"The Muppets": Audience Reactions

[TheWoodringman]

When I saw the movie, before it started I heard a parent talking to a girl about the movie, the parent said that another child of hers would like "The Muppets." over "Puss in Boots." because "He loves Elmo." I thought "What? Elmo's not on muppets he's on 'Sesame Street.' The kid then corrected her mother.
But anyway, my mother (who went with me) said the part where they come out of the theater, onto the street after the telethon to see all those fans, made her cry.

 

[melissa@muppet]

i thought it was brilliant and so did my kids, seeing all the muppets again on the big screen..we sang along to the songs and laughed.hope they do more movies..

 

[Misskermie]

Everyone was singing to rainbow connection, and when kermit and Piggy kissed, all I heard was, IKNEW IT!!! And the end, I heard everyone sing mah na mah na!

 

[muppetlover123]

Some parent in there i was singing the songs in the theater and she told her kids dont be as weird as that man over there and i think we got to rainbow connection by the moopets and she was like are you gonna do this the whole movie

 

[Misskermie]

It needed Beau sweeping the back of the theater, wondering where everyone was. Im shocked they didnt have a brief post credit epilogue.

Im also agitated that there was noticeably a lot of scenes cut/truncated/left out. For instance the celebrity cameos and the telethon. What happened? Other than that I can't think of too many gripes. I now get the fart shoe and travel by map thing, and am glad its in the film. Just the pacing due to the edits slightly irked me. But it feels immensely brisk.

There's also why Piggy left, and in one of the movie trailers, I noticed Piggy in what looked like Mary's classroom, like as a special guest. They've let out so much!

 

[LouisTheOtter]

I've enjoyed re-reading this thread and all the wonderful memories you've all shared about seeing The Muppets in theatres - thanks, everybody! I think we'll all look back fondly on this uniquely special movie-going experience, and we have the Muppets to thank for that.

My wife and I, both longtime Muppet fans, went to see it twice. We were going to wait until we could see it with the Christian youth group my wife runs (it was actually their idea - they also begged us to screen The Muppet Movie last August on the big projection screen at the local Baptist Church) - but the nearest theatre to our town only shows one movie at a time, and we knew I wasn't going to hold out for two or three weeks until The Muppets arrived there, so we made the 90-minute trek to the nearest multiplex on opening weekend.

When we got to the theatre in our matching Kermit-face T-shirts (and I opened with my gag line, "Two tickets for Twilight, please," as if THAT was ever going to happen), the young man taking admission fees said, "You're DEFINITELY getting in for free with THOSE shirts on!" - and he wasn't kidding! Free! Gratis! Thank you, Kermit!

The theatre was only half-full that night but everybody there seemed to be enjoying themselves (one woman off to the left side laughed nearly as often as my wife and I did). And when the movie was over, the theatre manager - who's a good friend of ours - took our picture sitting in front of the big standee with all the Muppets, Jason Segel and Amy Adams. That's going to be a treasured photo for years to come!

Over the next two weeks, before we went with the youth group, I enjoyed the online reaction from friends and family who also went to see The Muppets and raved about it on Facebook ("maniacal laugh" popped up in more than one status line!). The only downer was that two college friends of mine went to see it with their daughters (aged 4 and 6) and were collectively disappointed, with the husband saying "it's a shame my kids won't be able to experience the Muppets the same way I did." (Which is true to a degree, but I don't think that was a movie for 4-to-6-year-olds either.)

Finally, we went to see it in the same theatre with the youth group for a Saturday matinee and I was thrilled to see that the place was PACKED, over two weeks after The Muppets arrived in North American theatres. As much as my wife and I enjoyed seeing the movie again, this viewing was even more special because (a) we caught a couple of jokes/toppers that we were laughing too hard to catch the first time, (b) we enjoyed picking out little details in the background (framed photos from the Muppet Show days, "extra Muppets" in the crowd scenes, the signs waved by the fans on Hollywood Boulevard), and (c) every so often I'd cast my gaze over to our youth-group kids and the other chaperones and be just delighted at how hard they were laughing at everything.

Our theatre manager friend was on-duty again that day and he took some great shots of all of us in front of the main movie poster, including two of my Muppet treasures (the Fisher-Price Rowlf puppet I got for Easter in 1981 and the three-foot plush Kermit I picked up at a Carlton Cards store here in Atlantic Canada). We posted one of these pictures on our group's Facebook page and one of the other chaperones came on and commented: "All I have to say is: 'Ba da ba da'" (she meant "Mahna Mahna" of course, as we were all singing that while the pictures were being taken).

Speaking of Facebook, it took a grand total of five minutes after one of our kids (in Grade 8) got home before he changed his status line to "THE MUPPETS WERE AWESOME."

One other youth group member couldn't join us that day but had already seen the movie with his dad after a hockey tournament, and loved it - I posted the "Man or Muppet" video on Facebook the day the Oscar nominations came out, and he commented: "I was jamming to this song the other day" (on his saxophone, that is).

Thank you Jason Segel, Nicholas Stoller, James Bobin, Bret McKenzie, Disney, all the Muppeteers and everyone else involved in this wonderful movie. You've made memories that my wife and I - and millions of others - will treasure forever.

 

[CensoredAlso]

The only downer was that two college friends of mine went to see it with their daughters (aged 4 and 6) and were collectively disappointed, with the husband saying "it's a shame my kids won't be able to experience the Muppets the same way I did."

I don't understand, just because they didn't like that particular movie doesn't mean their kids can't experience the Muppets any other way.

 

[LouisTheOtter]

Going on the premise that everyone's entitled to their opinion, I don't think they were approaching the movie the right way.

First of all, it's not specifically designed for pre-schoolers (although they can find a lot in it to enjoy), and secondly, the underlying premise of the film is the concept that the Muppets aren't as prominent in pop culture as they once were, so of course there are going to be a few wistful scenes in that regard.

My friends did have a point about their daughters being confused by the rushed ending (especially since it partly depended on newspaper headlines - which are hard to read for the very-young set - to wrap up the plotlines as the credits rolled).

But some of their criticisms flat-out baffled me. The husband grumbled about "a morose Kermit leading the Muppets out of the theatre" and OF COURSE that's a sad moment, but the beauty of it is that it leads to one of Kermit's best-ever on-screen appearances when he encouraged the gang to keep doing their thing for however many people actually want to see it. That, of course, set up the wonderful closing scene where Kermit and the Muppets realize just how big that number actually is.

My old friend also complained that "the old Muppet Show spirit came too late in the movie and was far too short." Since he actually made these comments on FB before I got to see the movie myself, I was slightly apprehensive and had them in the back of my head as I was settling into the multiplex two nights later. But after seeing how much of the final act of The Muppets was dedicated to the telethon - and the lengths to which Bobin, Segel, Stoller and company went to create an absolutely delightful big-screen recreation of TMS - I found myself wondering what more my friend could have wanted in this regard.

 

[Beauregard]

I find myself wondering what he watched! (Joking, kinda) Since my mind was blown by almost the entire second act and its telethoness.

 

[CensoredAlso]

But some of their criticisms flat-out baffled me. The husband grumbled about "a morose Kermit leading the Muppets out of the theatre" and OF COURSE that's a sad moment, but the beauty of it is that it leads to one of Kermit's best-ever on-screen appearances when he encouraged the gang to keep doing their thing for however many people actually want to see it.

Yeah kinda reminds me of a friend of mine who dismissed a Fraggle Rock episode as "too morbid," ignoring the happy ending that followed.

My old friend also complained that "the old Muppet Show spirit came too late in the movie and was far too short."

Well I do slightly agree that the Muppet antics could have been more dominate but I don't think we had to wait to the end to see it. It was more scattered throughout the film.