The Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated comedy film based on the Fox animated sitcom The Simpsons by Matt Groening. The film was directed by series veteran David Silverman (in his directorial debut) and stars the series' regular cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Pamela Hayden, and Tress MacNeille reprising their roles and Albert Brooks as the film's main antagonist, Russ Cargill, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The film follows Homer Simpson, who irresponsibly pollutes Springfield's local lake, causing the EPA to imprison the town under a giant glass dome. After he and his family escape to Alaska, they ultimately abandon Homer for his selfishness and return to Springfield to prevent the town's demolition by Cargill. Homer then works to redeem his folly by returning to Springfield himself in an effort to save it.
The Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons
by Matt Groening
- James L. Brooks
- Matt Groening
- Al Jean
- Mike Scully
- Richard Sakai
- July 21, 2007 (Springfield)
- July 27, 2007 (United States)
87 minutes[3]
United States
English
$75 million[4]
$536.4 million[4]
Although previous attempts to create a Simpsons film had been made, they failed due to the lack of a script. Eventually in 2001, producers James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Mike Scully and Richard Sakai began development on the film and a writing team consisting of Brooks, Groening, Jean, Scully, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder and Jon Vitti was assembled. They conceived numerous plot ideas, with Groening's being the one adapted. The script was rewritten over a hundred times, also continuing after work on the animation began in 2006. Consequently, hours of finished material was cut from the final release, including cameo roles from Erin Brockovich, Minnie Driver, Isla Fisher, Edward Norton, and Kelsey Grammer, who would have reprised his role as Sideshow Bob. Tom Hanks and the members of Green Day voice their own animated counterparts in the final cut of the film.
Tie-in promotions were made with several companies to promote the film's release, including Burger King and 7-Eleven, the latter of which transformed selected stores into Kwik-E-Marts. The film premiered in Springfield, Vermont, on July 21, 2007, and was released theatrically six days later on July 27 by 20th Century Fox across the United States. The Simpsons Movie grossed $536.4 million worldwide, becoming the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2007, the second-highest-grossing traditionally animated film (behind Disney's The Lion King) and the highest-grossing film based on an animated television series. The film received acclaim for its humor, emotional weight, writing and callbacks to early seasons, while being nominated for numerous awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film at the 65th Golden Globe Awards.
Plot[edit]
After finishing a concert at Lake Springfield, Green Day tries to engage the audience in a discussion about the environment, but they refuse to listen and throw trash at them. The pollution in the lake erodes the band's barge, causing them to sink and drown. During their memorial, Grampa Simpson has a spiritual experience and prophesies that a disaster will befall Springfield. However, only Marge takes his cryptic message seriously. Concerned about the terrible state of the environment, Lisa and her new friend Colin hold a seminar and convince the town to clean up the lake. Meanwhile, Homer dares Bart to skateboard to Krusty Burger naked, humiliating him when he is arrested. Homer follows Bart to Krusty Burger, and adopts a pig to save it from being killed by Krusty the Clown. Marge, identifying the pig as a part of the prophecy, warns Homer to get rid of it, but he refuses and names it Plopper. Homer's fawning over Plopper makes Bart, now fed up with Homer's carelessness, look to their neighbor, Ned Flanders, as a father figure.
Marge orders Homer to dispose of an overflowing silo full of Plopper's feces. Rather than dispose of it safely, as Marge had warned him to, he dumps the silo in the lake, critically polluting it, in order to get free donuts from the closing Lard Lad Donuts. Russ Cargill, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), informs President Arnold Schwarzenegger of Springfield's pollution crisis and presents him with five solutions. The president randomly picks the third option: sealing Springfield off from the rest of the world under a glass dome.
Being trapped under the dome causes mass hysteria in Springfield, and when Homer's silo is discovered on live television, hundreds of townspeople arrive at the Simpsons' house in an attempt to lynch the family. They escape through a sinkhole hidden in Maggie's sandbox, which destroys the house, the debris trapping in the rest of the town. The family is furious at Homer for ruining their lives, but he convinces them to follow him to Alaska, where he had always planned to go if he burned every bridge in Springfield. Homer wins a truck by riding a motorcycle around a globe of death, and the family restarts their lives in a remote Alaskan cabin.
Meanwhile, as Springfield exhausts its supplies, the townspeople begin to make cracks in the dome. Cargill, mad with power, tricks the president into ordering Springfield's destruction. The Simpsons see Tom Hanks on television advertising a "new Grand Canyon" on the site of Springfield. Realizing that Springfield is in danger, Marge and the kids vow to save their friends and neighbors. Homer, however, refuses to help the people who tried to kill them and storms out. When he returns the next morning, he finds his family gone, and a videotaped message from Marge explaining that they are saving Springfield without him, taped over their wedding video. An Inuit shaman helps Homer to have an epiphany about his selfishness and he vows to save the town. Meanwhile, Marge and the kids are captured by the EPA in Seattle and placed back inside the dome.
The EPA lowers a time bomb suspended by a rope through a hole at the top of the dome, and the townspeople try to escape by climbing the rope. Homer returns to Springfield and descends the rope, knocking the escaping townspeople and the bomb off, inadvertently shortening its countdown and further provoking the town's ire. Homer reconciles with Bart and they use a motorcycle to travel up the side of the dome with the bomb. Bart throws the bomb through the hole seconds before it detonates, shattering the dome and freeing the town. Cargill attempts to kill Homer and Bart for foiling his plan, but Maggie knocks him out by dropping a rock on his head. The townspeople celebrate Homer as a hero as he rides into the sunset, sharing a passionate kiss with Marge. Later, the rest of the town helps to rebuild the Simpsons' house.
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
The production staff had considered a film adaptation of The Simpsons since early in the series.[5] The show's creator, Matt Groening, felt a feature-length film would allow them to increase the show's scale and animate sequences too complex for the TV series.[6] He intended the film to be made after the show ended, "but that [...] was undone by good ratings".[7] There were attempts to adapt the fourth season episode "Kamp Krusty" into a film, but difficulties were encountered in expanding the episode to feature-length.[8] For a long time, the project was held up. There was difficulty finding a story that was sufficient for a film, and the crew did not have enough time to complete such a project, as they already worked full-time on the show.[9] Groening also expressed a wish to make Simpstasia, a parody of Fantasia; it was never produced, partly because it would have been too difficult to write a feature-length script.[10] At another point, it was briefly suggested to do an anthology-style Treehouse of Horror film, but such suggestion was never pursued.[11] Recurring guest performer Phil Hartman had wished to make a live-action film based on his character Troy McClure; several of the show's staff expressed a desire to help create it, and Josh Weinstein proposed to use the plot of the 1996 episode "A Fish Called Selma" for the film, but the project was canceled following Hartman's death in 1998.[12][13] The project was officially green-lit by 20th Century Fox in 1997, and Groening and James L. Brooks were set to produce the film.
Cultural references[edit]
Many cultural references and allusions are made throughout the film. Green Day plays "Nearer, My God, to Thee" on violins as their barge sinks, in a sequence parodying the film Titanic.[26][52] When Bart is riding his skateboard naked, different passing objects are almost constantly covering his genitalia, a nod to similar techniques used in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.[28] Homer and Marge's love scene parodies many Disney films, including Cinderella,[20] with Disney-style animals helping them undress.[22] Originally, the music from The Wizard of Oz was used in that scene, and the fawn had white spots; these were removed because the animators felt it resembled Bambi too clearly.[26] Bart impersonates Mickey Mouse on the train, calling himself "the mascot of an evil corporation".[22] Homer plays Grand Theft Walrus, an allusion to the video game series Grand Theft Auto. In the game, his character shoots a tap-dancing penguin in reference to the film Happy Feet.[26] The "Spider-Pig" song is a parody of the theme song of the 1967 Spider-Man TV series,[43] and the name of Lisa's lecture is An Irritating Truth, a play on Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth.[50] The bomb disposal robot was based on Vincent D'Onofrio's character Leonard "Pyle" Lawrence from the film Full Metal Jacket, who commits suicide in a similar way.[28] At the end of the film, the crowd's celebration is similar to the conclusion of Return of the Jedi, with Carl performing exactly the same hand gestures as Lando Calrissian.[28]
The $1,000 Homer received when entering Alaska is a reference to the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend.[53] As Homer leaves Eski-Moe's he grabs on to a passing truck and uses it to propel himself back to the house, a tribute to actor Buster Keaton,[26] while the epiphany scene features homages to the film Brazil and the works of Salvador Dalí.[28] Hillary Clinton appears as Itchy's vice president, while an Orc from The Lord of the Rings appears in the mob scene.[26] A scene that was cut had Marge and the kids appear on the TV talk show The View to spread the news of Springfield's impending doom. Parts were written for the show's entire panel and the scene was planned to feature Russ Cargill having a gunfight with Joy Behar.[26] Another dropped scene featured Moe describing Springfield's varying physical states inside the dome, one of which was the Disneyland ride Autopia.[26] There are several references to events in previous TV episodes of The Simpsons. These include the wreckage of the ambulance from the episode "Bart the Daredevil" crashed into a tree next to Springfield Gorge.[22] The Carpenters' song "(They Long to Be) Close to You" was used in Homer and Marge's wedding video and had also been used in several emotional moments between them in the TV series.[26]
Reception[edit]
Critical reception[edit]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 87% based on 221 reviews and an average rating of 7.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Simpsons Movie contains the hearty laughs, biting satire, and honest portrayal of an American family that makes the show so popular. And it boasts slicker animation and polished writing that hearkens back to the show's glory days."[88] On Metacritic, it received a score of 80 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[89] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[90]
British newspapers The Guardian and The Times both gave the film four out of five stars. The Times' James Bone said that it "boasts the same sly cultural references and flashes of brilliance that have earned the television series a following that ranges from tots to comparative literature PhDs".[91] The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw stated that it "gives you everything you could possibly want" and that he thought, "Eighty-five minutes [was] not long enough to do justice to 17 years of comedy genius".[92] Ed Gonzalez praised the film for its political message, likening the Itchy & Scratchy cartoon at the beginning to President Schwarzenegger's situation later on, as well as the film's visual gags.[47] Randy Shulman praised the cast, and described them as having "elevated their vocal work to a craft that goes way beyond simple line readings", and particularly praised Kavner who he said "gave what must be the most heartfelt performance ever".[93] Roger Ebert gave a positive review of three out of four stars, but admitted he was "generally [not] a fan of movies spun off from TV animation". He called it "radical and simple at the same time, subversive and good-hearted, offensive without really meaning to be".[94] Richard Corliss of Time said that the film "doesn't try to be ruder or kinkier, just bigger and better".[95]
Possible sequel[edit]
In 2014, Brooks stated that he had been approached by Fox and that they had requested a second film. He added that there were no immediate plans, stating, "We've been asked to [develop it], but we haven't. We're doing a lot of other stuff".[137] In December 2014, just prior to the broadcast of the twenty-sixth season episode "The Man Who Came to Be Dinner", Jean wrote on Twitter that the episode (which had been produced in 2012 and was originally set to air in May 2013) had been held back by himself and Brooks because it was being considered for adaptation into a sequel film as the episode was "cinematic".[138][139] Jean later expanded that there was the fear of the potential film being considered "not canonical" with the TV series[139] and the potential backlash of overcoming it by using a "memory wipe".[140] In July 2017, Silverman and Jean said that the sequel was in the early stages of development and stressed the toll production of the first picture took on the entire staff.[11] On August 10, 2018, it was reported that a sequel was in development.[141] On July 22, 2019, Groening stated that he had "no doubts" that The Walt Disney Company, which acquired 21st Century Fox early that year, would likely produce a sequel one day.[142] In July 2021, Jean stated that discussions for the potential sequel had stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[143] In May 2024, Jean expressed his hopes for a sequel, but said that it would depend on how well Inside Out 2 performs when it releases, as he feels that such movie's success may prove there's still a demand for the animated genre in theaters after the pandemic, which then would make sense for another sequel though they don't have a script yet.[144]