New Muppet movie in development for potential 2013 release

[MrBloogarFoobly]

As for creating the notion of the Muppets being real, well...they ARE real.

See, that's the thing. They're puppets. Men and women stick their hands inside them, and make them come to life. Once the hands come out, they lay on the ground or hang on stands, as unimpressive and uninteresting as discarded clothing.

The Muppet Performers deserve to be in the spotlight.

It's things like this that tend to annoy me enough at ToughPigs.

And that's what I love about Tough Pigs. No BS, no blind worship, and no swear filters.
I love Muppet Central, but at least Tough Pigs allows people to form independent opinions.

 

[Drtooth]

I agree. I see what they're going for, but they should split the difference. Have them appear as real for promotional appearances, but don't completely disavow the behind the scenes stuff for behind the scenes special features and such. Sesame Workshop has no qualms about saying "these guys are puppets" when they do a behind the scenes thing for an adult news program (like CBS Sunday Morning).

Then again, I can see why they're doing it. The original The Muppets script kept making references to them being puppets, heavy handed ones at that. Luckily, they came to the rescue and had those removed and it made the film all the better for it.

I'd totally get it if they had some odd contractual thing that they couldn't really mention Jim Henson (which is why we got sneaky subliminal background pictures last film), but they're kinda hamfisted (take that as a Miss Piggy Pun if you may, I just didn't want to use the term heavy handed again) with that by not having behind the scenes looks on the last film's DVD (err... Blu-Ray... that one actually has the special features)... even though there was craploads of BTS footage on the Muppet Show DVD's. Nothing wrong with a cast commentary this time around, either.

 

[Duke Remington]

I see what you mean, but I think there is a real good point made. It would be pretty lousy of them not to dedicate the film to Jerry and Jane (it's a little late for John... the film's due out next month). Now, I don't think they'd be that obtuse not to do that, and there would definitely be a revolt by the film team if that was the case. But I have to agree that I don't see why a cast commentary is out of the ?

I will say that I do agree, however, that they should MMW to Jerry Nelson and Jane Henson and hope that there'll be some sort of dedication to those two at some point in the film, either at the beginning or after the closing credits.

I think the closing credits would be more likely, since that's where they actually do credit the Muppeteers and which characters they performed.

But I still think the whole "One Muppet, One Voice" histeria from 2005/2006 is what prompted Disney to depict the Muppets being real more and more in what response to that to ensure people of the consistency of the characters and to except no substitutes.

 

[Duke Remington]

And that's what I love about Tough Pigs. No BS, no blind worship, and no swear filters.

I love Muppet Central, but at least Tough Pigs allows people to form independent opinions.

Please do not imply that I'm a blind worshipper. I'm far from it. I'm just expressing a rational, well-thought-out view on the whole thing.

As for ToughPigs, I don't get annoyed by there not being BS or blind worship. I get annoyed by the fact that they do tend to express their opinions in annoying, mean-spirited ways and seem to ungrateful for the many great things that have come out of the Disney/Muppet merger.

The lack of swear filters at ToughPigs also annoys me. It IS possible to express opinions without resorting to bad language and I do wish the ToughPigs would watch their language more and not put others down so much.

 

[jvcarroll]

See, that's the thing. They're puppets. Men and women stick their hands inside them, and make them come to life. Once the hands come out, they lay on the ground or hang on stands, as unimpressive and uninteresting as discarded clothing.

The Muppet Performers deserve to be in the spotlight.



And that's what I love about Tough Pigs. No BS, no blind worship, and no swear filters.
I love Muppet Central, but at least Tough Pigs allows people to form independent opinions.

I'm not particularly pleased about this either, but I just don't understand this level of complaint. Jim didn't particularly promote the names of the puppeteers except for very rare occasions. I think there's a loss of perspective.

I don't blame Disney's decision for focusing on the characters without highlighting the performers considering the potentially damaging performer debacle on Sesame Street a short while back. It's a different sort of model they're using for a different marketplace.

That said, there really was no excuse not to at least cheekily list each character "handler" in the encyclopedia. That's the only truly objectionable thing as far as I see it.

Disney's had some missteps, but their footing has been a lot more solid than under the Jim-less Henson ownership. A lot of fans have short and rose-colored memories. I admit to being 70% pleased with how things are going.

 

[Drtooth]

That said, there really was no excuse not to at least cheekily list each character "handler" in the encyclopedia. That's the only truly objectionable thing as far as I see it.

That's the thing I'm not really liking either. The little behind the scenes stuff should have some mentions of Muppet performers like that. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with how they're handling things. Just the frequent need to be overly cautious about the franchise kinda hurts things, though. The movie's getting a fair level of promotion, I'll give it that. But before then, it seemed like they wanted to keep them quiet for some reason. Like they're afraid of overexposure.... then they splatter Planes all over the place .

 

[Duke Remington]

I don't blame Disney's decision for focusing on the characters without highlighting the performers considering the potentially damaging performer debacle on Sesame Street a short while back. It's a different sort of model they're using for a different marketplace.

What happened on Sesame and when was it?

Was it anything similar to the "One Muppet, One Voice" fiasco from 2005/2006?

 

[MrBloogarFoobly]

Don't forget, though, that Henson also did a lot of Behind the Scenes style documentaries, and we have a wealth of production photos.

Disney keeps everything on the DL. All the "BTS" junk is usually the puppets making cutesy remarks and the co-stars pretending they're actually dealing with non-humans.

In no way am I saying Disney is doing everything wrong. They're definitely doing a lot of things the way they should be done, or, in some cases, the only way they can be done in this day and age. I just wish we had real BTS features, interviews with the current generation of Muppet Performers, and, hey, a bit of talk about the history would be nice. There are a lot of things the general public still doesn't know. Heck, I was reading an article about the tragic death of John Henson, and there were a lot of comments like, "JUST LIKE HIS FATHER - DIED OF AIDS-RELATED COMPLICATIONS. WE'LL MISS THEM." and "FRANK OZ IS GREAT AS MISS PIGGY. HE CAN STILL DO THE VOICE IN THE NEW MOVIE. I HOPE WE DON'T LOSE HIM TOO."

 

[Oscarfan]

What happened on Sesame and when was it?

Was it anything similar to the "One Muppet, One Voice" fiasco from 2005/2006?

It was the Kevin Clash issues in late 2012.

 

[Muppet Master]

Agreed.

Why use an unfinished high concept film that even Jim and Co didn't bother following up on instead of a stronger, more coherent idea?

We are never going to get Muppets Cheapest Movie. And if we did, I'm sure we wouldn't like the end result. It just doesn't carry for 90 minutes, and the jokes would run out by the 20 minute mark.

True, but it wasn't that Jim and co. didn't want to produce "The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made" it's that at the time it was thought of it was late 1989 after JHH got cancelled, and then the Disney deal came leaving little time to plan TCMMEM, and I believe the movie was in its very early stages when Jim Henson passed away leading the muppets back to square one. It makes you wonder, what if Jim Henson didn't die in 1990, what would be the muppets' status now?