So a while back, Nickelodeon announced their intentions of making a new Spongebob Squarepants movie. My reaction was pretty much the same as everyone else's at the time, that of surprise, exasperation, and apathy. It's pretty much common knowledge that Spongebob hasn't been any good since the first movie (and when the creator left the show), though at the time, I had no idea how horrible the show had gotten... After that, this news kind of faded from memory, or at least my memory, until the first trailer came out... a few weeks ago; I procrastinated on talking about this sorry about that. The movie will be called "The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water"... It's almost like the titles both implying that the previous Spongebob Squarepants movie never happened, while also denoting it as a sequel by giving it a subtitle. Anyway, the trailer itself:
Read what I think of this after the break.
So it appears to be like one of those "live action movies based on classic cartoons"-type movies... I would make fun or groan about that, or point out how low modern Spongebob has gotten to the point that I feel like there's no way this movie can redeem all the shit that's come after the first movie, or be nitpicky and point out that the characters are in 3D while in the live action world whereas in the first movie, Spongebob and Patrick were still traditionally animated while in the life action world (and also that Sandy is helping Spongebob and the others getting the "hairy porpoise" back in the water when really she could have just told them it was a human)...
...But I'll be honest, I'm kind of liking the look of this. It feels appropriately funny, and it has a good plot worthy of a movie. I'm actually a bit intrigued... Particularly in that Plankton is frequently seen with them, it makes me wonder if he intends to work together with them or if he has his own evil scheme...
I just want to say, the animation on the 3D character models is amazing! It it literally looks and feels like their 2D counterparts, but in 3D. It's hard to explain, but it just looks really good. There's a part of me that's nagging me about how there should be more of the traditional animation, and also the 2D segments aren't up to snub when compared to the original movie, but I hushed it, because the traditionally animated segments are fine, and the 3D parts looked so good I just didn't care.
I actually looked into this more, and found out that the writers for this movie are Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, who wrote the Kung Fu Panda movies AND Monsters vs. Aliens! ...They also, apparently, wrote the two live action Alvin and the Chipmunks sequels, but I guess they can't always be golden. But I still count this as a good thing, because they got actual WRITERS to write this movie, and not whatever lazy, talentless hacks they got to put together an average Spongebob episode, which basically amounts to nothing much happening and really weak jokes.
I should also point out that while Paul Tibbitt, the current showrunner of Spongebob Squarepants (who also wrote for the show originally), is directing and also helped come up with the story, the story mostly came from Spongebob's creator, Stephen Hillenburg! And really, the story is not that bad, it feels appropriate for a movie based on Spongebob: an evil pirate plans to destroy Spongebob's world (for whatever reason) and Spongebob and his friends have to stop him... and they eventually become superheroes. It's not THAT much of a far-cry from the original movie, in which Plankton steals King Neptune's crown and Spongebob and Patrick have to work together to get it back, all while being obsessed over becoming "men".
The gags... are funny, at least to me. Even if you don't find them funny, admit it, Spongebob has ALWAYS had this level of humor, even back in the glory days. Hell, I don't think the show's been THIS funny since those days... Not to mention, the characters are all in-character, as opposed to either perversions of their character archetypes or just pieces moving through the plot of a story with no depth to them whatsoever. Like, I'm seriously so relieved to see Patrick acting like the lovable doofus he used to be, rather then the cruel, malicious smartass whose stupidity is mostly a facade because he's such an uncaring, unfeeling douche.
Like, wow, for the first time in what seems like forever, I'm actually excited and happy about something Spongebob-related that's new! Will it save Spongebob? Hell no, at this point it would take a literal miracle (and also firing all the writers currently working on the show) to save Spongebob by this point, but as for this movie? Yeah, color me excited.
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