Review of Muppets from Space (1999) by Brittany S — 24 Feb 2012

Some Questions Should Be Left Unanswered.

My second biggest problem with this movie is the soundtrack. I don't particularly believe that the Muppets work best with funk. It just doesn't work. The Muppets work best with a certain gentle feel; folk and folk derivatives are really more their style. And, of course, the music hall stylings which appeared on the TV show. Having the lot of them gadding about to the tune of "Brick House" doesn't work for me. I'm quite sure it was Brian Henson's attempt to put his own mark on the series, his attempt to break away some from his father's legacy. The problem, however, is that his father's legacy is what the Muppets rely on, and taking it away takes away from what's best about them. The Muppets require a certain familiarity without which you might start to think about the whole thing, and the last thing we want is for people to start thinking about the details. After all, they don't entirely make sense, do they?

It's the standard goings-on in the beautiful old house in which Our Heroes live. Kermit is trying to hold the whole thing together. Piggy has gotten a job working for one of those awful TV shows about conspiracy theories and alien landings and so forth. And Gonzo is feeling lonely and out-of-sorts. He doesn't know what he is, and he feels as though he has no place in the world. And then, his cereal gives him a message; he is to wait for them, whoever they are, to contact him again. He goes to wait on the roof; he is struck by lightning and has a conversation with cosmic fish and so forth, and he knows--his people are coming for him, and he just has to let them know that he's there. Meanwhile, K. Edgar Singer (Jeffrey Tambor) has also become aware of the messages, and he decides that he needs to examine Gonzo in order to prove the existence of extraterrestrials and keep his government funding.

I was always perfectly content with Gonzo as a Whatever. I did not need the mystery of his existence solved; one might as well ask what species Sweetums is, which no one ever does--because Sweetums is not a main character. Yes, Kermit is a frog and Fozzie is a bear and Rizzo is a rat and even Pepe is a king prawn. One assumes that Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beeker and most of the Electric Mayhem are human, but just because most of the main characters have a defined species doesn't mean they all have to. Heck, [i]Sesame Street[/i] has a Muppet population which is primarily just called monsters. Come to that, Big Bird isn't defined as anything more than just a bird. And doesn't need to be. I mean, we're accepting a world where puppets and humans flirt shamelessly with one another; does it really matter what species the puppets are?

Of course, this is still better than what I've seen of their made-for-TV or direct-to-DVD fare. Not that I've seen most of it, of course. Because I can tell from trailers that it either isn't funny or has the worst trailers possible. This one does at least have some funny moments. And it does rather have Kermit as I think of him most--the calm center of the storm. Chaos happens around him, and he does what he can to prevent it from taking over. He gives a quiet word of advice where needed. He listens when he can. I can't help wondering if the Kermit we see here, the Kermit we saw most often, was the Jim Henson that Brian knew. I'm not sure I've ever read about anyone having anything bad to say about Jim, and I've definitely read that Jim put more of himself into Kermit than any other character.

I know that it can't be as it was with Jim. Jim is dead and has been for a very long time now. Again, I know all that. But I think there's something to be said for maintaining the feel of the work as it was when he was alive. I think that's what works most about the current movie, and I think the bits which are most like his sensibility are in general the best bits of the movies made since his death. I grew up with the Muppets as a major part of my life; I suspect a lot of people my age did. After all, mine is the generation for which [i]Sesame Street[/i] was first created. The trilogy of movies Jim oversaw came out during my childhood; we are the children of [i]Labyrinth[/i] and [i]The Dark Crystal[/i], too. Maybe people who have the chance to grow up with the new stuff aren't as opposed to it as I, but there are worse things to have as generational markers than fussiness about keeping Gonzo a Whatever.