Every spring at BYU, I attended their student films festival, where one year I was pleasantly surprised by a travelogue of things to do in rural Idaho called “Peluca”. My roommates, most of whom were from Burley, ID, heartily agreed that is was one of the best of the crop. And then I find out they expanded it to a full feature and it played at Sundance, I was even more excited as I saw this in a theater in Salt Lake.
I was in love with Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon was kind of like Pechorin in A Hero of our Time– perfectly fitting for that one moment and then seemingly a relic of a bygone era the next. Except I don’t remember Pechorin feeding a llama. . . .
While I loved it, I had no idea it would become a massive pop culture hit among my generation, spawning more catchphrases than I care to catalogue. I also credit it with bringing back “Your mom” jokes with “Your mom goes to college,” for which I will always be grateful.
But then, as it seemed everyone was wearing Vote for Pedro t-shirts and became even more overexposed than Dave Chappelle’s Rick James impression, I quickly got tired of it.
I also got tired of the diminishing returns of the talent behind the film. Nacho Libre was no Napoleon Dynamite, and last year’s Gentleman Broncos was nearly unwatchable, which made me incredibly sad. As for the cast, most of them have done nothing truly memorable since, with the exception of some excellent character work by John Gries on Lost; Diedrich Bader has been amazing in. . . well, everything he’s done (except for Outsourced), but ESPECIALLY Batman: The Brave and The Bold. As for the main cast, Efran Ramirez has been good in Eastbound and Down and Tina Marjorino was, in my opinion one of the best parts about Big Love. But sans the exceptions of those four and work mostly done on pay cable and cartoon shows, the folks behind the original film haven’t done much, so maybe it is time to go back to the well?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scWAETwLojk
And so we have Napoleon Dynamite the animated series. I have two predictions for this show, either:
1- It will suck and it will stay on for half a season.
2- It will be pure genius and get canceled after two episodes.
Really is too early to tell from just this teaser trailer. The fact that the voice cast is back is promising (not like most of them were busy anyway?) and the ones who do have careers as legitimate character actors will hopefully be put to good use.
The real problem is that these characters are very, and the pun is not intended here, two dimensional. So while they worked in a quirky ensemble 90 minute film, is there enough depth in the world of Napoleon Dynamite to give us a good half hour every week? I would hope so.