Several other original Muppeteers and writers have either retired or significantly scaled back their work. Jim Henson’s been gone for more than 20 years. The guys writing Superman today do it because they were fans as kids and dreamed of telling Superman stories of their own. Most popular fiction involving long-running characters becomes fan fiction on some level. (*) Walter’s not perfect, but not all Mary Sues are perfect their insertion into the narrative is enough to qualify.Īnd I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. For that matter, the fact that Jason Segel, Nicholas Stoller, James Bobin, Bret McKenzie and a bunch of other Muppet fans got to grow up and make this movie (with Segel also playing Walter’s best friend Gary) makes it a fantasy within and without.
This is a movie made by, and for, that generation that grew up on “The Muppet Show” and “The Muppet Movie,” who know all the lyrics to “Rainbow Connection,” who have an instinctive response to the sound of “manamana,” who hear any reference to Swedish food and think (or say) “Bork! Bork! Bork!” It’s a kind of classic Mary Sue fantasy, in which one of those kids who grew up adoring Kermit and Fozzie and the rest gets to hang out with his favorite characters, gain their approval and even save the day and set them up for future adventures(*).
“The Muppets” is, to put it simply, the greatest work of fanfiction I’ve ever seen. Drew already wrote his own review, and I have a lot of thoughts on the film – meant, like most of my TV reviews, to be read after you’ve seen it, so don’t click through if you don’t want to know about the cameos and various jokes – coming up just as soon as I travel by map… But for some films, I make an exception, and “The Muppets” is one of those. HitFix has a full, talented roster of film writers (and that’s not even counting when Drew gets his adorable son to adorably interview Kermit and Miss Piggy) and my schedule doesn’t usually give me much time to either see or write about movies.
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