Statistically speaking, you are a white male, aged eighteen to forty-nine – you know what The Simpsons is. Even though the glory days of the show ended over a quarter of a century ago, it was for a time one of the most influential television programmes on the planet. There is a reason Homer Simpson is as recognisable the world over as Superman or Darth Vader. Since the series was part of (and arguably helped create) the ’90s renaissance in American animation, many fans hoped that the residents of Springfield would eventually star in their very own feature film. After all, other cartoons had received that honour: DuckTales, Goof Troop, Beavis and Butt-Head, Rugrats, South Park…

Fans would have to wait until 2007 before The Simpsons Movie finally premiered.

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that the film isn’t as good as the Golden Age episodes that preceded it. During my rewatch for Second Look however, I came to a profound realisation. The reason The Simpsons Movie is just alright rather than a masterpiece is not because the writing team was less experienced or talented than it was in the ’90s – the problem is that turning The Simpsons into a movie is a fundamentally flawed idea.

Let’s consider for a moment: what advantages does a feature film have over say, a television show?

• A longer runtime, so the writers can tell a more intricate story.
• A higher budget, allowing for better-quality animation.
• The ability to reach new audiences, as cinema is more accessible than network television.

None of these points play to the strength of the original cartoon.

Regarding the first point, The Simpsons began life as crudely-drawn filler material for Tracey Ullman’s variety show – they were designed for brief, non-sequential stories. Even when the characters graduated to their own series, the writers regularly struggled to meet the 22-minute runtime required for each episode. How often did you see the ultra-long circus couch gag as a kid? Do you remember the time a script was so short they had to add an unrelated skit with Ned Flanders to the end of it? These guys were not going to thrive when asked to create an 87-minute movie.

We also need to remember that Golden Age episodes could vary wildly in tone and subject matter. One week you might get an extended parody of The Music Man; the next Marge is having an emotional affair with her bowling instructor; the week after that, Bart wins an elephant in a radio contest. The fact The Simpsons could encompass all of these things is one of its greatest strengths, but writing a single feature-length narrative takes that flexibility away from you. What’s worse, unlike Hey Arnold!: The Movie or Recess: School’s Out, the show would not be wrapping up with the movie – that meant no major changes to the status quo, further limiting what stories you can tell.

The result is a movie that lacks not only focus but self-confidence. The writers relied heavily on test screenings for feedback, allowing Betsy Bleeding-Heart and Maynard G. Muskie-Vote to decide what stayed in and what got cut. The film was also designed to be accessible to someone who had never watched The Simpsons before. That makes sense from a financial standpoint – movies are very expensive and you want the widest possible audience – but it also meant that the writers were afraid to include fun little Easter eggs and callbacks that long-time fans might have appreciated.

This might also explain the single most baffling decision in the entire script: dedicating one third of the runtime to the family starting a new life in Alaska. The show was no stranger to convoluted plots – such as the time Homer acquired a tramampoline and Marge discovered that she nagged too much, or the time Abe caught the ferry over to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days – but is this what you want to do in your movie? Take your protagonists away from Springfield and all the established supporting characters, and transfer them to a location where they have no prior connections? A location completely removed from the central conflict of the story?

I hate to be a suspicious Aloysius but I suspect the reason the Simpsons move to Alaska is the same reason a ridiculously-large dome is placed over the town. Faced with a story that wasn’t coming together, the writers compensated by making everything bigger, relying on spectacle instead of character dynamics. I can understand wanting to take advantage of the resources a feature film provides – the shot where the camera moves through an angry mob composed of a hundred moving characters would be impossible on a television budget – but that doesn’t make up for the lacklustre narrative. The animation might sometimes be impressive but if the story is uninteresting, my attention is going to wander back to my garbage bag full of popcorn.

There is however one aspect of The Simpsons Movie that I genuinely like, and that is Bart’s subplot. The show has suggested before that the reason Bart is such a troublemaker is because Homer doesn’t give him enough attention and encouragement – the film expands on this, with Bart finding a surrogate father in Ned Flanders. A reviewer I otherwise enjoy complained that Bart is acting out-of-character in these segments, as he hates being fussed over by his mother. Even if that’s true (and I don’t think that it is), Bart is undertaking traditionally “masculine” activities with Ned such as fishing and hiking – he would clearly do those things with Homer if he offered. It reminded me of the earliest seasons of The Simpsons where Ned is the ideal man Homer consistently fails to be.

This subplot demonstrates what a better version of The Simpsons Movie might have looked like. It presents Homer with a choice – he can continue to be a mediocre father and ensure Bart resents him for the rest of his life (much like the relationship Homer has with his own father), or he can step up and be the man Bart desperately needs him to be. In the film we got, Homer reconciles with Bart by saving Springfield from being obliterated, but that’s not a real choice – if he had refused to return to the town, Homer’s entire family would have been killed. Redemption isn’t earned unless the character can actually refuse to do the right thing.

Maybe it is just impossible to adapt The Simpsons for the big screen. Maybe no-one is capable of creating a film that captures both the hilarious comedy and the heartbreaking sincerity that made the original cartoon such a joy to watch. We’ll have to wait and see…

Odds and Ends

• You’d think a story where the antagonist is a mega-rich businessman, brought into government by a former celebrity turned President, would feel prescient but it would be generous to call this satire. President Schwarzenegger (who is only here because the writers were frightened of using series stand-in Rainier Wolfcastle) has no political agenda or ideology. Instead, the real villain is Russ Cargill, fanatical head of the Environmental Protection Agency – what a horrible dystopia we would all live in if the tree-huggers had their way!
• The attitude towards queer people in this film bothered me. Homer hoping that Flanders would confess to being gay felt really mean-spirited. This is a bit of a hypocritical complaint because Golden Age episodes would occasionally make jokes like this, but the tone felt so much gentler. When Homer panicked about Burns coming on to him, I didn’t need to stop and wonder if the writers were being homophobic.
• I appreciated the subtle joke of Krusty (a Jewish man) taking a bite out of a burger filled with pork products before immediately spitting it out.
• Unlike Bart, Lisa does not get an engaging story arc – she is stuck with a romance subplot involving a character so bland we will never see them again. Lisa isn’t even allowed to be resentful towards her father for contaminating the lake. She shouts at Homer for maybe ten seconds and then they don’t have another conversation for the rest of the movie.
• By the time Mike Scully became showrunner, the writers were relying heavily on Homer screaming in pain to make audiences laugh and they bring that bad habit to this film. All of those jokes fell flat for me, except for this sequence which gets by on just how absurd and crass it is:

• It occurred to me while writing this review that Russ Cargill’s entire plan could be foiled by simply digging a tunnel underneath the dome – the inhabitants of Springfield managed to rescue Bart from the abandoned well using pickaxes and shovels, but they couldn’t do the same to get under a piece of glass? It’s almost as if this script was rushed and not thought-out…
• There are 93 settlements in the United States named Springfield, and Fox held a contest to decide which one who host the world premier. Vermont won, and the first screening was attended by none other than Bernie Sanders!
• Hans Zimmer replaces series regular Alf Clausen as composer for this movie, and I don’t think he did anything that good with the material. The one piece of music I did enjoy though was Green Day’s take on the main theme – it recaptures some of the anti-establishment anger The Simpsons used to have, and not the timid husk that didn’t have the guts to criticise the Bush administration.