I did my bit for political discourse this week: I ignored it and went to the movies instead.
When I say “went,” I don’t mean I went to an actual movie theater. Even if New York State is ready for that, I am not. I mean I left my desk and moved to the living room to watch the latest SpongeBob SquarePants movie, “Sponge on the Run,” on our TV screen.
I usually leave all the complicated electronic finagling to my husband, so we did manage to watch the movie the same day I wanted to. There’s no knowing what would have happened if I’d been in charge. We probably would have ended up purchasing home delivery of a new freezer, with still no movie access.
Eventually we figured out that “Paramount Plus” used to be CBS All Access and got a trial account. Then we sat back with some snacks and prepared to hate the film.
So here’s the good news: It’s quite good. It’s fun, it’s enjoyable, it can be viewed with the entire family. It kept almost all of the show’s well-known characters, quirks, and voices — including my favorite, Plankton’s computer-wife Karen — and did no major damage. (It changed the backstory about when SpongeBob met Sandy Cheeks, but that’s all). That should be a low bar for a film, but too often sadly it’s too much to hope for.
But here’s the bad news: It wasn’t great. I wouldn’t put it on the shelf with “Monsters, Inc.” or “Shrek” or even with the original SpongeBob cartoons.
Why not? What was missing?
My husband pointed out that one obvious loss is SpongeBob’s creator, Stephen Hillenburg, who died from ALS in 2018. The film memorializes him at its conclusion, and I believe they’ve done their best to honor his creations, but I think inevitably some of the good-natured “zany” has been lost. You don’t ask yourself this time things like, “Hey, how can there be a campfire on the bottom of the ocean?”
Perhaps SpongeBob’s essential spirit just doesn’t translate to a full-length feature.
But I ended up thinking it also had something to do with the plot: namely, that it was too straightforward.
Years ago, when I started writing fiction, I devoured books like “Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting,” by Syd Field. Field makes the point that not only is a conflict or quest essential to the structure of a film, but it also requires a twist. The hero’s quest is just the beginning; when he or she finally achieves that goal, it only leads to an even bigger problem or quest — which becomes the meat of the story.
When I first encountered this idea, I knew what to think of it: “Ridiculous!”
It has only been in the years since, while watching movie after movie after TV show, that I began to admit that maybe this Field fellow had a point.
Come to think of it, in “Shrek” the ogre thinks his quest is simply to get his swamp back. It’s only after he is tasked with rescuing a princess — and does so only to find her not completely in sync with the mission — that the story comes alive.
In “Monsters, Inc.,” main character Sully thinks his problem is just to beat his competitors in harvesting “scare” from human children. It’s only after an apparently successful session that he finds out a little girl has followed him home, which is when the real adventure begins.
This richer appreciation of plot twists has grown on me while watching episodes of “Monk” through the pandemic. Time and again, Monk is about to lay his hands on the vital piece of evidence proving his theory, convicting the killer. But the corpse has just been cremated or — in one especially aggravating case — the murderer proceeds to swallow the incriminating document in front of Monk.
“Grrrrr! WHY does this happen?!” I growl at my husband.
“To make you react just like that,” he answers with a laugh.
But now I have realized that it forced Monk — and the screenwriter — to get more creative and that the eventual victory is that much more satisfying.
That kind of plot twist is what is missing from this SpongeBob movie.
And if indeed it turns out to make for better plots, I will have to go back and revise all my drafts of scripts and stories sitting in my bottom desk drawer. There’s a plot twist I never saw coming!
