This Space Jam is set in cyber-space, in contrast to the first film dealing with outer space.
The Goon Squad are monstrous versions of basketball stars... in other words, they're this film's MonStars!
It's possible that LeBron James becoming the Robin to Bugs Bunny's Batman on the DC world might be because Batman is the older of the duo, and the movie came out just a few weeks before Bugs's eighty-first birthday.
Lola's initial refusal also has a deeper connotation. In the original film, she served as little more than eye candy and ended up becoming a divisive figure amongst the fans, being remembered primarily for that trait alone. Even with The Looney Tunes Show helping to fix up her reputation a little, it came at the expense of her being a Cloud Cuckoolander. Why go back to where she started when she has a chance to join the Amazons, a group of warrior women who are amongst the best-known fighters in comics history? Plus, getting a chance to work with Wonder Woman, one of the most famous icons in comics and cinema, would help show that she's far more than just eye candy.
Why did Bugs Bunny decide to complete the move that causes whoever performs it to get deleted? He knew from earlier in the film with LeBron reminding him that humans can't survive what Tunes can. He stole the ball from LeBron and completed the move because he knew there was no way to know if LeBron would survive it, but he knew there was a chance he could, even if he wasn't 100% sure.
If Bugs thought there was a chance he could survive the glitch move, why did he go through the big Died in Your Arms Tonight sequence? First of all, it's possible he didn't know, and he wanted to do it in case he really wasn't coming back. Secondly, when has Bugs ever passed up the chance for a dramatic pretend death scene?
The Warner Bros. Serververse is, in essence, an entire universe contained within the computers of the studio, and while Al-G Rhythm has full control over it as the server's AI, it's still the creation of the real-life people working at Warner Bros. In other words, these everyday Hollywood executives, writers, directors, and so on, are literal gods to the inhabitants of the Serververse.
When Al-G Rhythm "upgrades" the Toons into photorealistic CGI characters, everyone is disgusted...everyone except Daffy Duck, that is. And why not? Because unlike all the other Toons, who dislike the concept of making 2-D characters into photorealistic CGI creations, Daffy is more than happy to latch onto the latest trends (of which the aforementioned concept certainly is), seeing as it grants him more time in the spotlight.
Not to mention, he "upgrades" Lola first because he knows how much she means to Bugs, the one who declined his offer. It's a two-for-one Kick the Dog moment.
In a metatextual way, this film addresses the biggest criticism of the original by the man himself, Chuck Jones, who hated the first Space Jam because he felt Bugs asking Michael Jordan for help dealing with the Monstars was too out of character, considering he was supposed to be a street-smart rabbit who could outwit anyone. Indeed, this film goes out of its way to show that it's the other way around this time: Lebron James needs Bugs Bunny's help, and the rabbit manages to weasel his way into getting Lebron into helping him get his friends back home, not to mention he was the only one who knew that Al-G Rhythm was pulling everyone's leg about "moving up."
Why was LeBron unable to get his heavy hitters for the basketball game? Well, aside from Bugs making sure that he got the rest of the Looney Tunes instead, a lot of his choices wouldn't know the first thing about the game. King Kong and the Iron Giant, while intelligent, are not savvy enough about human culture to grasp the basic concepts, Gandalf is from a world where basketball doesn't even exist, and Superman, Dumbledore, and Batman already have their hands full enough as it is. Even if Lebron didn't have Bugs Bunny interfering with his plans, they would have turned him down anyway.
People mock LeBron James for wanting to enlist people like Gandalf, Superman, and The Iron Giant. However, he wants to put the team together to rescue his son. Why wouldn't he want the most powerful people he could get?
When one thinks about it, though, it benefited LeBron that he couldn't get his planned team. He's selecting these people thinking that he's supposed to win a normal game of basketball. "Dom Ball" is a more Calvin Ball style version of the game where anything goes as long as the game accepts it, even if it violates the normal rules of basketball (e.g., moving the net sideways so a dunk goes in). The Tunes' Reality Warping abilities fit in just fine with the concept. Superman, Batman, Dumbledore, and Gandalf, as smart and powerful as they are, are far more limited.
It's clear the executives at Warner Bros. don't think very highly of Al-G Rhythm, as both they and LeBron turn down his idea to have the basketball star digitally added to their films. If this is a major stinker of an idea, and it's clear that Al-G has been online for a while, who's to say that he wasn't responsible for some of the studio's more controversial decisions? The constant Executive Meddling on the DC projects? Some of the more divisive decisions with Game of Thrones going beyond the books? Canceling a good chunk of Cartoon Network shows in their early stages? Trying to make the Looney Tunes more "hip" in some of the early-2000s projects? Their distaste of the A.I. suggests he may have had a hand in their previous slumps, and his lack of imagination in this project may suggest that's not far from the truth.
Nearly all the characters watching the game are unable or unwilling to interfere, instead spectating the entire event. When you think about it, they didn't just avoid interfering because of the force field Al-G put up, but because of his threat to the Toon Squad if they lost. Remember how he said they'd be deleted should they lose? He would have likely done the same to any of the spectators should they try to interfere, showing how (Mean Character, Nice Actor aside) he was able to keep heavy hitters like Voldemort, two different Jokers, and even Pennywise from acting up.
Also there was a Force Field around the court, that only let game participants through (and only sometimes), and stood up to every punishment thrown at it without cracking. It seems likely that the audience could not interfere.
It was noted on the They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot entry for the YMMV page that only Rick and Morty got to represent Cartoon Network's lineup from WB. Why not any of the other shows, like Adventure Time or Steven Universe? There are actually two perfectly good reasons why only those two got involved.
First, Taz himself. Rick and Morty, who have literally been through enough horrifying experiences throughout time and space, suddenly found themselves unable to handle the Tasmanian Devil. If they both existed on the Cartoon Network server, they would have no good reason to watch a game where a literal beast managed to frighten off Rick Freakin Sanchez, and probably warned all the other residents to stay as far away as possible.
Second, Teen Titans Go!, since they already had a Space Jam of their own with The Nerdlucks (themselves one of the many cameos in this movie) dropping by, tricking them into stealing their powers, and dumping the five of them on Moron Mountain. The other residents would have likely heard of this and, if Rick and Morty didn't tell them about Taz, wouldn't have tried to chance it out of fear of being subjected to the same fate.
The biggest reason also has to do with Al-G's selection of properties attending the game. Notice how the only DC characters there are the Batman (1966) and Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher iterations of Batman and his rogues and not the versions seen in The Dark Knight or the DC Extended Universe? No DCAU, no DC Universe Animated Original movies, and no Teen Titans Go? Just Hanna-Barbera, films from Casablanca to The Goonies and It (2017) to Mad Max: Fury Road and actor Michael B. Jordan? That's because he didn't want to pick any properties that would cause a serious Flame War. Drop in Christian Bale's Batman and put him next to Ben Affleck's Batman, and the spectators watching will instead argue about which franchise did Batman better rather than watching a high-stakes game between the Looney Toons and the Goon Squad. Throw Teen Titans Go, infamous for being Adored by the Network over other CN shows into the mix, and the debate will intensify to the point that will become the main draw, and Al-G clearly wants the attention on himself. He's clearly been paying attention to the latest trends on how certain properties are doing and knows he can have a mix of nostalgia and recent properties that will bring in enough people to tune in if they aren't interested in LeBron or the Toons, while also avoiding bringing in anything that will light up the internet and distract from his own showing.
Al G. speaks with (or rather, at) Agent Smith a few times. This makes sense, given that they're both villainous computer programs that grew out of control of the ones in charge of them.
In the Harry Potter world, Lebron is delighted to be a Hufflepuff. House Hufflepuff praises loyalty and hard work.
That would make his son a Ravenclaw since his son has intelligence, can be quite curious (about Warner 3000), is creative, and has individuality (becoming a video game developer instead of a basketball player). And apparently, Al-G has the entire weaknesses of a Ravenclaw's. Disconnected from the outside world (literally and figuratively), arrogant, and felt isolated (especially once Dom abandoned him to join his father and the Tune Squad).
The focus on properties from the Warner Bros. library makes a certain amount of sense as the film came out two years before the one-hundredth anniversary of the studio. The film is essentially celebrating the legacy of Warner Bros. Studios.
How many rescue workers or emergency personnel were transported to the game world while on the clock? We even see two firemen get sucked into the virtual world while in full gear, meaning they may have just finished or were heading to an emergency. This isn't even counting the number of people who may have looked at their phones while driving.
What will happen to Warner Bros. once news gets out that hundreds of innocent people were trapped in their server? Sure it was all Al-G's doing, but he's still an AI owned by the studio, so who's to say that the public won't blame them for the endangerment of all those civilians?
Considering what Rick and Morty usually encounter on their adventures, it really says something when Morty declares that he can't unsee what the Tasmanian Devil did to warrant them declaring him uncurable and dropping him off with the Tunes.
It goes beyond that, what they saw was apparently so horrific that it made them welcome death, as Rick C-137 (the show's Rick) explains after having murdered them.
We can see a lot of different characters in the audience but one of them is the child-eating monster clown Pennywise so what happens when the game is over? He's gonna be back in Derry Maine.
The same goes for Jason Voorhees. Once the game's over he's going back to Camp Crystal Lake.
Wile E. Coyote has a body count in this movie. He takes Morsov's place as a war boy to parody the iconic "Witness me!" scene in Mad Max: Fury Road. The Buzzards' car still explodes when Wile E Coyote collides with it and before Slit's explosive spear hits it, meaning Wile E Coyote has just killed those two people. Although they do try to show the car exploding before Wile E actually lands on it in a closer shot, he still caused their deaths by leaping onto them.
