US 🇺🇸 (or something to that effect). It's pointing out how ignorant a lot of Americans 🇺🇸 are about, not just the rest of the world, but of their own country. But, to really bring that point home, I think they should've had one of the characters, either Lisa or Bart (probably Lisa) point out that ignorance, because unfortunately a lot of people just don't get subtly and kind of need things like that to be spelled out to them. But, even putting that aside, I just think it would've been a funny joke to have one of the character say, "Doesn't he realize that Alaska's apart of the US 🇺🇸?" and then have another character (probably Marge) say, "Oh, let him live in his ignorance" while rolling their eyes 🙄.
Oh, and while we're still talking about the Alaska section of this movie, I do wonder, was anyone at all fooled by the "To be continued" joke when they saw this in the theater? Like, when that popped on screen, and did anyone actually the movie was over and there going to be a part 2? Did anyone start getting up from their seats until the "Immediately" message popped, and the realized it was all just a joke and sat back down? I bet most people when they saw that were probably a bit confused like, "What? To be continued? The movie's not even over yet" or "To be continued? Is the movie really over? It's the shortest movie I've ever seen. Nothing was resolved. There must be a part 2 that we don't know about" 😕, until the "Immediately" came on screen, and they realized it all just a joke. It was a fourth breaking joke at the audience's expense, to see how gullible they are, they were punking the audience a bit there. I actually didn't even remember that part when I saw the movie in theaters either time that I did. So, when I rewatched it on DVD 📀, I was all confused 😕, like "Why is this here?" and I didn't even fully grasp that it was a joke. And all the years, I still kind of misremembered it as saying "Intermission," like it was an "Intermission" joke poking fun at how movies used to have intermissions, especially if they were long, like well 2 hours or 3 hours. Like, instead of having a real intermission, it's a fake intermission that ends immediately after it came on screen.
But no, it was actually a "To be continued" joke, poking fun at movies that have two parts and will end with a "To be continued" message at the end after a cliffhanger. Even movies that aren't explicitly two part movies (as in, one movie that's split into two parts because it would've been way too long if it were one movie, and they don't want audiences to sit there for 4 or 5 hours) like the Matrix sequels did this. The Matrix Reloaded ends with a cliffhanger and has a "To be continued" at the end of it, to let you know the next movie, The Matrix Revolutions will continue the story right where it left off. Since both movies were shot back-to-back, and were released the same year, 2003, just months apart. It could be argued that Reloaded and Revolutions are just one movie split into two parts, even if they weren't titled as such, so having a "To be continued" message at the end of Reloaded does make sense when you look at it from that angle.
The only thing missing was a "Previously on..." recap at the beginning of Revolutions, but even actual two-part movies don't do that sort of thing. Like, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows didn't do it, nor did The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, or The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, or Dune. I haven't seen those last two movies, but I am pretty confident they didn't a "Previously on..." recap. I guess Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning did that, even if they dropped the whole Dead Reckoning title and just decided to call it The Final Reckoning. But because they decided to do that, it's weird that you have one movie called Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, only for the second part to be called The Final Reckoning and not Dead Reckoning Part Two. Either way though, it was a joke poking fun at cinema. They knew they were making a movie, and they wanted to include some jokes that they could only make with a movie on the big screen.
They even did this little short film or ad (I'm not sure what it was supposed to be), poking fun at that old concession stand commercial that would always play in movie theaters back in the day, the one where the different concession stand snacks and drinks would sing, "Let's all go to the lobby." They did that, only they featured Homer as well as he started eating all the snacks and all get scared 😰 and try to run away from him as he eats them all. It was included on the DVD 📀 as one of the special features, along with that fake THX trailer where Homer beats up Tex (the robot mascot for THX created for the Pixar THX trailers that played in front of all the golden age era Pixar movies from the 1990s and early 2000s on the DVD releases 📀) after he wakes up him from his nap with all that racket.
This also isn't the first time The Simpsons did a joke about THX, since they did a THX joke in the actual show. It was poking fun at how loud and kind of scary the Deep Note is. That is something that surprised me once I started getting more online, people were actually scared of the THX Deep Note. I wasn't. I thought it was cool. But, that maybe because my dad's into home theaters and surround sound systems, and he kind of got me into that stuff. So, I knew what that was, and I wasn't intimidated by like a lot of children who didn't have sound enthusiasts as their dads. Speaking of things I didn't remember about the movie until I rewatched the movie on DVD 📀 when the movie came out on DVD 📀, the fake Fox advertisement. I didn't remember that all when I saw this in the theater, and when I saw it on DVD 📀, I was genuinely confused 😕. I thought there was something wrong with the DVD 📀 at first, until I realized that it was apart of the movie. It's a clever joke that perhaps didn't age entirely well considered that the movie's no longer in theaters and the illusion is just completely gone, I just didn't remember it from either of my two theatrical viewings until I rewatched it on DVD 📀.
There's also the Happy Feet 🐧 joke in the movie, that's wrapped inside of a Grand Theft Auto joke. After that scene where Homer refuses to go with the rest of the Simpsons family to save Springfield, and he storms out of the cabin in a huff 😤, it's the next day, and he's at a bar cleverly or not-so cleverly called Esk-i-Moe's (implying that there's an Alaskan version of Moe out there and he may be an Alaskan Native, either an Inuk or Yupik) playing an arcade game called Grand Theft Walrus, which is clearly supposed to be a parody of Grand Theft Auto only with a walrus, and the walrus stops right next to a penguin 🐧 that starts tap dancing just Mumble in Happy Feet 🐧, and the walrus just shoots him in response. The fact that this movie made a Happy Feet 🐧 joke just shows how much of a cultural impact that movie had.
Sure, it was only released a year later, but there are movies that are released today that aren't even remembered by the following year. That's how little of an impact they made. But, Happy Feet 🐧 did, even though it was an original movie, it wasn't apart of some IP, or adapted from preexisting source material. Even The Expendables made a Happy Feet 🐧 joke. If an R rated action movie aimed at adults who grew up watching 1980s action movies when they were probably too young to be watching such movies (since they were also R rated), as well as people who were adults when those movies came out but still watched them, enjoyed them, and have a lot of fond memories about them makes a joke about your movie, you know you made it. Even when Happy Feet 🐧 got a sequel, it failed to make the same cultural impact that the first one did when it was just a stand alone movie with a self-contained story.
The marketing was kind of insane. You could tell that they spent a lot of money 💵 on the marketing because this movie was kind of everywhere. Even if you weren’t a Simpsons fan, you couldn’t escape it, or at least, that’s how it felt. I remember first learning about this movie through Ice Age: The Meltdown 🧊 and X-Men: The Last Stand, because they included a sneak preview for the movie on the DVD releases 📀 of each movie. It was a rough animatic of the sled dog scene 🛷. And then after that, I saw one of the teaser trailers, the one that features that CGI animation of that bunny 🐰 that makes it seem like it’s going to be a wholesome family friendly animated movie, only for the bunny 🐰 to accidentally get crushed and probably killed by the title of the movie, which is presented by Moe who proudly proclaims that the movie’s in 2D. Prematurely poking fun at the 3D trend that would start after the release of Avatar (2009).
And then it showed a clip of the scene where Homer tries to free his family from an EPA truck that’s transporting them back to Springfield using a wrecking ball, but the wrecking ball swings back at him, and then slams him back and front against a rock 🪨 and a saloon looking building called A Hard Place. It’s literally a joke about how Homer is stuck between a rock 🪨 and hard place. That teaser trailer even played in theaters, and it got a huge laugh every time it played. 20th Century Fox and the people in charge of the marketing wanted you to know that this movie was coming, and they did a pretty good job at making it feel like something big was coming. And the movie definitely was an event. People lined up to go see it, and when the theater I first saw it in was packed. People were laughing at all the jokes. I don’t think they clapped or applauding anything 👏, but I do know they laughed at all the jokes. It was a pretty good experience.
That’s why 2007 was a great year for movies, it felt like every big movie that came out that year was an event, and they each had huge marketing campaigns attached to all of them. The only one that didn’t was Ratatouille 🐀, but it was still a big movie because it was a Pixar movie. It was Pixar’s golden age (here we go talking about golden ages again), every movie they made was an event and everyone showed up to go see them, even adults without kids. Oh, and there’s Dragon Wars 🐉, that movie didn’t really have a huge marketing campaign attached to it, and the movie kind of flopped in the United States 🇺🇸 as a result. But that’s an original movie, it’s a foreign movie even though it features a predominantly English speaking cast and takes place in LA, and it’s more a niche thing with a limited appeal. But, in case of this movie, The Simpsons Movie, this movie was pretty huge. It grossed over $536.4 million 💵 worldwide against a $75 million budget 💵.
Keep in mind, this movie came out the same month as Transformers (2007), just a few weeks after that movie, and it still held its own. If that’s not impressive, I don’t know what is. It’s kind of unimaginable now for a 2D animated movie to be this successful and to have this much of a marketing push. Not even Paramount pulled out all the stops for the marketing campaign for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 🧽 as 20th Century Fox did for The Simpsons Movie, and that movie was actually made during the peak of that show’s popularity. And of course, all of the sequels got even less of a marketing push than the first one did, with Sponge on the Run 🧽 barely having any marketing at all. But to be fair, that movie’s release was hijacked by COVID 🦠, just like every other movie released during that time.
Search for SquarePants got a little bit of a marketing push, but not anywhere close to approaching The Simpsons Movie’s marketing. The big marketing thing related to that movie was that billboard of SpongeBob 🧽 being almost completely naked except for a Christmas gift bow 🎄🎁 covering his crotch area and doing a sexy pose. That got a lot of people talking for all the wrong reasons. The marketing for The Simpsons Movie on the other hand was truly gargantuan. 20th Century Fox truly did pull out all the stops for a movie that was in development for almost a whole decade, and was based on show that was 18 years old by that point. They made sure there was maximal awareness for this movie, even amongst people who weren’t Simpsons fans like myself. Unlike Paramount with Search for SquarePants, who barely did any marketing and ensured that there was minimal awareness for that movie. I mean there was a special limited time XBox 360 that was colored yellow 🟡 and had Homer’s face on it. I wonder if anyone actually bought those, and if they still own them. Can you imagine going to someone’s house, and the XBox 360 they have is the special limited time Simpsons Movie one? That would be pretty insane. Just like those people who bought the limited time PS4 that was colored like a PS1 for the 20th anniversary. I so wanted one of those, but I never got one. I was just stuck with the standard black one.
There was the Burger King 🍔 tie-in, where they actually sold Simpsons Movie toys with every kid’s meal. A lot of movies did Burger King 🍔 tie-ins during that time, not just this movie but also Transformers (2007), Iron Man (2008), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek (2009), Iron Man 2. I don’t remember if Spider-Man 3, The Incredible Hulk (2008), Transformers: Dark of the Moon 🌑, and Star Trek Into Darkness got Burger King 🍔 tie-ins, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. Even SpongeBob 🧽 got a Burger King 🍔 tie-in. Not just the movie, but the show itself. Usually they were to promote the latest special/TV movie like Atlantis SquarePantis, Pest of the West 🤠, Truth or Square, SpongeBob vs. The Big One 🧽🌊, Friend or Foe?, SpongeBob’s Last Stand 🧽🪼, Legends of Bikini Bottom. That was kind of the golden age of Burger King 🍔 tie-ins for SpongeBob 🧽 TV movies and specials from 2007-2011. Now you see those anymore. The only Burger King 🍔 tie-in that SpongeBob 🧽 has got recently was the one for Search for SquarePants. They even created a special burger 🍔 for it, which wasn’t very good from what I’ve heard. But then again, Burger King 🍔 gets a bad wrap overall, and I like Burger King 🍔, so I don’t exactly trust the Internet 🛜’s opinion on that. I remember seeing the commercials on TV promoting that tie-in.
And of course, there were those 7-Elevens that were redecorated to look like Kwik-E-Marts, which is the convenience store owned and operated by the character, Apu. The one that was canceled on social media back in the early 2020s. Only 11 stores were selected to be transformed into Kwik-E-Marts, so it definitely wasn’t a nationwide thing. I don’t remember seeing one of those in Albuquerque, so it’s pretty safe to assume that none of the 7-Elevens in Albuquerque or New Mexico as a whole were selected to become Kwik-E-Marts in the lead-up to the movie’s release. They even held a contest to see which Springfield in the US 🇺🇸 would host the premiere of the movie, since the town in the movie and the show is called Springfield. The Springfield that won was Springfield, Vermont, which beat out Springfield, Illinois. So, that town got to host the premiere of this movie, and people of that town got to see it before anyone else. That was pretty cool. I wish movies did that, regardless of whether they’re based on a cartoon show or not. If I ever make a cartoon show that’s set in Albuquerque, and I make a movie based on it, I’ll be sure to host the premiere there since that’s where I grew up, that’s where I lived most of my childhood, and the show and the movie takes place there. It’s only fair that the people who live there get to see it first before anyone else.
Maybe it's because I always play it on my TV and not in handheld mode, maybe it's because I have the OLED version, but I never thought that the picture quality was ever bad or subpar. I always thought the picture quality was good. I feel like people who complain about the picture quality got spoiled playing video games in 4K and at 60 frames per second. The Switch 1's picture quality is at 1080p and not 2160p, that's why they don't like it and say that it's bad and it's technologically behind the competition 🙄. People have been saying Nintendo's consoles are outdated for years. That was one of the reasons why people complained about the Switch 2 when it was announced and why they called for a boycott that never materialized besides the price, it was technologically behind the other consoles that were available on the market at the time.)
Even the game, The Simpsons Game, while that wasn’t directly tied to The Simpsons Movie, it definitely took advantage of the hype surrounding the movie. And the hype definitely was real. While hardly anyone talks about this movie anymore, the hype was real. I was hyped for it even though I wasn’t a Simpsons fan and I had never watched the show before. And I loved it, I was obsessed with it. I saw the movie in theaters at least twice (I don’t remember how many times I saw it, but it was definitely more than once), and when it came out on DVD 📀, I rewatched it repeatedly. It didn’t make me a Simpsons fan, I didn’t start watching the show after that, but it got me into donuts 🍩, specifically donuts with pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles. I started eating pink donuts with rainbow sprinkles because of this movie, and every time I see a pink donut, I always think of this movie and the show as a whole, and Homer specifically. If you want to know the full extent of The Simpsons Movie’s marketing, go watch YungJunko’s video on it. I don't entirely agree with what he has to say about the movie itself, but his video does give you a pretty good idea of how big the marketing campaign for this movie was, and how it arguably had a longer lasting legacy than the movie itself.
It does make me wonder though, what will the marketing for the second movie be like? It probably won’t be anywhere near as big as the marketing for this movie. I don’t even know if it’ll do well. I’m sure won’t make $500 million 💵 or more, I’d be pretty shocked if it did, especially given the way ticket sales are and the way people’s viewing habits are. People aren’t going to the theaters as frequently as they once they did when this movie came out. I hope it does well, especially since this one’s 2D animated. Not even any of the SpongeBob Movie 🧽 sequels, except for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water 🧽💦, got to be 2D animated. Almost every theatrically released animated movie nowadays is 3D animated, unless it’s an anime movie. I am worried that people will bank on The Simpsons Movie 2 to bring 2D animation back to theaters, they’ll put that expectation on this movie. Like the viability of 2D animation in theaters will all depend on this movie’s success and I don’t think that’s far. This movie should be able to exist on its own without having to carry that weight on its shoulders. I know people want to see more 2D animated movies in theaters, I do too, but please give it a break. Just let this movie be and succeed or fail on its own merits without having the fate of 2D animation as a whole to worry about. I’m just wondering why it’s release date was changed from July 23, 2027 to September 3, 2027. I hope it was just a matter of them needing more time to finish the animation, to put the finishing touches on it, and not any actual production issues. And I hope Disney just left the Simpsons team alone to cook, instead of interfering with the production in any way.
But since the movie is coming out next year in 2027, I do wonder, does it count as a legacy sequel 🤔? I know Patrick Willems defined a legacy sequel as being a sequel to a movie made at least 15 or 20 years after the first movie, despite this movie coming out exactly 20 years after the first movie, on the 20th anniversary, I doubt it will actually be a direct sequel to the movie. I think it’ll be a pretty stand alone, self-contained story with a new conflict, a new villain with no relation to what happened in this movie. I doubt it’ll play that much on nostalgia like a normal legacy sequel would. Which, is something I appreciate about this movie watching it years later, it didn’t rely on nostalgia. It wasn’t constantly referencing things in the past, things in the earlier seasons (the classic era), repeating the same jokes. Sure, it features a lot of characters from the show, a lot of the regular side characters that make up the residents of Springfield, most of them in short cameo roles. But, even if you don’t know any of those characters like I didn’t, you can still enjoy the movie pretty well.
That’s one of the things that made the movie accessible to non-fans, and why the movie was so massively successful beyond anyone’s expectations. They knew they weren’t just making a movie for the hardcore fans, they were making a movie for general audiences, and that approach paid off handsomely. The movie made half a billion dollars 💵 because of it. I hope the sequel takes a similar approach, and isn’t purely a nostalgia fest. If it does have nostalgia, I hope it’s just nostalgia from this movie for those us, like myself who are nostalgic for this movie, and really only know this movie and nothing else. Okay, that’s not completely true. I don’t know this movie, I know that one Disney short they did after the Fox merger. Where Lisa meets all the animated Disney villains, and gets recruited to become one. That was pretty cool, even if it was a big too short for my taste. I know it’s a short, but don’t make it too short.
There are a couple more things that I want to talk about before I finally wrap this up. I do think that this movie is pretty good at foreshadowing. Obviously, you have the church scene ⛪️, where Grandpa receives a message from God (pretty much confirming that God exists in the Simpsons universe, although they kind of already did in the actual show itself; Hell certainly exists in the Simpsons universe) prophesying the destruction of Springfield. Pretty everything Grandpa says during his freakout does happen at some point during the film. Obviously Homer gets a pet pig 🐖 from Krusty Burger 🍔, that's the twisted tail part, a squirrel 🐿️ gets mutated and grows sharp teeth and not necessarily a thousand eyes but at least over a hundred eyes after it jumps into the polluted lake (post-Homer dumping the pig crap silo into it) to evade a raccoon 🦝 that's chasing after it, and of course Springfield gets trapped inside of a dome, that's the trapped forever part, and the EPA is responsible, even though of course they don't pronounce it as if it's an acronym like E P A, they pronounce it as if it's a word "Eepah!"
It was actually supposed to be Marge having the vision in that scene, but they changed it to Grandpa because they thought it made more sense that people would ignore Grandpa and not take him seriously than it would them to ignore Marge and not take her seriously. Because she's one of the smarter characters in the series, one of the regular cast, and is one of the smartest people in Springfield, she has a level head. So, if she's having visions and predicting the destruction to Springfield, people would probably pay attention to her, and the story wouldn't really work. At least, the way they wrote or wanted to write, where a character gives a warning to the people of Springfield, they ignore it, and then that danger comes and Springfield is put in jeopardy. They all pay the price for not taking the warning seriously. So, it had to be a character who has very little credibility and wouldn't take seriously if they gave such a warning. And Grandpa fit the bill pretty well. He doesn't even remember being the one that delivered that message, saying "that crazy old man in church ⛪️ was right!" upon seeing the dome be lowered on top of Springfield, and of course later on, he joins the mob that storms the Simpsons' house and points a gun at his own family, a double barrel shotgun to be exact.
There's also the Green Day scene at the beginning of the movie which sets up that the polluted lake will be the main conflict of the movie, or at least be central to the movie's plot, and it directly leads into the pivotal church scene ⛪️. And of course, they foreshadow the climax of the movie, when Homer wins that truck they use to drive to Alaska by riding a motorcycle inside of that ball cage, and of course, Homer does the same thing at the end when he and Bart ride the motorcycle on the walls of the dome to dispose of the bomb by throwing it out of the hole on the top of the dome. It's not just foreshadowing though, everything this movie sets up (including jokes) is paid off. There are very little loose ends, or jokes without a punchline, they made sure if they set something up in this movie, that it's paid off by the end. I like movies that manage to do that, and not every movie does. Not every movie is good at foreshadowing or set up and pay off. I would say the only loose end this movie has is Spider-Pig/Harry Plopper 🐖. He kind of disappears after the angry mob scene after he knocks the Simpsons family off of that wooden plank that Flanders left for them to cross over to his house. I may have missed something when I was watching for this most recent rewatch because I distinctly remember there being a short clip of Spider-Pig/Harry Plopper 🐖 and the mutant multi-eyed squirrel 🐿️ helping out with repairs on the Simpsons' house, or at their dog 🐕, Santa's Little Helper's doghouse. That may have been a deleted scene, or I just wasn't paying attention that much at the end when I watched the movie for this review. But it did feel like for the most part, Spider-Pig/Harry Plopper 🐖 disappeared from the movie after his role in the story had been fulfilled.
The last thing I want to talk about is that similar to how a lot of SpongeBob 🧽 fans feel about The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 🧽, a lot of Simpsons fans feel that even though this movie obviously wasn't the finale to the entire series, it easily could have. While I never watched the show, and while The Simpsons was never a huge part of my life, I do sort of agree with this. Even though this wasn't the finale, and probably wasn't ever planned to be the finale, and they continued the show afterwards, and there's a second movie on the way, it does have some degree of finality to it. It feels like the end of a long series, everything is being resolved and being wrapped up. Even the other characters that aren't the Simpsons get their own little resolutions especially towards the end of the film, when Homer and Bart are trying to get rid of the bomb and throw it outside the dome before it detonates, the stakes are high, and no one's really sure if they're going to succeed or fail. This could be their last moment on Earth 🌎, and we see certain characters come to terms with the idea that they might die today, that they might not survive. What do you do in your last moments? While other characters get their revenge on other characters, and even one character dies.
The character that does die is Dr. Nick, the one that has an accent and always says "everybody." I only know that character's name because Cody from PointlessHub (and AlternateHistoryHub) referred to Matthew Broderick's character, Dr. Niko Tatopoulos in Godzilla (1998) as Dr. Nick in his review of that movie, and even showed a picture of him. Don't worry, Dr. Nick doesn't stay dead for long, since they brought him back in the show as if nothing ever happened. In fact, almost nothing from this movie is carried over or mentioned in the actual show, say for a few couch gags 🛋️ where we can see the house is still under reconstruction, and Russ Cargill makes a few brief appearances here and there in some episodes after the movie. Which either confirms that he didn't die there when Maggie dropped the rock 🪨 on his head, or it's a situation similar to how Dr. Nick died in the movie but came back in the series spick and span. Colin also makes some brief appearances in the show after the movie, but never any starring roles or speaking roles as far as I know. That could be another reason why this movie didn't have a lasting legacy beyond perhaps the marketing. To me, it's sort of similar to how characters that were introduced in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 🧽 like Mindy and Dennis made appearances in the show, but only in brief cameos, and often not really resembling their movie counterpoints in terms of voice and personality. Well obviously, they weren't going to match in voice because they couldn't get the voice actors from the movie because they were too expensive, but they could've at least kept their personalities consistent.
There's also the fact that the Simpsons' house gets destroyed by the sinkhole in their backyard thanks to Chief Wiggum and two of the other recurring cops from the series shoot it after the Simpsons escape and cause it to grow in size, the fact that the Simpsons leave Springfield and flee to Alaska, only to then come back, save the town and rebuild their house with the help of the same townspeople who drove them out after Homer's mistake. Homer becomes the hero of the town, and gets accepted back in, and reconnects with his family, even going as far to give Marge the best kiss of her life so far 😙 while holding her on the motorcycle while they ride through a scenic word with autumn trees with falling leaves 🍂 that cleverly transition into wood shavings to show that the Simpsons' house is being rebuilt with the help of the community after the townspeople accepted the family back in after Homer's heroism. It all feels very conclusive.
It's sort of like the ending of Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, which was the actual finale to that series, where the other kids in the Cul-de-sac meet Eddy's older brother and see how abusive he is towards Eddy, and then they stand up to him, and they accept Eddy and the other two Eds as part of the Cul-de-sac, and end up rejecting Jonny after he beats up the Ed boys ♂︎, not having witnessed the events that had transpired minutes before, and still believing that they were the enemies of the Cul-de-sac. You win some, and you lose some. Only, in The Simpsons Movie's case, it wasn't the conclusion to the series, it was just the conclusion to the movie, to this one story. But, even if this movie wasn't the finale to the series that fans think that it could've been, or should've been, depending on how they feel about the series going forward after this movie, or even before this movie when the show had "past its prime" and was no longer in the golden age, it was still kind of the end of an era for the series and the franchise as a whole.
The show had gone on for 18 years and 18 seasons why the time this movie came out, and after it came out, the show did change. I didn't watch the show before or after this as I've said numerous times, so I can't speak for myself, it seems like a lot of fans consider this movie to be the end of the post-classic era or post-golden age, and the true beginning of "modern Simpsons." Because after this, the show went onto have an additional 19 seasons, bringing the total number of seasons to 37 and the total number of episodes to 805, which is staggering. That's a lot. 37 seasons and 805 episodes, that's crazy. Most shows (animated or otherwise) could only dream of getting to that number. The Simpsons truly is one of a kind in that regard.
And of course ownership of the franchise as a whole changed hands as Disney acquired 20th Century Fox (or rather 21st Century Fox as the company was actually called, 20th Century Fox was just a label for their theatrical film releases) and all of its film and TV assets including The Simpsons of course. So now, Disney owns the franchise now, and seeing as they want a return on their investment, it seems they're going to continue the show for at least a little while longer. The show's on its 37th season now, and I have no doubt that it'll get a 38th, 39th, 40th, and many more to come. It was under them that the second movie was finally greenlit and is coming out after 20 years since this one. So if anything else, this movie represents a different era of The Simpsons and represents the end of that era. Some fans consider this movie to be the end of the so-called "shithead Homer," where Homer was unusually a jerk to pretty much everyone (particularly to Bart) and caused more harm than he did good. As in the seasons that followed this movie, Homer kind of mellowed out a bit, and became a bit nicer and less of an asshole, or should I say, shithead? He wasn't quite like his classic era counterpart but a far cry from his shithead post-classic era counterpart. Or at least, that's what I've heard from fans.
Now, the second movie will becoming out next year, on the 20th anniversary of this movie, and will represent the current era of The Simpsons. Will it be the end of the current era and usher in a new era? It's hard to say. The movie hasn't even come out yet at the time of me writing this. But either way, I can't wait to see it. I really enjoyed this movie and still have nostalgia for this movie, of course I'm going to show up to the next one. Hopefully it'll be good, and hopefully they'll do a 4K release of this movie 💿 in celebration of its 20th anniversary. And if not, at least do a theatrical re-release. Hey, if Avatar (2009) could get a theatrical re-release in the lead up to Avatar: The Way of Water 💦's release, Avatar: The Way of Water 💦 could get a theatrical re-release in the lead up to Avatar: Fire and Ash 🔥's release, The Mummy (1999) could get a theatrical re-release for its 25th anniversary, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace could gets its second theatrical re-release after the 3D re-release in 2012 for its 25th anniversary, and Jaws can get its third theatrical release after the limited theatrical re-release in 2015 for its 40th anniversary and the 3D re-release in 2022 for its 50th anniversary, then this movie can get a theatrical re-release for its 20th anniversary and in the lead up to The Simpsons Movie 2 too.
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