I found this quote from, iirc, the AP review in the local paper, interesting:
"The plot parallels the real-world state of the Muppets -- relics testing the waters to see if anyone will watch, if anyone still cares"

Speaking of movies Priest reminds you of, the opening animation reminded me of the opening of an animated movie that WASN'T animated The Ralf Bakshi movie "Wizards" has an intro about how things divided into good and evil, and evil lost and wasn't much of a threat anymore. As usually happened with Bakshi they ran out of time/money, so just show still art depicting those scenes.

I'm reminded of when the Japanese first discovered the idea of creating original cartoons for release on video. Creators and studios saw a huge potential for creative freedom: you could make a show as long or short as you wanted, with content that didn't have to abide by either TV or theatrical censorship restrictions. Early OAVs followed through on that, letting them experiment with single episodes that spawned a series if they did well.

However... it didn't take long for the dream to die. By the early 90's, OAVs were basically just TV episodes you had to pay for. They were all 25 minutes long, had standard opening and closing credits, and even a spot for a commercial break in the middle.

Yes, and probably the blurring has increased as those cases came through the courts. That is, if nobody was suing in the 60's then there was no reason to blur faces. At some point, though, a nobody saw themselves in a movie that was making millions and said, "why shouldn't I get paid?"

Haven't seen that one since it was in theaters. Does what I hate most in a movie: has five minutes set in an interesting future/fantasy world, then sends them to present day where it's cheaper to film. Only Terminator actually managed to pull it off well It's also sort of a bait and switch, as they had the rights to the toys and not the cartoon and thus were kind of limited in what they could do. No Orco, though, which was a good thing.

He did say it was his first episode since the pilot. See, that's the problem with having continuity: casual viewers can't jump in unless you basically restate the premiss every episode (which some shows actually manage to do rather well).

I'll just add that I've come to hate story arcs. Oh, they were great at the beginning. Loved the continuing story lines on the NBC dramas like LA Law, Babylon 5's 5 year arc was a great experiment, etc. But, now? EVERYTHING has story arcs! You can't turn on a drama seemingly without it expecting you to catch every episode. Even the new Doctor Who has been infected. Can't we just have ONE season of the Doctor where each episode stands on its own? It would be so refreshing!

(My sister over the years has stopped watching all TV dramas, as she'd always be behind. Now, unless it's on Netflix she won't see it)

It's been brought up before, but among other things not only do they have a large backlog of movies to get to, but Dorkman is the type to want to ALL of a series once it's started. So, unless it's something short best not to go there

Which is why any sequels would probably be about their kids. It is, after all, a story about a school. You need school age characters. So, time isn't a factor as everyone can be replaced.

They have a large list of movies they want to do, which occasionally gets posted here in this thread, and it's a matter of who's around that weekend and what they want to do. As for releasing a long range recording schedule, remember the live streaming is just a bonus they're doing as a favor to us. I'd rather get a week's notice on what's being released for the podcast then for the weekend recording.

The US Godzilla film is an interesting case because its badness depends on what you were expecting. I mean, the Japanese public (not the fans, the public) loved it because it was it was so much better then the 90's Godzilla films they had been given by Toho. We didn't see those films, so compared it to what we thought a good modern Godzilla film would be like. It's not as good as the three 90's Gamera films, but I don't think the US Godzilla is BAD. Overhyped, yes, but not bad in the way something like The Scorpion King is.

The example I use for a so bad it's good is the anime Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight. A team of talented creators who had worked on Yamato (Star Blazers) come up with the brilliant idea to do a modern, 80's, version with hair metal music! The result just HAS to be seen, as every creative choice was wrong, every plot point either telegraphed an hour ahead of time or just randomly appearing. It feels like it was condensed down from a TV series but wasn't. They only had the metal group do two songs, in English, and they play each three or four times.

It's brilliant.