Worst. Trailer. Ever.
by Cosmo
12 November 2006
So it opens with a CGI bunny rabbit, hopping merrily about in CGI field of smiling CGI daisies. Then the logo, complete with gravelly-voiced Moe Szyslack, slams down on top of it all. “In this era of computer animation” declares the voice-over “one movie dares to be ugly”.
Cut to Homer in a wrecking ball-equiped crane, in a long, sweeping take so clearly put in motion through computer animation that you might mistake it for a Futurama outtake. Does whoever put this clip together think we’re stupid?
With a tagline like “One movie dares to be ugly”, apparently so. Not only has South Park set both the “ugly” and “daring” marks in modern animation, but it also beat its looming abecedary to the big screen by seven years. Was this approach to selling the film seriously the best the Fox marketing team could muster?
Not that it matters. Like Starwars I-III, The Simpsons Movie is essentially critic-proof, making marketing little more than a frivilous expectation of the film industry. Here’s to hoping they didn’t treat the script writing with similar disrespect.
But after what I saw during the remainder of the ad, I’m not hopeful. A single spark of real humor (the wrecking ball swinging into the cab of the crane) choking slowly to death through a strained, predictable and repetitive sight gag; a demise all too familiar to viewers of the show’s late corpus.
Nov 15, 05:30 PM
I wonder, Cosmo. Has the show gotten worse, or have we just been watching for too long?
I mean, when I am disappointed in the Simpsons these days (and I often am), it’s not because I think it’s bad, but because I always feel like I’ve seen this episode before. I can anticipate punch lines and sight gags with ease. The requisite snarky pop culture references induce eye rolling: I’ve been here before.
It’s possible that 12-14 year olds just becoming aware of the show now think it’s amazing because it’s new to them.
In other words, I think the Simpsons might be doing the same thing they’ve always done and just as well as ever. It’s us who’ve changed. We’re jaded.
Nov 17, 11:06 AM
That’s because you don’t have any of the first seasons on DVD. Back when every episode had an engaging plot and showed something about the characters. Now it’s a sitcom where the plot comes second if at all. If I wanted that I’d watch Family Guy.
I agree that it’s partly because the characters are used up—there’s nothing left to develop and partly because they have “done everything already”. But I also think that it’s about what the viewers want. Back in when I was Barts age, they were setting out to see if you could do a “real show” in animation. The standard was high, so the plots were well developed and there was much more sincerity all around. (An interesting graph would be the progression of the ratio of occurances of “love” to “doh!”.) Now they are the standard, and we gradually expect less and less. In fact, as a whole, I think we want quality less and less. Worse than jaded, that.
Recall that we were Bart’s age when that show started. Everything Bart did was immediately cool, essentially by definition. How could we not love that show.