The Simpsons Movie: the beginning of the end
Went to The Simpsons Movie last night, eager to see it, but scared of what I might get. There’s no great reason for the greatest television show of all time to splash itself all over the big screen. It smacks of an enterprise trying to reclaim its status as a vital bit of modern culture.
Indeed, the movie has something about it that suggests it is the beginning of the end for The Simpsons, that it may actually work better as a movie franchise than an ongoing television series.
It is, in parts, very funny. You do need to accept the fact that the writers have given in to the idea that Homer is a big fat jerk with no regard for anything or anybody other than himself, and that the tiny spark of goodness that used to redeem him has been extinguished. But get beyond that and there is some great slapstick, a hilariously tender moment between Homer and a pig and a brilliant Snow White pastiche. Also, Santa’s Little Helper gets perhaps the best line in the movie.
But it is only the best bits of several episodes put into one long one. Plus, the plot is a greatest hits collection: Homer is a jerk; Homer brings home and animal; Marge leaves Homer; Lisa gets a boyfriend; Bart wants a new Dad; Springfield faces environmental catastrophe. They’ve all been done before, in episodes with as many jokes in 24 minutes as this has in 80 minutes.
And this is the problem: there is nowhere left to go for The Simpsons. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut not only raised that animation to a properly cinematic level, but it also rejuvenated the series as a whole. But while Springfield may be pretty much destroyed in the movie, is it likely to lead a clearing out of the deadwood, a fresh start for the TV series?
You should see The Simpsons Movie, because it’ll be the best episode you’ll have seen for a while. Which is also the biggest reason to mourn its decline.
I am in no hurry to see this film. It’s hard to pinpoint when, precisely, The Simpsons began to flounder. I reckon a distinct drop in consistency started around the turn of the millenium. Then it just became a series of unfunny visual jokes, hammy guest appearances and lazy fish out of water trips.
Comment by Brock Landers | July 26, 2007 at 5:07 pmSouth Park, meanwhile, is improving with age if anything.
Brock, Matt Groening recently said that once they decided that it didn’t have to be a domestic sitcom, then they had endless plots. Homer in Space, the Simpsons go to Japan, etc. Some of those, to be fair, worked. The space episode, the one in Australia, Homer becoming the voice of Poochy the dog. But more recent ones haven’t. In a way, because South Park was outrageous from the start, it could always get away with more without tearing the heart out of it.
Comment by Shane | July 27, 2007 at 11:34 amI fell out of love with The Simpsons around the ‘02/’03 mark. That was when it got too painful to watch - akin to watching a beloved pet die at times.
This is what happened in my opinion - first, having used up every concept known to man, they ran out of coherent plot lines. So the show plodded along for a while as a disorganised series of jokes revolving largely around Homer.
Then the jokes ran out.
Now when I watch it, it is a parody of its former self.
It constantly references the fact that you don’t know where Springfield is. Or the fact that they have a “Simpsons go to [enter location here] episode” every now and again. Or the fact that they end each series with a lazy clip show.
These types of references are good when used sparsely and carefully - like in the episode where Marge gets imprisoned and Bart and Lisa, longing for her mothering touch, comment that it feels like they’ve been wearing the same clothes forever. But the modern references are far more lazy and overt than that - they’re loud signpostings which seem to have a desperation to them, like they’re saying “hey, remember the time when we were funny?”
As well as this, with the writers having long realised that Homer, as opposed to Bart, is the star of the show they have now worn him out. Where before he was silly, lazy and lovable he’s now little more than a clumsy alcoholic oaf who can do little but fall over and bang his head; it’s at this point that we’re supposed to laugh.
For me, this movie is the final and sad goodbye. After giving me years of amazingly funny television I owe it the price of a cinema ticket to pay my respects. After that, I don’t want to know.
It’s 20 years old and so it can be forgiven for going stale. What cannot be forgiven is the unwillingness of the cast and crew to open their eyes, read the now fading writing on the wall and call it quits. What makes me saddest of all is that new viewers are probably tuning into new episodes and saying “I thought this show was supposed to be funny”; and promptly disregarding everything that’s gone before it.
There’s nothing about quitting that The Simpsons should to be ashamed of - Family Guy has proven just how hard it is to get consistent quality and where it could only muster up 2.5 series of really good comedy, the Simpsons got around 10.
Futurama has shown that Groening still has some quality in him (although I don’t know if he’s written a Simpsons ep since series 1) and I’m sure the other writers would be similarly talented with a fresh subject.
South Park, on the other hand, only seems to get better. Watching early episodes of it is embarrassing now as they’re really just a collection of fart jokes put to bad animation. Shortly before the film there seemed to be an epiphany within it and while it got the wobbles shortly after Bigger, Longer’s release it has reached a new peak in recent times.
Part of the reason, I think.,is that they’re not afraid to put their opinions in each episode - in fact the show is really just a soapbox for them at this stage where their point is repeated as a loose metaphor uttered by hilariously bizarre characters. Another reason is the fact that South Park never pertained to contain anything even resembling reality - it was always over the top and wacky. The Simpsons was always just dysfunctional and only moved to the bizarre when it couldn’t think of anything else. It also seemed to lose it’s balls in regards to saying anything important just after 11th September 2001 - it never regained them.
Sorry for the extremely long rant, but I was one of many who, many years ago, could never had a conversation with a friend for which there wasn’t a suitable Simpsons quote (one which we all knew, of course).
Needless to say, it’s a show that was and still is dear to my heart.
Comment by Adam | July 28, 2007 at 7:13 pmAdam, No need to apologise for the rant - except for the fact that it makes me look lazy.
Comment by Shane | July 30, 2007 at 11:44 amIt’s not that hard to mark the decline - Season 10 (98/99) generally, and the episode in late 99 where Mr Burns captures the Loch Ness monster and it ends the show by being a bouncer in a casino specifically.
Lazy, lazy, lazy.
It is a / THE show of the ’90s
Comment by dealga | July 31, 2007 at 4:24 pmDealga, That Loch Ness monster esisode is about the worst I’ve seen. Sums up all that has gone wrong with the show.
Comment by Shane | July 31, 2007 at 4:40 pmI wouldn’t say it’s the worst I’ve seen, but dealga is spot on in it showing early symptoms of decline.
It was around that point that they gave up on actual story archs and started putting disjointed rubbish up instead.
Comment by Adam | August 1, 2007 at 11:32 amI like disjointed rubbish. But The Simpsons is giving disjointed rubbish a bad name.
Comment by Kieran | August 1, 2007 at 10:57 pmThe humour, plot lines and characters in the first 9-10 series were sophisticated and brilliant. So much so that I’d tune in to watch episodes I’d seen dozens of times, with great excitement. Now the slap-stick, repetitive humour, far-out plotlines and boring characters leave me struggling to get through an episode once.
Comment by Brian | August 3, 2007 at 5:25 amI’m going to keep things a lot simpler than other reviewers so far, the film just isn’t funny. I don’t care why it’s not funny, I don’t care about comparisons with South Park etc, The Simpsons the Movie is not funny. Dramas have got to drarm as wll as they can, Sci Fi has go to to Sci Fi us to infinity ( and somewhere else ) humour has got to be humorous, this aint.
Comment by Josh Rogan | August 6, 2007 at 1:02 pmThere’s a clear consensus among all of you that the show ran out of steam somewhere around the late 90s. I think the constant rotation of episodes has helped obscure its flabbiness, because you never really be sure what episode you’re going to get but most of those shown on the terrestrial channels seem to be from the earlier years. I’m waiting for someone to stand up for the modern version of the show, though - someone who’ll defend recent episodes. I may be waiting some time.
Comment by Shane | August 6, 2007 at 4:38 pmI thought, to be fair, that after nearly 20 years of stories and jokes, the simpsons movie lived up to its name. It did not feel like 3 0r 4 eps. strung together, but it was written and directed as a 90 minute film. I do not think the comedy has dropped , but more that it has noticably changed since when it first began.
Comment by Michael | August 13, 2007 at 1:29 pmMichael, At last a voice in support of The Simpsons. Plus, I’d agree with you that movie isn’t bad at all. Still not so sure about the TV series, though…
Comment by Shane | August 13, 2007 at 1:45 pm