YMMV / The Simpsons Movie

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Nelson jumps in and threatens Milhouse into selling out on his beliefs. If you're a Nelson/Lisa shipper you could interpret Nelson as competing with Milhouse for Lisa by reminding her that Milhouse is a total sellout. Or Nelson is looking for an excuse to hit Milhouse. Or maybe he's giving Milhouse a Secret Test of Character and punching him for being a weak-willed dork.
  • Is Russ Cargill a power-hungry tyrant who wants to destroy a town or is he just doing this because he legitimately cares for the environment and sees no other way?
  • Do the dogs who Homer uses to pull his sled attack him because they're savage animals or because Homer whips them tirelessly while they jump over a cliff and rest?
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: "Grand Theft Walrus" was supposed to be a Take That! to Happy Feet, but seeing as the reference is getting dated with time (and not everyone is familiar with the movie) many people will just see it as a random Black Comedy gag, but still see it as an obvious parody of Grand Theft Auto as the series still remains one of the most popular and best-selling game franchises of all times.
• Base-Breaking Character: Spider-Pig. Either a hilarious Ensemble Dark Horse or a Forced Meme that got annoying after being featured in every single promotion for the movie.
• Broken Base:
  • Is the film just as good as the classic years of The Simpsons? Is it not as good as the golden age but still better than the show after Seasonal Rot set in? Does it instead suffer from the same plotting and characterization issues that plague the recent seasons? Or is it an enjoyable but flawed experience that just didn't quite live up to the hype?
  • Should Hank Scorpio have been the Big Bad instead of the Suspiciously Similar Substitute Russ Cargill? Some argue that an established antagonist would've been better, while others argue that having him as the Big Bad would have meant taking away the Affably Evil demeanor which made him so popular. And, there's also the fact that audiences who hadn't seen "You Only Move Twice" wouldn't know who he is or his history with the Simpson family.
• Character Rerailment: A few characters are written far more like their early season selves than the portrayals they had at the time of the film's release.
  • After Bart spent the newer seasons gradually becoming more and more sociopathic in his pranks, the film puts him back in his initial characterization of a misguided boy whose pranks are harmless but due to peer pressure can go too far with them and even then does feel guilt about it.
  • After gradually getting flanderized into a nasty religious zealot for comedy's sake across the seasons, Ned Flanders is once again portrayed as he originally was: a kindly and caring neighbour who wishes nothing but goodwill on everyone and remains one of the few citizens not to turn on the family after Homer's screw-up, he even bonds with Bart due to his kindness in one of the film's subplots.
  • Mr. Burns is once again a relatively serious character with lots of power over Springfield and not afraid to show it to those who displease him, as opposed to the more recent portrayal of him as a frail, weak old man who is easily thwarted. Even his more humiliating fate in the credits after all his stuff is stolen doesn't quite reach his more humiliating moments in the series.
  • Surprisingly, Homer Simpson himself. After eight or so seasons of Homer being written as a complete utter idiot of a jerk-ass towards almost everyone, the movie manages to call-out on his destructive behaviour that pestered throughout those past seasons by having the entire town turn against him and his family. Homer eventually realises the errors of his idiotic ways and returns to being the bumbling, yet caring father of the Simpson family we all know and love- all while saving Springfield in one fell swoop.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The whole scene of Bart skateboarding across town in the nude is hilariously absurd, but one scene in particular pushes it into this. While most of the event has Bart's genitalia conveniently covered by moving Scenery Censor, one long hedge results in a lengthy shot of Bart getting blocked from view ...with a long enough gap that shows off his junk (and only his junk), in a PG-13 movie!
  • There's also something morbidly hilarious about Burns (in one of the stingers) politely asking Smithers to kill himself because it "might cheer me up to watch". Especially since, knowing Smithers, he would probably do it.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Many people have gone out of their way to portray Russ Cargill as a hero despite sealing Springfield and its residents in a giant dome and almost nuking the domed town with its citizens inside it.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Marge comments that the government isn't going to listen to her and Bart discuss Cargill's plans. Then it turns out from the PRISM scandal that yes, the NSA has been tracking and bugging people.
  • The plot about Springfield being screwed over by an incompetent EPA trying to cover up a polluted water hole might seem a little too realistic after a similar thing happened in Flint, Michigan.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The warm relationship that Ned forms with Bart still gets the occasional Continuity Nod in the show. Even so, episodes like "Pulpit Friction" and "No Good Read Goes Unpunished" demonstrate that Bart really does prefer Homer as his father and wouldn't want him to act like Ned.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Julie Kavner deserves special mention for her performance during the tape Marge records over their wedding video, telling him they're leaving him for good. Never has Marge sounded so tired and heartbroken at her husband's stupidity.
  • Dan Castellaneta has always done a great job as Homer, but he is devastating when he has to voice Homer trying in vain to find his family right after seeing said tape.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The President's line, "I was elected to LEAD, not to READ," is EERILY similar to 2012 presidential nomination candidate Herman Cain stating, after his Libya incident, that the United States "needs a leader not a reader."
  • The "Itchy and Scratchy" cartoon from the beginning shows Itchy becoming President of the United States with Hillary Clinton as his Vice-President. At the time, Hillary was expected to be the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential candidate, but ended up losing the Democratic Primaries to then-Senator Barack Obama. Then, in 2016, Hillary ran again and became the Democratic Party candidate, but lost to Donald Trump, the Republican Party candidate.
  • In the short scene with Tom Hanks, he comments that "the government has run out of credibility and is borrowing some of mine". He's the narrator of an Obama campaign video.
  • Comic Book Guy's guess as to what EPA means is that it might be the sound effect Green Lantern makes when Sinestro threw him into a vat of acid. Sure enough, DC Comics used this sound effect in an issue of Green Lantern's Sinestro Corps War arc, but there were no vats of acid involved.
  • During the scene where Bart shoots at a stack of bricks Homer carries on his back, a fake promo for Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? is shown on the bottom of the screen. Come 2024, a casting call for a show with this very same title appeared.
  • During the live tweet of the "Every Simpsons Ever" marathon on FXX, it was pointed out that Homer on the wrecking ball was an idea used by Miley Cyrus for her infamous "Wrecking Ball" music video (only there was no nudity involved with the Homer version). This was obviously a joke, but this time (and the time Homer was riding a wrecking ball on "Sideshow Bob Roberts") are funnier in light of this^note Also, twerking Miley Cyrus's way wasn't invented until 6 years after the movie, but that's neither here nor there.
  • During the ending credits, the French anthem is sung with lyrics stating that Springfield doesn't have an anthem so they decided to plagiarize the French one. The Season 26 episode "Walking Big & Tall" is about Lisa writing a new anthem for Springfield after learning that the old one was plagiarized.
  • The Grand Theft Auto parody where the walrus guns down a penguin who did nothing threatening seems especially prophetic with GTA Online demonstrating the modus operandi of most players is to go for the kill, even towards players who are not a threat or actively a part of the game's combat.
  • Bart's joke about being "the mascot of an evil corporation" and the gag about Homer and Marge being prepared for love-making by being undressed by forest animals that look like they came straight out of Bambi become this as of March 20, 2019, when Disney ended up buying 20th Century Fox, the studio behind The Simpsons. This becomes even more hilarious when, during a Disney+ ad, a frustrated Bart is forced to dress up as Mickey Mouse.
  • The movie accidentally predicted that the host of Celebrity Apprentice would become President of the United States. The writers were just wrong about which host it would be.
    • An earlier episode of the show features a future in which Lisa becomes President, and a bit of dialogue references a past "Trump Administration."
  • Stephen King's Under the Dome, released two years after this movie, uses the same basic concept, but Played for Drama. It even becomes a joke in a later episode when Monty Burns, inspired by King's novel, tries to trap the city inside of a dome and he decides not to when he is told that It's Been Done... (Burns, thinking he was being original in his evil, immediately stops.) Cartoon Network's MAD even pointed this out in their parody of the show:
    Homer: Hello, this has been done, it was the whole premise of The Simpsons Movie!
  • When Homer doesn't want to go to Springfield again, he storms off saying "I have spoken!".
• Like You Would Really Do It: Come on. Did anyone really think they would actually blow up Springfield and kill every character we all knew and love, including the Simpsons?
• Love to Hate: Russ Cargill, who many see as the most evil Simpsons villain to date, attempting to blow up all of Springfield just to prevent the town's pollution from spreading. However, Albert Brooks does a fine job at making him equally humorous as well.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Spider Pig, Spider Pig, does whatever a Spider Pig does... Which ended up becoming a Discredited Meme soon after due to just how much it was pushed in the marketing.
  • When Homer tries to console Bart:
    Bart: This is the worst day in my life.
    Homer: The worst day of your life so far.
  • "Have you ever tried going mad without power? It's boring. No one listens to you."
  • The angry mob scene has become a popular reaction for cases of He Panned It, Now He Sucks!, Fandom Heresy, or other controversial opinions.
• Moral Event Horizon: Cargill crosses this when he plans to blow up Springfield with a small nuke. The kicker is that this plan would kill off thousands of supposedly (a keyword considering Springfield) innocent people, including children. And he knows this and doesn't give a damn about the consequences.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Throughout the film, Bart repeatedly wishes that Ned Flanders was his father instead of Homer. One of the older comic book stories has a wad of gum mistaken for a birth mark resulting in the belief that Bart and one of Ned's sons were switched at birth and Bart temporarily is one of Flanders' sons, but due to Ned having a strict Christian upbringing in mind for his sons as opposed to Homer's Devil-may-care attitude towards child-raising, Bart does not have a good time at Ned's and repeatedly wishes he was back with Homer as his dad.
  • The choice of depicting Arnold Schwarzenegger as the president instead of his long-established expy Rainier Wolfcastle, even though Schwarzenegger is both drawn and portrayed as Wolfcastle, has baffled many fans. However, the Season 7 episode "Radioactive Man" had already established that Schwarzenegger also existed in the Simpsons universe, with Bart's comment "Want results? You have to go to the Schwarzeneggers, the Stallones, and to a lesser extent, the Van Dammes.".
• Signature Scene: It's arguably a tie between the mob scene, Homer's hallucination sequence and the climactic ride up the dome for what scene is most well-known. Bart's naked skateboard ride has also been called back a number of times in the show.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • Homer refusing to return to Springfield, despite his wife and kids wanting to do so, is supposed to be seen as him being a selfish jackass and admittedly the reason the town is in danger is because of Homer's own actions, so it can be seen as him not taking responsibility- but when you look at it from his perspective, it's not hard to see why he doesn't want to save his hometown. After all, the Springfielders tried to flat-out kill him and his family (even Maggie!) all because of Homer's actions - which means that the town straight up committed Disproportionate Retribution. As a result, Homer has every reason to resent his former friends for trying to murder him and his family. Notably, he brings this up himself, and since Marge has no real comeback the film instead tries to distract from the argument by segueing into a joke about Homer not knowing what time they attacked them at. Bart in the same scene is the only one who makes a semi-decent argument for trying to save Springfield, namely that Flanders and his kids are there, and he risked his life to help them when they were in trouble.
  • Earlier, when the mob surrounds their house, Marge urges Homer to try to save them by going outside and apologizing, to which Homer says he can't risk the mob attacking the rest of the family if he breaches their security. Carl shouts from outside that they're only interested in Homer and don't care about the others. The exchange is clearly meant to show Homer as a Dirty Coward as he keeps coming up with more excuses not to go outside, but as the family attempts to escape it's clear that the mob does have designs on everybody, and when Homer attempts the apology it's as useless as you'd expect.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Despite being prominently pushed as Lisa's new Love Interest, Colin plays very little role in the plot, all-but vanishes after the Simpsons escape the dome, and doesn't appear in the show itself, meaning he and his dynamic with Lisa come off as very underdeveloped.
  • The Nostalgia Critic felt that the Boob Lady could have been used to tie up a few loose ends. She could have been sending Grandpa psychic visions and compelled Homer to go to Alaska, Spider-Pig could have been her spirit animal.
• Trailer Joke Decay: If you had a pulse during the Summer of 2007, odds are you spent it hearing "Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig. Does whatever a Spider-Pig does." being played over and over and over again.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The references to Happy Feet, An Inconvenient Truth, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, Harry Potter, Green Day performing the theme song at the beginning, and a joke about "President Schwarzenegger", all of which date the movie to the mid/late-2000s.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Thanks to the Animation Age Ghetto. Not that the original TV series was ever intended for kids in the first place, but the movie is slightly Ruder and Cruder than the show. Special mentions go to Bart skateboarding naked with uncensored shots of his buttocks and briefly his genitalia^note which is drawn very unrealistically, to prevent this movie from getting the "R" rating, and gets censored or cut out in television broadcasts. It is still shocking, given that it is the first occurrence of full-frontal nudity in The Simpsons and Marge saying "goddamn", which never would have made it into a TV episode. The nudity scene with Bart and Marge's curse word caused the movie to get the "PG-13" rating, meaning that children under the age of 13 shouldn't watch without an adult. Some of the producers were worried that just because of the scene with Bart skateboarding naked, the movie could be rated "R", meaning that it's forbidden for minors to watch the movie without a parent or guardian. Despite this, Malaysia was lenient enough to give it a U rating.^note the equivalent to the MPAA's G rating Likewise, the movie had several tie-ins with children's companies like Burger King and was advertised heavily during Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network commercial breaks. To top it all off, it was nominated for Favorite Animated Movie in the 2008 Kids' Choice Awards, but ended up losing to the far more family-family Ratatouille.

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