Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (also known as Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Movie Film for Theaters) is a 2007 American adult animated surreal black comedy film based on the Adult Swim animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The film was written and directed by series creators Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis and features the voices of Dana Snyder, Carey Means, Willis, Maiellaro, Mike Schatz, Andy Merrill, C. Martin Croker, Bruce Campbell, Neil Peart and Chris Kattan. The film was theatrically released on April 13, 2007. The film marks the first and only time an Adult Swim series was adapted into a feature film as well as being the second Cartoon Network series overall to have a feature film. The film grossed $5.5 million on a $750,000 budget.[1] Warner Home Video released the film on a two-disc DVD on August 14, 2007.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
Theatrical release poster by Julie Bell and Boris Vallejo
Directed by
Produced by
Screenplay by
  • Matt Maiellaro
  • Dave Willis
Based onAqua Teen Hunger Force
by Matt Maiellaro
Dave Willis
Starring
Music byBill Fulton
Edited by
Production
companies
Distributed byFirst Look Pictures[1]
Warner Bros. Pictures (uncredited)
Release date
  • April 10, 2007 (2007-04-10) (New York City)
  • April 13, 2007 (2007-04-13) (United States)
Running time
85 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$750,000[1]
Box office$5.5 million[1]

Plot

Before the main feature, a faux theatre concession stand advertisement plays. A group of anthropomorphic theater snacks, The Soda Dog Refreshment Band, sings a spoof of Let's All Go to the Lobby until they are interrupted by another snack band (performed by Mastodon). They proceed to loudly sing their own bizarre theater rules before finishing on a guitar solo.

The film starts properly in Egypt in a purposely indeterminable time, where Master Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad break free from within the Sphinx and are attacked by an oversized poodle who kills Frylock before Shake defeats it. Shake and Meatwad flee with Frylock's corpse and meet "Time Lincoln", who revives Frylock. When government agents break into his house, Time Lincoln helps the Aqua Teens escape in a wooden rocket ship. Time Lincoln is shot, changing history and resulting in the Confederacy winning the American Civil War, with the government agents being made slaves to a Black Kentucky Colonel. All this, however, is just an elaborate story concocted by Shake to explain their origin to Meatwad. Meanwhile, a slice of watermelon named Walter Melon observes events of the Aqua Teens from his spaceship.

When Shake plans to use his new exercise machine, Frylock notices that it is not assembled properly, and the instructions cannot be found. After searching for them online, he finds a message warning not to assemble the machine. Frylock calls the website's listed phone number, which is revealed to be that of Emory and Oglethorpe, the Plutonians. Before answering the phone, they discover the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future on board with them. The Ghost explains to the two aliens that the machine, when assembled, will exercise a man into a super-being, who will attract all the women on Earth, leading to massive inbreeding and the eventual extinction of mankind. To prevent this, the Ghost travels to the past and steals a screw that holds the machine together. The Plutonians point out to him that the screw could easily be replaced.

Back on Earth, Frylock finishes re-building the machine with a pencil in the screw hole, but he discovers the circuit board is missing. The trio visit Carl, from whom Shake had stolen the machine, to see if he has the missing piece. After Carl refuses to tell them, Meatwad finds the address in the machine's box. Dr. Weird is visited by Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad. Frylock retrieves the missing circuit board and installs it into the machine. Carl insists that as the rightful owner he should be the first to test the machine. The machine straps him in and transforms itself into a giant one-eyed robot. The robot plays techno music and heads for downtown Philadelphia, all while Carl is forced to exercise. Eventually, the robot begins laying metallic eggs, which hatch into smaller versions of the machine.

The Aqua Teens, aided by an instructional workout video, find that the machine can be destroyed using music. The Aqua Teens have no choice but to have Shake play his music. Shake poorly plays his original song "Nude Love" on acoustic guitar, forcing the machine to commit suicide. Carl (now bulging with muscles) leaves with his newly found date, a bodybuilder named Linda, and they head back to her condo while the Aqua Teens try to figure out a way to stop the newly hatched machines from destroying the city.

As they travel back to Dr. Weird, Frylock begins to tell the origin story of the Aqua Teens: they were created by Dr. Weird, along with a chicken nugget named Chicken Bittle. In the flashback, Dr. Weird proclaims that the Aqua Teens were created for one purpose: to crash a jet into a brick wall. Realizing the pointlessness of this mission, Frylock diverted the jet and set a course to Africa, where they would try to solve world hunger. Upon entering Africa, Bittle was eaten by a lion. After realizing they could not be much help, they returned to America and rented a house in New Jersey.

Meanwhile, Carl and Linda recline in her room, where she reveals herself to be Dr. Weird in disguise. He cuts off Carl's muscles and grafts them onto his own body. Frylock and Dr. Weird do battle while they argue back and forth about who created whom. Dr. Weird claims that it was Frylock who created him, not the other way around. Dr. Weird shows Frylock a teddy bear filled with razor blades. Shake tries to take the teddy bear, but he loses his hand. Dr. Weird then reveals that the blue diamond on Frylock's back hides a VCR, in which a videotape with false memories of Dr. Weird creating Frylock had been playing in Frylock's head. Just then, Walter Melon arrives in his ship. Meatwad mentions he saw the ship earlier. Shake calls him a liar and shoots him with a shotgun. Shake gets concerned when Meatwad does not reform like always. Walter tells Neil to play the "Drum Solo Of Life" to bring Meatwad back to life. Meanwhile, Shake tries to pick up the teddy bear for the second time, losing his other hand. Melon explains he created the Aqua Teens and all the other characters, including the machine. His plan was that they would kill each other and Walter would inherit their real estate in order to create the "Insano-Gym". The others inform Walter that they rent and do not own property, proving Walter's plan pointless. Walter storms off. The Teens see their alleged mother standing before them, revealed to be a burrito. Shake suddenly jumps out the window upon hearing this news, Meatwad hugs her, and Frylock states, "That's neat".

Cast

Production

Development

In an interview at the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con, Dana Snyder and Matt Maiellaro confirmed rumors that there would be a feature-length movie of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. More details were revealed at the 2005 Paley Television Festival,[2] such as a possible cameo by 80s funk group Cameo, and Maiellaro described it as "an action piece that leads into an origin story that unfolds in a very 'Aqua Teen' way."

The creators revealed much more information in an interview with Wizard Entertainment. While they dodged many questions, they confirmed that the film would run 80 minutes, produced on a meager $750,000 budget, and features a plot detail about a "lost Aqua Teen", who is a large chicken nugget named "Chicken Bittle" (voiced by Bruce Campbell).[3] They also confirmed more cameos, with Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, voice actor H. Jon Benjamin and his comedy partner Jon Glaser, and Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen to make appearances. Heavy metal band Mastodon stated in a Decibel article that they would be performing during the opening, and that the band would be animated as a bucket of popcorn, a soda, a hot dog, and a candy bar. They were actually animated as a pretzel, a pile of nachos, an "Icecaps" box, and a gumdrop.[4]

Rating
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters was rated R for "Crude and sexual humor, violent images, and language" by the MPAA.

Regarding the film's rating, Maiellaro commented that "I think if [the movie is rated] R, it won't get the audience that watches it. But we don't know yet. We're still waiting to find out." Following this, the released trailer advertised the film as rated R. The film is mostly uncensored; when censoring does occur, it is occasionally accompanied by a censoring beep that does not obscure the word. Censoring also occurs once during a flashback. As explained in the production feature, the inconsistency was an editing mistake, but left untouched for comic effect.

Soundtrack

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters Colon the Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by
Various Artists
ReleasedApril 10, 2007 (2007-04-10)
Recorded2007
GenreAlternative rock
hard rock
heavy metal
rap rock
Length44:25
LabelWilliams Street
ProducerVarious Artists
Aqua Teen Hunger Force music chronology
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters Colon the Soundtrack
(2007)		 Have Yourself a Very Meaty Christmas
(2009)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[5]

The soundtrack was released on April 10, 2007, under the title Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters Colon the Soundtrack. It features many previously unreleased songs, some recorded for the purpose of this album. In addition, the compilation features an intro/outro titled "Nude Love" by Aqua Teen character Master Shake, a track from former SPIN.com Artist of the Day MC Chris, skits and sound bites from the movie, and a new version of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force theme by rapper Schoolly D.

The album features mix of musical styles ranging from heavy metal, indie rock, and hip-hop; and also features new, original music from Mastodon, Killer Mike and Unearth. Noticeably missing is "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, which is prominently featured at the end of the film.

  1. Master Shake – "Nude Love" – 1:27
  2. Soda Dog Refreshment Squad – "Groovy Time for a Movie Time" – 0:48
  3. Mastodon – "Cut You Up With a Linoleum Knife" – 1:50
  4. Early Man – "More to Me Than Meat and Eyes" – 3:11
  5. Schoolly D – "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Theme" (Remix) – 1:34
  6. Meatwad – Skit – 0:18
  7. Unearth – "The Chosen" – 3:50
  8. Andrew W.K. – "Party Party Party" – 1:56
  9. Carl Brutananadilewski – Skit – 0:15
  10. Nine Pound Hammer – "Carl's Theme" – 2:42
  11. Brass Castle – "Bookworm Resin" – 3:34
  12. Master Shake – Skit – 0:22
  13. Killer Mike – "Blam Blam" – 6:12
  14. Insane-O-Flex – "I Like Your Booty (But I'm Not Gay)" – 2:04
  15. mc chris – "I Want Candy" – 2:03
  16. The Hold Steady – "Girls Like Status" – 2:43
  17. Master Shake – "Nude Love (Reprise)" – 9:28

Note: Carey Means (Frylock) is absent from the skits, sound bites, and hidden tracks where the other Aqua Teens can be heard. Regardless, Carey Means still portrays Frylock in the film.

Marketing

The film's poster was illustrated by Julie Bell and Boris Vallejo, and parodies the "King of the Mountain" design.[6]

Boston Mooninite panic
Main article: 2007 Boston Mooninite panic

On January 31, 2007, police in Boston, Massachusetts received reports of devices resembling bombs in various places around the city. The devices turned out to be electronic signs similar to a Lite-Brite that displayed images of the Mooninites Ignignokt and Err giving the finger, and were designed to promote the Aqua Teen Hunger Force television show as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign authorized by Cartoon Network, the cartoon's parent company. The boards were present in several cities for weeks before the ones in Boston were reported.[7]

The Boston City Government sought a reimbursement for the money spent responding to the incident. The amount quoted was $500,000 initially, and then was increased to $750,000.[8]

On February 5, it was announced that Turner Broadcasting and the city of Boston have reached an agreement to pay $2 million to offset the cost of removing the devices: $1 million to cover the cost of the agencies involved and an additional $1 million in goodwill funding to homeland security.[9]

An episode from season five, entitled "Boston", was produced as the series creators' response to the scare, but Adult Swim pulled it to avoid further controversy surrounding the events of the bomb scare.[10]

April Fools' Day television "premiere"
The heavily promoted April 1, 2007 airing of the movie on Adult Swim muted and featured in a small picture-in-picture screen in the bottom left hand corner during a simultaneous airing of the Family Guy episode "Peter's Two Dads", while a large and noisy on-screen graphic of Master Shake promotes the movie's airing.

Adult Swim began running advertisements on March 25, 2007, advertising the television premiere of the movie the following Sunday, April 1, 2007. Its only reasoning behind this stunt, as stated in the advertisement, was, "because we're fucking crazy". While Adult Swim's TV listings on its website stated the movie would be shown, other TV listings reported the same Sunday block. The stunt was, in actuality, yet another one of Adult Swim's annual April Fools' pranks: though the first few minutes of the movie were shown normally, the remainder was shown in a small picture-in-picture box in the bottom left-hand corner, with no sound, over the normal programming and occasional giant pop-ups alerting viewers of its presence, as well as advertising the actual premiere. The advertising was shown again on one episode of the Family Guy marathon on July 6, 2007. The movie eventually was shown on Sunday, March 30, 2008. The day after the April Fools' joke, Cartoon Network showed another bumper, stating: "Sorry you will still have to pay to actually see the movie. But thanks for the ratings!"

Fake endings

In yet another promotional stunt, the "ending" to the movie was posted in various places including YouTube, KingColon.com (in the Worst Game Ever game), and fansite "Aqua Teen Central": each ending was completely different.

Eventually, the Adult Swim website let it be known that none of the "endings" were real and presented seven more clips (which were fake as well) throughout the weeks following the film's release.

These endings, now called the "fake.com endings", are available on the film's "Extras" DVD on the 2-Disc Collector's Edition. These endings are parodies of other films. For example, one of the endings spoofs The Terminator, featuring Meatwad as "The Determinator".

Release

Home media
See also: List of Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVDs

Warner Home Video released Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters in a two-disc DVD edition on August 14, 2007. For the DVD release, the studio changed the title of the eighty-seven-minute full-length movie to Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters for DVD, just like the film soundtrack's title. The DVD features include the ten fake endings as shown on the internet, a "making of" featurette, promos, the "Deleted Scenes" episode, a music video, and an eighty-minute animatic (rough cut) of the movie made out of the deleted scenes from the film and scenes from the "Deleted Scenes" episode as well as a commentary. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Patti Smith is featured on the DVD commentary. The scene after the credits was removed from the UK DVD release.

The set also features the season four episode "Deleted Scenes" (also known as "Star-Studded Xmas Spectacular"), which makes heavy references and parallels to the film that originally aired years prior to the film's release on December 18, 2005.

The film is also available in HD and SD on the Xbox Live Marketplace.[11]

Reception

Box office

The film was a box office success, making $5,520,368 domestically against its $750,000 budget.[1]

Critical response

With 28 reviews compiled, Metacritic reported that Movie Film for Theaters has received an average rating of 54/100, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[12] Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 48% based on reviews from 85 critics, with an average rating of 5.1/10. The website's consensus states: "The non sequitur humor of Aqua Teen Hunger Force will surely appeal to its built-in fanbase, but for the uninitiated, the premise wears thin".[13] Reviews ranged from Glenn Kenny at Premiere magazine, who stated that he was tempted to refer to the film as "the most successful full-on surrealist film since Buñuel and Dalí's 1930 L'Âge d'Or",[14] to Ty Burr of The Boston Globe, who called it "an act of terrorism against entertainment".[15] The film was given a thumbs down on the television show At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper; Richard Roeper criticized the film's run time and calling it "unfunny", though he said the first five minutes of the film were funny.

In response to such reviews, a commercial featuring the Mooninites began airing during the Adult Swim block. The two characters spend the entire commercial insulting a supposedly typical reviewer, "Lionel" of lionellovesmovies.com (the site merely leads back to the movie page). Other commercials recommend people see the film two or three more times to push the box office numbers up. Adult Swim also mentioned in one of its commercial bumpers that the review situation highlights the generation gap, and that most negative reviews came from much older critics.

Cancelled sequel

There has been mention of producing a sequel entitled Death Fighter.[16] While little has been confirmed by Adult Swim in regards to the film, there have been many statements regarding it. On December 15, 2008, Dave Willis stated no script was written and that the film would be released in Spring 2009 (though, as he also stated that Death Fighter was a T-shirt he was working on, he likely wasn't being serious)[17] Following this, in an April 2009 interview, Dave joked about the film lacking any sort of funding and being sold out of the back of his car.[18] In a 2010 interview, staff members of Radical Axis confirmed that a sequel was indeed in production, and mentioned the possibility that the film might be made in 3D. When asked if the film was designed for a theatrical release, a Radical Axis staff member responded yes, but stated: "We're not sure if we have a distributor yet." This was then followed by the statement: "Adult Swim will never make another movie ever again."[19] In 2012, Matt Maiellaro released more news regarding the film, that being: "It is all written and great. We are just trying to convince the network do it again. The first one was such a cash cow for them, not just box office but also ad sales in the movie. So it is kind of a no-brainer. So hopefully one day."[20]

By 2014, the script had been completed and approved and would be released somewhere in mid 2015 and jokingly stated that the film was shelved as it was not G-rated;[21][22] however, on April 25, 2015, at a C2CE convention panel, Willis indirectly stated that the project was scrapped, soon after announcing the show's cancellation.[23][24] He later mentioned on Reddit that it would cost $3.4 million to produce, and expressed interest in doing a Kickstarter to fund it. He also reportedly stated that the film could potentially be released in the next 2 years.[25]

See also

References
  1. "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (2007)". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on November 20, 2011. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
  2. Rick Porter (March 7, 2005). "'Aqua Teen' Looks to Conquer Big Screen". tv.zap2it.com. Archived from the original on December 6, 2007.
  3. "Bruce Campbell As A Chicken Nugget "Fucks!", "Shits!", And "Bleeps" Ahoy!! It's AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE: THE MOVIE!!". Ain't It Cool News. Archived from the original on May 2, 2009. Retrieved March 25, 2009.
  4. "Decibel Magazine". Archived from the original on January 29, 2008.
  5. "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters Colon T - Various Artists". Allmusic.
  6. "King of the Mountain - Posterwire.com". Archived from the original on June 9, 2019. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
  7. "Two held after ad campaign triggers Boston bomb scare". CNN. January 31, 2007. Archived from the original on March 5, 2007. Retrieved March 2, 2007.
  8. "Pair plead not guilty in Turner advertising fiasco". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. February 1, 2007. Archived from the original on February 3, 2007. Retrieved March 2, 2007.
  9. "Turner, contractor to pay $2M in Boston bomb scare". CNN. February 5, 2007. Archived from the original on February 16, 2007. Retrieved March 2, 2007.
  10. "Exclusive Interview With Meatwad, Er, Dave Willis, Of 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force'". Starpulse.com. December 15, 2008. Archived from the original on February 23, 2011. Retrieved December 26, 2010.
  11. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters Archived May 18, 2015, at the Wayback Machine at Xbox Live Marketplace.
  12. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters Archived August 5, 2015, at the Wayback Machine on Metacritic
  13. "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (2007)". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on October 11, 2016. Retrieved October 20, 2018.
  14. Kenny, Glenn (April 11, 2007). "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". Premiere. Archived from the original on January 7, 2008. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  15. Burr, Ty (April 13, 2007). "OK, we get the 'Aqua Teen' joke; it's still not funny". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on January 4, 2017. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  16. Craig "Voiceroy" Crumpton. "Dragon*Con08 Day 2: Aqua Squid Venture Brothers". toonzone. Archived from the original on October 27, 2010.
  17. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on March 10, 2017. Retrieved February 6, 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  18. Daniels, Hunter (July 30, 2010). "Radical Axis Interview Comic-Con; CEO Scott Fry, VP of Production Craig Hartin and Animation Director Todd Redner". Archived from the original on April 28, 2019. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  19. Hunter Daniels. "Radical Axis Interview Comic-Con; CEO Scott Fry, VP of Production Craig Hartin and Animation Director Todd Redner". Collider. Archived from the original on August 2, 2010. Retrieved October 2, 2010.
  20. ""Aqua Teen Hunger Force" co-creator Matt Maiellaro chats about new season". July 23, 2012. Archived from the original on September 15, 2018. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  21. Mike Gencarelli. ""Aqua Teen Hunger Force" co-creator Matt Maiellaro chats about new season". Media Mikes. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  22. Willis, Dave (January 24, 2014). "@JohnMcBloom mid 2015 finally! Got shelved since we didn't get the G-rating". Archived from the original on November 2, 2015. Retrieved February 6, 2017.
  23. Dave Willis speaking at a C2CE convention panel on April 25, 2015 posted on Twitch
  24. Martin, Garrett. "The Life and Death of Aqua Teen Hunger Force". Paste. Archived from the original on June 20, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2015.
  25. Statement made by Dave Willis on June 16, 2015 Archived November 2, 2015, at the Wayback Machine on Reddit
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