Difference between revisions of "The Simpsons Movie"

Latest revision as of 14:19, November 19, 2024

"See our family. And feel better about yours."

―The movie's tagline

The Simpsons Movie

Movie Information Directed by: David Silverman Produced by: James L. Brooks Matt Groening Al Jean Mike Scully Richard Sakai Written by: James L. Brooks Matt Groening Al Jean Ian Maxtone-Graham George Meyer David Mirkin Mike Reiss Mike Scully Matt Selman John Swartzwelder Jon Vitti Starring: Dan Castellaneta Julie Kavner Nancy Cartwright Yeardley Smith Hank Azaria Harry Shearer Albert Brooks Tress MacNeille Music by: Hans Zimmer Danny Elfman Editing by: John Carnochan Studio: Gracie Films Film Roman Rough Draft Feature Animation Distributed by: 20th Century Fox Release dates: July 26, 2007 (UK and Australia) July 27, 2007 (United States) Running time: 87 minutes Blackboard text: "I will not illegally download this movie." Country: United States Language: English Budget: $75-million DVD features

The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 feature-length film based on The Simpsons. It is produced by Gracie Films for 20th Century Fox with animation produced by Film Roman and Rough Draft Studios and was released worldwide July 27, 2007. Individual producers of the film include James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Mike Scully, and Richard Sakai and was written by eleven of the television series' most prolific writers: Scully, Jean, Brooks, Groening, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder, and Jon Vitti. The film was directed by David Silverman, a former supervising director of The Simpsons TV series. The film stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Pamela Hayden and Tress MacNeille.

Matt Groening hinted there might be a sequel but not while the series is still in development and production.

Synopsis[edit]

"A dome is put over Springfield after Lake Springfield is heavily polluted by Homer. An angry mob chase the Simpson family out of town. Soon afterwards, the family find Springfield is going to be blown up..."

Plot[edit]

Intro[edit]

The movie starts off with the usual 20th Century fox intro, with Ralph humming the tune, then echoed with instruments. Then a screen purposely smaller than the screen of the viewers appears, and an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon plays. Itchy and Scratchy land on the moon. Itchy stabs Scratchy with a flagpole and abandons him. Back on Earth, Itchy becomes a hero through lying about Scratchy's death and is seen campaigning for president, with Hillary Clinton as his vice president.

In his office he sees Scratchy is still alive and holding up a sign that says "I'm telling." Itchy ponders on what to do and eventually decides to commence an "accidental" nuclear launch, launching hundreds of nuclear missiles at the moon. Scratchy screams, allowing himself to swallow the missiles. After his stomach is full, the last missile stops at the stomach and takes a boot out of the tip and kicks Scratchy, who then explodes. His brain, head, heart and gullet can be seen. The entire scene is revealed to be a movie that the Simpsons and most of Springfield are watching in a theater. Homer stands up and calls the movie boring. He announces that he could have watched the TV show at home for free rather than paying to get some tickets for the movie and then proceeds to call everybody in the theater a giant sucker for doing so and then points at the viewer in a forth-wall break manner yelling, "Especially YOU!"

The Simpsons opening intro then commences, except that instead of just the usual title floating towards the viewer through the clouds, Professor Frink flies by on a flying bike with a banner attached, with the word "MOVIE" inscribed on it, forming the movie title. The screen then expands after Frink says "Movie...on the big screen." The camera then flies through Springfield, showing Smithers putting toothpaste on Mr. Burns' toothbrush, causing Burns to collapse, Apu changing the expiration date on a milk carton from 2006 to 2008, Martin Prince getting flagpoled by Dolph, Jimbo and Kearney at the school, Bart's Chalkboard Gag, this time reading "I Will Not Illegally Download This Movie", and finally a cut to that night where Green Day is holding a concert at Lake Springfield. As they finish their song (The Simpsons Theme with a rock twist) they try to talk about the environment, which angers the audience into throwing trash at the band. The pollution in the water dissolves the barge floating on the lake on which Green Day is playing and it sinks, killing the band.

Main Story[edit]

A naked Bart hits the window of Krusty Burger, where Ned, Rod and Todd Flanders sit eating.

At the church service the next day, there is a tribute to the passing of Green Day, which the Simpsons are late for. Reverend Lovejoy calls upon one of the churchgoers to do the prayer, but not before Ned tells Lovejoy that he had to confess to a "modest sense of pride to our community". Lovejoy then amends his statement to exclude Flanders this time around. Grampa is suddenly possessed and begins to scream of a coming disaster foreshadowing the events on the film, involving a twisted tail, a thousand eyes, trapped forever and "Eeeepa". This leads Marge to believe that God is sending them a message warning them about a future catastrophe (and is ultimately correct).

The Clogger

Later that day, Homer is doing several chores, including the removal of a hornets nest (which he places inside the mailbox of the Flanders) and the fixing a sinkhole in the backyard (which he covers with a sandbox). After an unsuccessful attempt to fix the roof, Homer and Bart play a game of dare. Homer dares Bart to climb the TV Antenna, and he nearly falls off the house, though he has fun doing so. After Bart shoots at Homer with a BB gun while Homer carries a load of bricks, Homer dares Bart to skateboard to Krusty Burger and back naked. Bart refuses at first, but then does so after Homer calls him a "chicken for life" and many people see him do so.

Chief Wiggum, Lou, and Eddie chase him in their patrol car, before Lou disables his skateboard by shooting one of the tires, which sends Bart crashing into Krusty Burger's window, in front of Ned and his kids. Lou and Eddie get Bart and the window and leave Bart handcuffed to a pole, and the police walk into Krusty Burger to get lunch, and Nelson with him, who begins laugh at him until sundown. Homer then arrives, but blames everything on Bart after hearing that he would have to take a parenting course if he admitted that he dared Bart. He then gives Bart new clothes but forgot to bring his pants. Walking into Krusty Burger, Ned shows fatherly compassion towards Bart by providing him pants. Before Bart could yell at Homer, Homer adopts a pig as a pet when Krusty the Clown orders it to be killed shortly after taping a commercial nearby.

Meanwhile, Lisa tries to get signatures for a petition to clean up Lake Springfield (unsuccessfully), She meets an Irish boy named Colin, who is doing exactly the same thing as Lisa. Colin just moved in and his father is a musician (Lisa thought it was Bono but Colin refutes her). Lisa starts to develop a crush on Colin after finding out that he can play five different instruments.

Marge obtains cell phone footage of Grampa's outburst at church recorded by Comic Book Guy. She becomes confused at the meaning of "Eeepa", to which Comic Book Guy responds, "I believe that's the sound the Green Lantern made, when Sinestro threw him into a vat of acid". When Homer shows Marge his new pig, Marge remembers what Grampa said about a "twisted tail" and pleads for Homer to get rid of it. However, Homer wins her over by showing her that the pig can imitate her squeal and his belching.

Bart is outside feeling alone, while Homer, ignores him over Spider Pig. This prompts Bart to angrily aim his slingshot at Homer, but Ned calms him down, offering Bart to go fishing with him. Bart felt after some thought that it's probably a good idea, especially as the only time he went fishing with his dad, Homer ended up using a bug-zapper to in essence cheat in fishing, as well as being electrified as a result. While fishing, Bart accidentally let go of Ned's best rod. To his surprise, however, Ned doesn't react violently as Homer would, and Bart starts to develop a father and son bond with him.

Lisa and Colin combine their efforts to give a presentation called "An Irritating Truth" at Town Hall. But because the average Springfielder could care less about the environment, she reveals that she put the lake water in their drinking glasses, causing everyone to spit out the water they just drank. The tactic is successful, Mayor Quimby declares a state of emergency, and the entire townspeople tidies Lake Springfield. Mayor Quimby proves the effectiveness of their "idiot proof" barrier by telling Cletus to try dumping a dead possum in the lake only to walk into the concrete barricade.

"I've invented a machine that can dig through anything and here it is... just outside of the dome"

Marge realizes Homer keeps the pig's waste in a silo (including his own), which horrifies Marge, who tells Homer to dispose of it safely. She even encourages him to take Spider-Pig with him, but he states that he has renamed him "Harry Plopper". While waiting in a queue at the waste disposal plant, Homer gets a phone call from Lenny, who says that Lard Lad Donuts has been shut down by the health inspector and that they are giving away all their donuts for free. Homer, in a rush to get to the giveaway, drives to the lake, ignoring the no dumping signs and smashing through the concrete barrier with no damage to his car whatsoever, and dumps the silo into the now wonderfully clean lake, causing it to become heavily re-polluted almost instantly. Shortly a squirrel falls in and is severely mutated, giving it "a thousand eyes", another part of Grampa's prophetical vision. Nearby, Ned and Bart bond during a hike and discover the mutated squirrel, which is then captured by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Russ Cargill, head of the EPA, tells President Schwarzenegger that Springfield is so polluted that the government must take drastic action. He provides Schwarzenegger with five options and he picks option 3 at random without looking, saying he was elected to "lead, not to read".

Option 3 was to trap the entire town of Springfield under a gigantic dome. A hundred helicopters hoist the dome over the town and places it upon Springfield (flattening a man in the process), much to the horror of the inhabitants of Springfield. Marge sees the words EPA on the side of the helicopter and realizes that Grampa's prophecy has come true. After several futile attempts to crack the dome by the police and Sideshow Mel, Cargill appears on a gigantic television screen and explains to the citizens of Springfield that their lake has become extremely polluted and to prevent the pollution from spreading out of Springfield, they trapped them under the dome, removing Springfield from the state map in the process.

Lisa states that they've cleaned up the lake, to which Cargill throws back by saying that someone did not get the message (that being Homer, who tells Plopper to act natural). Kent Brockman reports the incident, which he calls "Trappuccino", as well as the shortage of supplies like gasoline and Botox, the swallows being devoured by cats on their return to Springfield, but crash against the dome and devoured by cats, and an ad for "Dome Depot". Marge claims to see Maggie on the other side of the dome, but when she brings Homer, Maggie is inside. When they're not looking, Maggie goes into the sinkhole that Homer covered with the sandbox and ends up on the other side, and then back.

Homer eating a shrimp with his tongue

The police soon discover the silo in the lake, with the words "Please return to Homer Simpson, No Reward" written on the side. Homer and Marge see a live news broadcast of the discovery, and Marge yells at Homer over the fact that he did NOT listen to her after she warned him, but Homer simply says that "nobody watches the channel anyway". Contrary to his belief, within seconds, a massive angry mob of the entire citizens of Springfield (except for the Flanders family) approaches the Simpson's home intending to kill Homer. Homer fears that the mob will go after his family but the mob interjects that they just want him, even Grampa is in it. Ned tells Bart and his family to crawl on a plank to his house, but the children, led by Principal Skinner, prepare to fire arrows at them and Plopper pushes the plank off the windowsill, causing the family to fall down, missing the arrows. Homer lands on a BBQ and, despite the situation, eats a shrimp and says his luck is beginning to turn. The family run to their car, but Marge runs back into the flaming house to get their Wedding Video (and wash a dishes), and escapes to the automobile, but their escape is futile as the mob pick up their car and move it towards the backyard.

The mob has prepared a noose for every member of the Simpson family, including Maggie (Maggie's noose has a red pacifier attached). The family escapes onto the treehouse by climbing on the nooses, but Homer gets stuck on one of them. Homer attempts to apologize to the crowd but is responded by a guy throwing a power saw a him, the non-shape end hitting him in the face. Lenny and Carl chain Otto Mann's schoolbus to the treehouse and Otto attempts to pull it down, with Grampa pointing and cocking a shotgun at them. The family barely escapes when Maggie shows them an escape route through the sinkhole in the sandbox. Homer due to his size gets trapped in the sinkhole, but eventually goes through, but not before getting his head clawed by the mob. Wiggum, Lou and Eddie shoot at the sandbox, but in the process causing the sinkhole to grow. The townspeople flee the area as the sinkhole devours the Simpson's house, including the car, the treehouse and even Santa's Little Helper's doghouse.

As the Simpsons look solemnly at the remains of their house, Lisa sees Colin next to the dome. He tries to play Lisa a song on his guitar but Lisa couldn't hear him, so he writes the notes of the song onto the dome instead. Lisa shares a moment with Colin but Bart interrupts and rants "Lisa has a boyfriend, that she'll never see again!". She then punches him in the face and then is forced to flee with her family as Cargill and his men arrive. Cargill, now mad with power, is determined to keep anyone from getting out of the dome and to get the Simpsons back in.

An angry mob of Springfieldians hunting for Homer Simpson.

On the Run[edit]

While hiding from the EPA in Red Rash Inn (as well as having a very close call from being caught by two gay policemen who actually arrived at the Inn to make out), Marge catches Bart drinking whiskey to "drown his sorrows" and he announces that he misses Ned before passing out. The family later confront Homer, demanding to know why he dumped the silo into the lake. Homer admits that he never thought about his decision and apologizes to the family. To make it up, he presents them a solution which he had prepared for if he ever screwed up so badly: he proposes that the entire family move to Alaska. While Marge is hesitant at first, Homer eventually manages to get her to follow him.

The next day, the family is at a carnival, where a carny is offering his truck to someone if they can ride a motorcycle in the Ball of Death, for three tries. However, three times Homer fails, so the carny gives him another try, just to see him get hurt. Lisa advises her father to not stop when he reaches the top, enabling him to win. As the Simpsons drive off in their new truck, the carny's Siamese wives aren't very happy because the carny had forgotten that he had to take his wives on vacation. While stopping for gas, Marge is eventually very proud of Bart for being sober, which he proves by knocking a hot dog out of Homer's hand with his slingshot, which Homer pulls another hot dog out of his pocket. Marge tries to tell Bart to give Homer another chance, but is cut off when she sees a wanted poster showing them. She distracts the clerk, while Bart draws over the poster to match a similar looking family who had just walked in.

The similar looking family.

Meanwhile back in Springfield, power outages plague the surviving populance. In Burns' manor, Apu, Wiggum, Dr. Hibbert ask Burns for electricity. Burns asks for good reasons to do so, or he will release the hounds. Hibbert and Wiggum want to help patients at the hospital and fry a convict in the morning respectively, but Apu tries reasoning with Burns, only to realize he said the wrong thing and Burns realises the hounds upon them as they run out of his manor. The Simpson family make it to Alaska, and they get a new house, deciding to rebuild their lives there. Homer and Marge have a private moment of intimacy while getting snowed in (thanks to Bart, who causes an avalanche by clapping repeatedly outside.)

In Springfield, the situation deteriorates even further. The townspeople are about to reach the breaking point after running low on supplies, no electricity, and being cut off from the outside air for 93 days. The Springfield Book Club, consisting of Helen Lovejoy, Cookie Kwan, Lindsey Naegle, Bernice Hibbert, Luann Van Houten, and Agnes Skinner, meets up. Helen wants to discuss "Tuesdays with Morrie". Cookie complains, saying if they don't get a new book, she's going to puke, and the discussion ends with Lindsey throwing her book at Helen in anger. The book instead flies out the window and knocks out the coffee machine inside the Church at an alcoholics anonymous meeting.

Barney Gumble finally snaps and runs out to make a futile attempt to crack the dome, followed by the rest of the Springfieldians, using everything from battering rams and jackhammers to shovels and boxing gloves. This is witnessed by Cargill from a security camera who tells the President that they can't keep Springfield in this state forever. If they get out, then the world will know, which would mean bureaucratic investigations. Cargill asks the President to choose another plan out of five, but this time manipulates him to choose Option 4: Blow Up Springfield.

Saving Springfield[edit]

In Alaska, the family is peacefully rebuilding their lives until one night they see a commercial with Tom Hanks about the "New Grand Canyon" being built, to be located east of Shelbyville, and south of Capital City. This happens to be where Springfield is located. Marge and the kids decide that they must save Springfield, but Homer refuses to help the town that tried to kill them, even after Marge repeats the same line that he used to convince her to move to Alaska and Bart calls him a bad father and wishes Ned was his father, to which Homer strangles him. He angrily says he's staying in Alaska and storms out of the house to go to Eski-Moe's Bar to drink and play a "Grand Theft Walrus" arcade game. The next day, he returns to the house only to discover that Marge left a video tape. She has left with the kids to save Springfield and to prove she has ended their marriage, she taped over their wedding video. Homer is left heartbroken and runs out to find his family, almost being mauled by a polar bear, which is chased off by an Inuit shaman, who drags Homer to her hut. She tells him that he must have an epiphany and begins the art of throat singing. Homer then enters a dreamworld, trying to find the right epiphany but is slapped, punched and kicked by "epiphitrees". When they pull his body apart, Homer realizes that he cannot survive without others, and must save Springfield and his family. He begins a long journey home, from driving a train of sled dogs, who attack and leave him when they started to rest, before walking. He starts to lose hope, until the northern lights turn into the shaman, who points the direction of Springfield with her breasts.

Meanwhile, Marge, Lisa, Maggie and Bart arrive at a Seattle train station to inform the world of the EPA's plot. Unknowingly, they are overheard by a robotic drone, used by the National Security Agency to spy on people's conversation and are immediately arrested by Cargill upon arrival.

Homer gets closer to Springfield, able to see the dome. While observing it (using imaginary binoculars that somehow work), he hears saxophone music coming from an armored van. Homer realizes that his family is inside, and tries to rescue them by knocking the truck over with a wrecking ball. Unfortunately, the plan doesn't work, and he gets hit by the wrecking ball painfully. Bart tries to break his handcuffs but the truck drivers fill the compartment with tranquilizer gas, knocking the family out.

"Emperor" Moe

A helicopter arrives and opens a hole at the top of the dome, lowering a small but powerful bomb, timed at 15 minutes. As the Springfieldians panic and find cover, the family realise that they still miss Homer.

In order to save his family, Homer disguises himself as General Mariott Suites and knocks out a guard guarding the site. Homer grabs a tube of superglue, which he applies to each hand and climbs the dome himself. Carl tells everyone to climb the rope to safety while Cletus distracts him with a thumb trick. Unfortunately, Homer descends down the helicopter rope, knocking the escaping town people and bomb off the rope. The fall of the bomb freezes its timer in the process. Homer, upset when Bart disowns him for this, accidentally kicks down the bomb, which not only reactivates it but halves its time limit, resulting in him being berated by the townspeople again, who proceed to throw stuff at him as he's running off, crying.

Bart finds Ned and his sons, Rod and Todd Flanders inside the Church. Bart wants to be part of Ned's family, due to Homer's negligence towards him, and Ned decides to accept him, though Rod and Todd try to warn him not to. Homer sees Marge behind the ruins of a building and tries to get to her, but accidentally hits a tree. One of the tree's leaves point towards a motorbike. Knowing what he has to do, he rides the motorbike and grabs the bomb, determined to save Springfield. Before he does so, he finds Bart and the Flanders at the Church. Bart reconciles with Homer after he offers to let Bart hold the bomb, and they cycle up the side of the dome. While cycling around the dome the same way he did at the carnival weeks ago, Homer is about to realize his family's cycle of negligence between the relationship of father and son only to be interrupted by Marge to "just throw the goddamn bomb". When Homer reaches the top, Bart throws the bomb through the hole, mere seconds before it detonates. The explosion cracks the dome, and Homer manages to ride down from the falling pieces of the dome to the slope of Springfield Gorge, managing to make it over. The dome shatters completely into tiny harmless pieces, and everyone is saved, except Dr. Nick, who is crushed by an exceptionally large piece of glass.

While looking at the now domeless Springfield, Cargill appears, deciding to learn the two things that Harvard doesn't teach: how to cope with defeat and how to handle a shotgun, by killing Homer and Bart, only to be knocked out by Maggie.

Lisa is told by Milhouse that Colin died when they were away only for him to appear afterwards. Lisa suggests to go clean the lake up, but Colin suggests getting some ice cream, which Lisa agrees. As the defeated Cargill is fired from his job and arrested for his crimes, the town forgive and praise Homer, who rides off with Marge on the motorbike into the sunset and intimately kiss each other. The movie ends with the people of Springfield rebuilding the Simpsons house and restoring things back to the way they were, as Homer and Bart fix the roof like earlier in the film and Homer accidentally gets the needle in his leg and screams as Bart is laughing, ending the movie.

Credits[edit]

The credits come to a pause, where we see Smithers comforting Burns in his looted manor, and the depressed millionaire tells Smithers that, even though he doesn't believe in suicide, if he would like to try it, it might cheer him up to watch. The credits briefly pause again, when we see Tom Hanks asking the audience that if they see him in real life, to leave him be.

While the credits roll, the Simpsons are (still) watching the movie in a theater, and Lisa wants to see that no animals were harmed during filming, which she does. Before they leave, Maggie says "sequel". Near the end of the credits, the townspeople are heard singing the Springfield National Anthem, which was based on the French National anthem, La Marseillaise, due to Springfield admitting that they don't have their own anthem, and therefore they stole their tune by paying a short guy to write it, but they never saw him again, and the French does outstanding things like making love, wine and Roquefort, Camembert and Brie cheese. At the very end of the credits, the Squeaky-voiced teen cleans up the theater floor, not thinking four years in film school was really worth it.

Opening Sequence[edit]

The sequence was completely remade for The Simpsons Movie and features the orchestrated version of "The Simpsons Theme" as adapted by Hans Zimmer, which is slightly different from the first track of The Simpsons Movie: The Music CD. The pre-sequence scene is displayed in a 16:9 television aspect ratio, with black matte bars at either end of the screen. As the sequence begins with the "The Simpsons" logo appearing out of the clouds, Professor Frink flies past in one of his inventions carrying a banner marked "MOVIE" and saying "Moo-vie! On the big screen!!". When he hits the bar on the left side, both it and the one on the right nudge out of view so that the image fills the entire screen.

Instead of going through the P of "SIMPSONS," the camera goes through the O of "MOVIE" as the banner falls loose. The camera zooms in on the town, with several major landmarks popping-up. The camera then zooms in to Mr. Burns, who is holding a toothbrush in his bathroom with Smithers who gives him toothpaste, the extra weight of the toothpaste causes frail Mr. Burns to collapse. The camera then zooms past Moe's Tavern into the Kwik-E-Mart where Apu is secretly changing the expiration date on one of his products from 2006 to 2008. Next the camera cuts to Springfield Elementary where Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney are hoisting Martin Prince up a flagpole by his underwear and saluting it as if it were a flag. The camera then zooms through the window where Bart is writing lines for detention ("I will not illegally download this movie") before finishing with Green Day who are hosting a concert at Lake Springfield, playing their version of the theme song and using a teleprompter to get its "lyrics" right.

Production[edit]

Marge freaks out in church

• Previous The Simpsons film projects failed to develop:
  • Matt Groening mentioned in an interview published in the Summer 1993 issue of Simpsons Illustrated that "maybe someday we'll do a Simpsons movie".
  • The season four episode "Kamp Krusty" was originally going to be a film, but difficulties were encountered in writing a movie length script, at which point the movie plans were dropped in favor of a season premiere.
  • Before his death, Phil Hartman had always wanted to create a live action Troy McClure film, with several of the staff saying that they would have loved to help create it.
  • Matt Groening expressed a wish to make Simpstasia, a parody of the Disney film Fantasia.
• Production for the movie began in 2001.
• Numerous plots were considered for this movie: Al Jean suggested the family saving manatees, which became the 2005 episode "The Bonfire of the Manatees", and there was a The Truman Show-style notion of the characters discovering their lives were a TV show, which Groening rejected due to his rule "that the Simpsons never become aware of themselves as celebrities", however this idea was later put in as the plot in The Simpsons Game where the family discover that their lives are a video game.
• 94 characters have speaking parts.
• Series regulars Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Marcia Wallace, Pamela Hayden, Russi Taylor, Tress MacNeille, Joe Mantegna, and Maggie Roswell reprised their roles for the film. Albert Brooks plays Russ Cargill, Green Day and Tom Hanks play themselves.
• Minnie Driver recorded the part of a patronizing grievance counselor in a scene that was cut, as were Edward Norton, Isla Fisher and Erin Brockovich's scenes, and Kelsey Grammer's as Sideshow Bob.
• Hans Zimmer provided the score, rather than regular composer Alf Clausen.
• Originally, Marge was supposed to freak out in church. This was later changed to Grampa.
• It had a secret code name "Yellow Harvest".^[1]
• A scene with Homer and Plopper was scrapped.^[2]
• Although credited, Patty, Selma, Edna Krabappel, Groundskeeper Willie, Jimbo Jones and Kang did not have speaking parts in the final cut, the first three had parts in the DVD's deleted scenes, Jimbo is heard grunting when Martin hits him with a plank of wood, and Willie is heard cheering with the other Springfieldians. Kodos was also in one version of the movie; he and Kang slated the film over the end credits, however this was cut after a test screening.^[3]
  • Kang: At least the pig was cute.
  • Kodos: Yeah, until he vanished halfway through the picture!

• There is an unused scene with Russ Cargill, Mr. Burns and Smithers.^[4]

Marketing and release[edit]

Homer Simpson sitting on his couch in a Superman t-shirt and briefs in the teaser trailer that debuted on March 31, 2006.

• In 'Treehouse of Horror XVII', first shown on November 5, 2006, in the credits executive producer Al Jean's name had the date of the release as a middle name.
• A teaser trailer for the film was attached to the film Ice Age: The Meltdown from March 31, 2006 onwards; the same trailer was then broadcast during the April 2 episode of The Simpsons, "Million-Dollar Abie".
• In July 2006, two clips of early, black and white, unfinished animatic footage from the film were shown to audiences during a Simpsons panel at Comic-Con 2006, with a third animatic clip being released on the The Simpsons The Complete Ninth Season DVD boxset.
• A 1½-minute-long trailer was then shown on November 12, 2006, immediately after the second act of The Simpsons episode "G.I. (Annoyed Grunt)".
• Another 1½-minute trailer appeared on The Sun newspaper's website on December 11, 2006.
• On the February 14, 2007, episode of American Idol, footage was shown of the contestants attending a private screening where they were shown an early preview of the first theatrical trailer. The same trailer was then shown during The Simpsons episode "Springfield Up" on February 18, 2007, and was made available online shortly afterwards.
• A short TV spot was then aired during the episode "You Kent Always Say What You Want".

Marge and Homer look at the silo in their back yard in the animatic included on the season 9 DVD set.

• McFarlane Toys released a line of action figures based on the film, these include Ned Flanders and Bart looking over a rock at a character that is covered by a "Top Secret Character" logo. Others include Bart skateboarding naked having been dared by Sherri and Terri, Homer and his pet pig, and Itchy & Scratchy in "Presidential Politics". Also a series of "movie mayhem" figures, depicting the family in a cinema, were released.
• The Simpsons Game was released to coincide with the film's DVD release.
• Samsung released a special Simpsons Movie phone, and Microsoft released a limited edition Simpsons Xbox 360.
• Other merchandise that was released includes a The Simpsons Movie donut-shaped stress reliever, as well as a badge pack.
• As a promotion for the film, twelve 7-Eleven stores across the United States and Canada were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts, and sell Squishees, Buzz Cola and Krusty-O's Cereal.
• The film is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "irreverent humor throughout". The rating had been expected by the production staff.
• Fox held a competition between sixteen Springfields across the United States to host the American premiere, with Springfield, Vermont being selected as the winner.
• Test screenings were held in Portland, Oregon and Tempe, Arizona.
• The film made a total of $526,417,972 worldwide at the box-office.^[5]
• The film garnered an 90% freshness rating on critical site Rotten Tomatoes.
• At the 2007 MLB Allstar game, Homer announced the starting lineups and saying something funny about each player: "Chase Utley, wait why would I want to do that?"
• The film was the most watched film of summer 2007 in Europe and many states.
• Various toys based off characters were included in Big Kids Meals at Burger Kings.

Awards[edit]

The Simpsons Movie was nominated for and won several awards.

In the 35th Annual Annie Awards, The Simpsons Movie was nominated for Best Animated Feature, Directing in an Animated Feature Production, Writing in an Animated Feature Production and Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production, but lost all four to Ratatouille.^[6]

Sequel[edit]

Matt Groening stated in an interview that a sequel has been considered, but there are no current plans to produce one. He mentioned that the second movie will not be made until after the series finishes. A sequel would be unlikely since it was so exhausting making the series while producing the first film. As for doing another movie, Groening said, "It's going to be awhile," but added the important statement: "We'll get to it, I'm sure." He did add that there are "no plans at the moment."

In July 2017, Silverman and Jean said that the sequel was in the early stages of development, while stressing the toll production of the first picture took on the entire staff.^[7]

At the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, Al Jean stated no sequel will be made while the show is still in production.^[8]

On August 10, 2018, 20th Century Fox announced that a sequel is in development.^[9][10]

Promo Video[edit]

• Teaser at YouTube
• Trailer 1 at YouTube
• Trailer 2 at YouTube
• Trailer 3 at YouTube
• Trailer 4 at YouTube
• #TBT Trailer at YouTube

See also[edit]

• The Simpsons Movie: The Music

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• The Simpsons Movie at the Internet Movie Database
• The Simpsons Movie at Wikipedia
• Watch full movie on Disney+ website