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Your Thoughts: Kermit's Swamp Years: TV Airings and Opinions

DrummerMan

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Wow... rough crowd

Contains a couple of VERY mild spoilers

Ok... I know a bunch of you were expecting the Muppet Movie, except one better, but i think because you weren't blown away by the overall movie, you missed some of the subtleties.

I think it WAS a return to the old style of Muppet movies. A lot of the elemenets of The Muppet Movie were back, including the overall feel of the piece... where it felt less like a manufactured Muppet world inhabited by a few humans and more like the Muppets of old, just being their own little part of the real world.

I personally loved the character of Pilgrim. To me she embodied what a dog would be like if they talked.... hyper, somewhat nonsensical, and thrilled by things only a dog could love.

Goggles and Croaker were also very well done. Goggles was a great obsesive compulsive Woddy Allen type and Croaker, though obviously a weird mix of Johnny Fiama and Pepe, had some great lines and was a good, solid character.

I thought the references to Jim were fun, though sadly made WAY too obvious (come on... did we need the full screen shot of the mailbox)?

The running gag with the bunnies was true classic Muppets (and an adult joke, I may add)

The songs weren't show stoppers (as my friend pointed out, you could tell that Paul Williams wasn't involved), but they were stronger than most that have come out of recent family fare, and at least the muppets got to sing again. The Pet song was definitely classic Muppet style.

Not to say there weren't some serious down sides. In general, the human acting was sub par and was missing that key Muppet ingrediant of throwing in famous faces in roles you would never expect (though this wasn't surprising after seeing the lack of famous faces at the 25th anniversary celebration... guess today's Hollywood crop is "too good" to work with the Muppets).

The other thing that was seriously missing from a classic Muppet standpoint was characters. Most of the Muppets were extras, with limited personalities and lines. That was one of the things that made the early muppet movies so endearing was that there were new characters popping up everywhere and each had a real personality.

I also agree tha thte flashback was a bit on the dark and twisted side and for a movie that is geared primarily towards kids, coudl be very distrubing.

To sum up in short... I found myself laughing frequently and at times hard. This is impressive, since I'm not an easy sell when it comes to comedy (The Farrelly Brothers leave me flat). Plus, as with other newer movies, the cut scenes were the best part of all.

In todays movie market, I give it atleast a 6 out of 10 (bordering on a 7) and hope it's a spring board for even greater Muppet movies to come. It's got to be hard without the genius of Jim... I'd say they are doing pretty good, considering.
 

SNLIM

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To Traveling Matt

Hey traveling matt, i'm originally (i say originally but not technically born there but wish i was) from arlington but have reccently moved to the woodlands (basically houston).

My family and I are huge muppet fans but also go for anything and everything henson or oz. I myself, being only 17, didn't actually grow up when the muppet show was big so I grew up through old video tapes from my siblings. I can't tell you how nice it is to talk to people about muppets because nobody in my general age group know or cares about muppets! It really is sad, but hopefully this whole "25th anniversary" thing will spark some new intrest.

BTW: does anybody know about anymore dark crystal figures being relased? such as mystics and skeksis?
 

sidcrowe

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Keep me abreast of any Skeksis or Mystics that come out. The Jen and Kira dolls looked weird.
 

frogboy4

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SNLIM

Welcome to the board! I'm from Houston though I now live in San Francisco. Too bad there aren't more Muppet fans your age, but maybe after the new fox show next year there will be.

There are no plans at the current time to make Dark Crystal figures though Ken of Palisades has expressed some interest in another thread. There are dolls of Jen and Kira from Sideshow: http://www.sideshowtoy.com/dk_cryst.html

Hope that helped.
 

sidcrowe

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But Froggy, what did you think of Swamp Years?

:confused:
 

frogboy4

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Don't have Stars. Have to wait for the DVD. Not in a hurry to see it really.
 

sidcrowe

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Nah, me neither.

From what we've heard so far, it seems every bit the sad slab of banal product I feared it'd be:frown:

Anyhoo, there's a new DVD version of 1984's Gremlins out:smile:

Kinda Muppet-y, I guess:stick_out_tongue:
 

frogboy4

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I can't believe they got some cheesy actors to be in this. Why not just use the puppeteers then? That would be cool and they all have made cameos.
 

SNLIM

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swamp years amoung other things...

i think that the jen and kira look sort of weird myself (i own a pair), but not too bad. anyway, after this airing of swamp years i'm not so psyched about the new fox series if it's going to be anything like this. i'd rather them just use the old muppet show formatt with modern guest start, but then again i guess that's sort of what they tried to do with muppets tonight which bit the dust so...
 

Jackie

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Originally posted by frogboy4
I can't believe they got some cheesy actors to be in this. Why not just use the puppeteers then? That would be cool and they all have made cameos.
It was worse than cheesy. IT was so bad they should have redone it.
 
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