Puppet movies, puppets used in movies, and movies about puppets.

To be clear, "puppet movies" refers to movies that are made for puppets. There is yet to be a movie made for puppets, so puppets remain an un-tapped demographic. That being said, there are plenty of them IN movies, weather people know it or not.

Some movies revel in the fact that they feature puppets, with notable examples such as the Muppet movies or Team America: World Police.

The Muppet Movie, one of many movies starring Jim Henson's creations.

But most movies that feature puppets make it a goal for the audience to not realize it's a puppet! A great number of the aliens in the original "Men in Black" were puppets, as were the larger dinosaurs in the original Jurassic Park. 

The "Star Wars" series is full of puppets as well, with one of it's title characters being one! 

Jedi master Yoda in all his glory!
(In the later movies, Yoda was CG.)

In more recent movies, the use of puppets has been replaced with CG effects. CG is often used in places where a good puppet would work just as well. In the late 1990's and early 2000's CG was over-used to the tune of laughable results. Though animation is powerful, there are times where a puppet adds an effect that can't be gotten anywhere else. 

  

 One of my personal favorite movie puppets, "Brundlefly" in the 1986 "The Fly" remains impressive, even today. 

The Muppets

This week I had the wonderful opportunity to see the newest Muppet movie named properly, "The Muppets" I have to say this is one of the best movies I have seen in awhile. I completely agreed to a review I saw, I was smiling the entire time.

The movie is about Walter a Muppet and his non Muppet brother Gary (played by Jason Segel) travel to Los Angeles where they meet Kermit and find the rest of the Muppet Gang and raise ten million dollars to save their old theater. The plot itself is not the best in the world, but it is just the backdrop for the real reason why you are there: Muppets telling jokes, and believe me they are hilarious. It seemed that every notable Muppet had a chance to do a great joke. And just because I know you are asking, Fozzie Bear is still a riot.

The cameos are also an absolute treat to watch. Donald Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Dave Grohl, Neil Patrick Harris, and Mickey Rooney are just a few that are in this movie. Seeing the Muppets on a big screen just feels right. It is really good to see them again at the rightful place.

All in all an amazing movie and I highly recommend this to all ages.

It's the Muppet Movie!

It's time to play the music. It's time to light the lights. It's time to meet the Muppets in the Muppet movie tonight!

I just got back from watching The Muppets, the first Muppet theatrical released film in twelve years. In the film Walter, a Muppet himself is the world’s largest Muppet fan. Along with his human brother Gary played by Jason Segel and Gary’s girlfriend Mary played by Amy Adams they must raise 10 million to save the Muppet Theater from Tex Richman. But before they can do that they need to reunite all of the Muppets who have since parted ways and are all over the world. Overall I really enjoyed the film that has the heart warm message that everything is better when you are with the people that you care about.

The first thing I liked about the film was the meta jokes calling attention to the movie the characters were in. For example when reuniting the gang they realize that this could take awhile and that we should probably cut to a montage. Instantly a montage begins until we see all the Muppets assembled into the car. One of the Muppets, Rowlf, then asks how come his story wasn’t included in the montage because he thought his was very interesting. The film then cuts back to the group waking him up from a hammock and asking if he wanted to join them, which he quickly answers yes. Other meta-references were to the songs that were supervised and written by the hilarious Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchrods. Characters would reference how they were tired from doing an earlier song and dance number. Other times like when The Muppets meet with Tex Richman and he raps them a song about how the answer of giving them the theater back is no the Muppets said a simple no would have been good enough.

Long before the movie came out I was excited to see because of the great marketing behind the film. In the months leading up to the movie they created numerous spoof trailers and posters of popular films with the Muppets as the stars. These included a spoof of the romantic comedy genre with a film called Green With Envy, a parody of The Hangover Part II called The Fuzzy Pack, and a parody of the upcoming David Fincher film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo called The Pig with the Froggy Tattoo. Other films parody included Green Lantern (Being Green), Paranormal Activity (Abnormal Activity), Puss in Boots (Fuss in Boots) and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (Breaking Prawn). By drumming up anticipation with these funny and successful parodies of popular movies ticket sales should be high for a movie that already has a loyal fan base and already stellar reviews.

Overall the movie was a great and sweet story perfect to watch with your family this holiday weekend. In one related note very much like the plot of the movie of bringing the Muppets back for a new generation, NBC has recently announced this week that it is currently working on a new sitcom with the Jim Henson Company. “The New Nabors” will explore the humorous repercussions of a human family living next door to a puppet family. If it is anything like the movie I am sure the world is in for quite a treat and for the Muppets to bring everyone, as they say, the third greatest gift of all: “laughter.”