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votes
Muppet a movie
Name a movie or story that should get the Muppet treatment, like the Muppet Christmas Carol.
Name the token human headlining character and justify your Muppet picks. Bonus points for some dialog or song lyrics.
The Matrix. I spent way too much time thinking about this.
Of course, the key difference is that all the gun violence is replaced with lobbing paint-filled water balloons, and the kung fu is replaced with overstuffed down pillow fighting. When Morpheus is abducted he isn't drugged, they just hypnotize him with a swinging pocketwatch. The EMP pulse is a lullaby that puts the squiddies to sleep (also the squiddies are Rizzo's rat friends in this version, and they're just looking for food on the ship). The big electro-shock gun thing Cypher uses is one of
Honeydew'sDozer's inventions, a Laughing Ray gun.When Cypher unplugs the crew, instead of dying, we see them wake up, one at a time, backstage in the Muppet theater. Same thing happens to everyone who
diesfalls in battle. Finally Neo defeats Agent Smith in the hallway and jumps inside him, exploding everything and when the digital dust settles we find the remainder of the cast waking up and very disoriented backstage. They figure out what's going on just in time for the curtain to raise on the big musical number with all the muppets and humans out of character. Roll credits.Post-credits, Waldorf and Statler heckling from up in the theater box. Then Waldorf gets a bit sinister/cryptic: "You were right, this simulation's even better than the first one!" Daniel Craig walks up behind them, unmistakably costumed as The Architect. He nods approvingly. Statler looks straight into the camera: "What, you thought they got out? We ALWAYS get the last laugh! Haahahahahaa...."
My friends and I had a conversation about this a few years ago. There were a bunch of funny suggestions but my favorite was Face/Off. We argued for a while about which human actor should remain, but my vote would be for Cage just because he would be the most over-the-top hilarious acting against muppets. I can't decide who would be the best stand in for Travolta, honestly pretty much every muppet I can think of would be absolute gold.
My other favorite was The Truman Show, and only Jim Carey is human.
Face/Off with Cage would be incredible. I genuinely laughed out loud just reading that suggestion!
I'm not great with image editing but I was tickled by this so I made a thing...
That's amazing and I love it
I'll toss this out:
Kermit is Truman. Mrs Piggy as wife. All other townsfolk are human (the higher A list actors, the better). Everyone else muppets, with a few random sprinkles of random humans as TV viewers.
Would it be better to have Piggy as Truman's high school crush, so Truman has something to escape to and no one else on set is a Muppet?
There is something deeply amusing to me about having either all the townsfolk be Muppets (except Truman) and the TV audience be real people, or vice-versa.
I like that too. There's so many ways to slice it.
Fifth Element is our film.
Kermit as Dallas.
Ms. Piggy as Leeloo.
Gonzo as Ruby Rodd.
Fozzie as The President.
Sam Eagle as General Munro.
Our human is Tom Hiddleson, portraying Zorg. Alongside an army of Yipps.
I need this movie.
Side tangent:
This is one of the more amusing applications of AI generative art I can think of. When we get to the point where you can generate video from text prompts like you can images using Midjourney etc, this would be amazing. It also sidesteps some of the issues with deepfaking real people, and instead utilizes fictional meta-characters (Muppets) which can be licensed however the studio chooses.
Just imagine, Jim Henson Studios sets up a website where you drop in your script (or name a movie in the public domain), name your actors and the general style and some other prompts, and out pops a 60-90min Muppet movie.
From ChatGPT:
Can you make an script excerpt of Hamlet, casted by the Muppets?
Sure, here's a possible script excerpt for a Muppet version of Hamlet:
Kermit the Frog as Hamlet
Kermit: To be or not to be, that is the question.
Miss Piggy as Queen Gertrude
Miss Piggy: My son, what troubles you so?
Kermit: Oh, mother, it's this mortal coil. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.
Miss Piggy: Oh, Hamlet, don't be so dramatic. Just suck it up and get on with it.
Kermit: Easy for you to say, mother. You're the queen. You have power and privilege. I'm just a prince, struggling to make sense of this mad world.
Fozzie Bear as Polonius
Fozzie: Fear no more the heat o' the sun, nor the furious winter's rages. Thou thy worldly task hast done, home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
Kermit: Thanks for the poetry, Fozzie, but it doesn't really help.
Fozzie: Sorry, my lord. I was just trying to cheer you up.
Kermit: I appreciate the effort, but nothing can cheer me up right now. Not until I've avenged my father's death and set things right in Denmark.
Miss Piggy: Oh, Hamlet, don't be so morbid. Life is precious. You should cherish every moment.
Kermit: Easy for you to say, mother. You're not the one with a ghost haunting you, demanding revenge.
Miss Piggy: A ghost? You mean like the Great Gonzo's cousin, Spooky?
Kermit: No, mother, not like that. This is a real ghost. The ghost of my father, King Hamlet, murdered by his own brother, Claudius.
Miss Piggy: Oh, my. That is a serious matter. We must do something about this, Hamlet. We can't have a murderer on the throne.
Kermit: I agree, mother. And that's why I've decided to put on a play. A play that will expose the truth and bring Claudius to justice.
Miss Piggy: A play? That sounds like a great idea, Hamlet. Let's put on a show!
The Muppets all cheer and start brainstorming ideas for the play
Piggy literally playing Gertrude is a choice with Kermit in the role of Hamlet, but only so many female puppets, and the bot has a decent grasp on the characters. I threw out Hamlet on a lark, but I never connected the play for Claudius to the Muppets being a theater troupe, and you can have a lot of fun with that.
This has got some pretty good gags in it. You're right that the casting is a little suspect, but it gets the voices right for the characters a lot of the time, which I find pretty impressive.
Heck, I'd settle for a half-decent script/novella. Pretty sure after you've seen enough Muppet shows/movies you don't need the actual audio/video. :)
Muppet's Dracula
Obviously Count Von Count could play Dracula. The token humans are Winona Ryder and Keanu, but not in their roles from Bram Stoker's Dracula. Keanu is Van Helsing, and Winona is Quincey. Kermit and Miss Piggy are the Harkers. At some point when the Count is doing crazy Dracula shit, Van Helsing utters the famous Keanu, "Woah."
The Count of Muppet Cristo
Kermit is Dantes and Mondego is played by Paul Rudd. Rudd's Mondego is just cheerful and friendly while doing dastardly things to Kermit.
Kermit's Odyssey
All the humans are played by muppets, and all the gods are played by humans. Arnold is Zeus and Salma is Hera, just like in the superbowl ad. Lin Manuel Miranda is Poseidon.
Muppet Canterbury Tales
Paul Bettany reprises his role as Geoffrey Chaucer, somehow put into his own tales, with the muppets taking on various characters. Chaucer's at the table with the people telling tales, and maybe corrects them, or suggests changes?
Muppets doing Shakespeare and other classic plays is something I wanted to see for a bit now, so it's nice to know someone had the same idea.
I loved Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island, and I thought at that time that they might start doing a whole series of classic novels in the public domain. I wasn't let down by the movies that followed, but I still wish that they had done more movies in the same vein.
Having mulled this question over previously, my go to answer is The Princess Bride.
In my head cannon I have notions of who would play each role, but I'll leave that exercise up to your imagination.
Suggestion from a friend:
Marvel's The Avengers:
Fozzie as Iron Man
Gonzo as Captain America
Kermit as Thor
Piggy as Black Widow
Rowlf as Hulk
Rizzo as Hawkeye
Sam the Eagle as Nick Fury
Scooter as Agent Coulson
Tom Hiddleston as Loki
Rowlf as Bruce Banner. Sweetums as Hulk.
Edit: Or Animal. In either role. He's great as an agent of chaos but also does seething, restrained rage pretty well too.
Maybe there's a meta narrative about how the Director didn't think Sweetums could hold down a supporting role, or Rowlf wanted to be Hulk, and they have to come to an agreement.
I enjoy the unexpected casting of Gonzo as Captain America!
I'll add : Swedish Chef as the voice of Jarvis.
But play it completely straight. Everyone except for the audience understands what Swedish Chef Jarvis is saying without issue.
Thanks. Kermit is the everyman who keeps the Muppets going, but Gonzo is the heart of the group, and his authenticity matches well with Cap's.
Edit: If Sweetish Chef eventually becomes The Vision, does that make Camilla the Scarlet Witch? That would be odd.
This got a good chuckle out of me. That "Puny god..." scene is gonna hit a little different, lol.
Having seen that animated adaptation of My Father's Dragon not too long ago, I think it would be perfect to make into a Muppets movie. Kermit would really fit well in well as the titular dragon given how well he's adapted to pathos. Most of the characters are animals, so they would work really well if you replaced them with Muppets.
Just about everyone could fill in for Elmer (the main human character), but because this is a fantasy project I'm going to choose a young Jonathan Taylor Thomas.