Friday, October 21, 2011
"MY BIGGEST HOPE IS THAT IT COMES ACROSS AS A MUPPETS FILM AND NOT A JASON SEGEL FILM THAT THE MUPPETS HAPPEN TO BE IN" : Disappointed by the fart joke in the trailer and a script which they believe "creates a false history that the characters were forced to act out for the sake of this movie," Muppets veterans including Frank Oz kvetch to The Hollywood Reporter about the upcoming film.
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If it weren't so sad, this would seem like a well-executed prank. "Disney wanted to get into the Jason Segel business"? An article that paints Segel as the slick political Hollywood insider is just weird. And the Muppets acted out a false history in every movie, didn't they? It's been many, many years, but I thought the Muppets of Sesame Street were different from the Muppets of The Muppet Show were different from the Muppets of The Muppet Movie were different from the Muppets of The Muppets Take Manhattan. To reprise a theme we've sounded before, they're a theater company or a troupe that puts on different productions, not a set of characters with editorial continuity.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if Muppet vets are talking about the love that the characters had for one another, they have short memories. That was a dysfunctional, combustible group. Miss Piggy was always karate chopping people, Gonzo was getting blown up, shit was always breaking out in one way or another. There was that dude with the dynamite. Today we would call him a terrorist.
Ah, yes, from back in the day when I occasional wrote multiple paragraphs of my own thought:
ReplyDelete"<span>Much as <span>The Muppet Movie</span> is a movie-within-a-movie about how the Muppets received The Standard Rich & Famous Contract and became stars (including towards its end the newly-famous Muppets filming an origins film), <span>The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Great Muppet Caper</span> and all the other Muppet films should be seen as the other films the now-famous Muppet actors are making<span>within the universe of the first film</span>. In other words, the first film is a story about the "real" Muppets becoming actors, and the rest are the films those actors have made -- with Fozzie Bear playing a character named "Fozzie Bear," etc. It explains, for example, how the "Kermit" and "Miss Piggy" characters can marry (in a musical within a movie, but for "real") at the end of <span>Manhattan</span> yet this marriage isn't acknowledged in subsequent films. <span>These </span>are the movies which Lew Lord of Worldwide Pictures signed them to make. ..."</span>
So the new movie, if I understand it, could work either way. It could be a movie that the Muppets are making about a show troupe that fractured over the uneven distribution of fame and wealth within the troupe, or it could be the story of what happened to the Muppetsof The Muppet Movie, i.e., the Muppets that made Manhattan and Caper.
ReplyDeleteI suspect, anyhow, that the word "false" in the quote you used doesn't mean "literally false," as in continuity errors or retconning, but not true to the characters. But if that is the case, the solution is to view this is a movie that the real Muppets of The Muppet Movie are making about a fictionalized version of themselves, a kind of Charlie Kaufman or Arthur Phillips Muppet movie.
<span><span>[Whoa...don't know what happened with that last comment attempt...please delete]</span></span>
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<span><span>While I love the original performers and their dedication to the characters, who exactly was going to make this 'pure' movie they want? And would it be successful? After all, there have been more disappointing Muppet movies than exciting ones. And seriously, a fart joke? This is where Fozzie Bear draws the line? A vaudeville comic, with punch lines so old they need to be carbon dated, but supposedly he considers it beneath him to stoop to a whoopee cushion for a laugh?</span></span>
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<span>I have high hopes for the movie. The ads and the music videos (my 9yo is obsessed with Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody and Mahna-Mahna) have ensured that me and my 3 kids will be seeins the movie opening weekend, and hopefully we'll come home and they'll finally be interested in watching some episodes of the Muppet Show. If that's a widespread result, I think that Oz et al, will feel pretty silly about their sour grapes.</span>
Yes to everything y'all said. I have high hopes for the movie, but if it doesn't work, it won't be because of a whoopee cushion joke, or because Disney wants into the "Jason Segel" business.
ReplyDeleteWow, Frank Oz's movie was not made, and Jason Segal's was, and now Frank Oz and other Muppet longtimers (aka friends of Frank Oz) are griping? One would think they might be more gracious and/or wait and see if the ship is indeed sinking before so quotably deserting it.
ReplyDeleteAnd "[Dump on movie. Dump on more on movie.] But I don't want to go on about it like a sourpuss and hurt the movie," is less classy than having a bear make a fart joke.
Hmm. I thought Muppets Take Manhattan was a dream within a dream (Great Muppet Caper) within a dream (the Muppet Movie).
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