I'm one of the 4 people on the planet who actually really enjoyed Muppets: Most Wanted. I thought it was great silly fun. I just don't feel like the Muppets show embraced their silly anarchic side.
I must be #2 of the 4, then, since I liked
Muppets Most Wanted better than the previous film.
The Muppets (the film) was trying too hard to sell the idea of the Muppets to a new audience, and it was too steeped in nostalgia and affection for the Muppets to remember that they had an edgier side. It was so sentimental toward Kermit that it reduced him to a complete sad sack who did nothing except give up at the slightest setback over and over again. MMW rehabilitated Kermit by giving him his edge back, by remembering that he led the Muppets by being tough as well as nice, and demonstrating how completely they fell apart without Kermit there to yell at them and keep them focused.
I watched the show from start to finish, and I did enjoy it, but think the biggest problem was that it felt more like a decent workplace sitcom than a Muppet show.
Whereas my problem was that it felt more like a
bad workplace sitcom than a Muppet show. It wasn't just that they were completely out of character and seemed to be acting out generic sitcom scripts about totally different, far more mean-spirited characters -- it was that practically nothing they said or did made me laugh.
I agree with you guys that they really need to find someone who is really able to recapture the style that Jim Henson had, which nobody has really been able to do so far. I thought Muppets Treasure Island, Muppets from Space, and the last two movies came pretty close, but it still wasn't at the same level as Henson's stuff.
I've loved the Muppets my whole life, so I don't want to see them go away, but I do think they need to take a good look at what has and hasn't worked in the past, and focus just on what worked.
The fundamental paradox there, though, is that Henson did all the things he did because he was an innovator. Instead of trying to emulate the past, he pushed the medium forward in new and experimental directions. He totally transformed the art of puppetry on television by making the frame itself the proscenium and giving the characters freedom to interact with the whole world. He pioneered new technologies in puppetry, video effects, and eventually creature effects and animatronics, and he was experimenting with computer animation toward the end of his life. He pushed the humor of the Muppets in a subversive and adult direction while also embracing their appeal to children and their value as an educational tool. He branched out into innovative fantasy films like
The Dark Crystal and
Labyrinth and shows like
The Storyteller and
Dinosaurs. He was one of the most forward-looking, pioneering creators in the industry.
So while it may be possible to imitate what he did in the past, it will never be possible to capture the spirit of Henson's work as long as one is looking backward and trying to emulate something that's already been done. The only real way to capture his spirit is to create something that nobody's ever seen before. Who knows if Henson himself would still be doing Muppet movies if he were alive? Hell, he probably would've beaten Pixar to their niche in the creative landscape. Or Weta. Or both.
