South Park Joining The Panderverse Talkback Thread (Spoilers)

[Neo Ultra Mike]

Well since we have a pre-release discussion of it, now that the special is actually out let's have an actual discussion of this South Park special shall we?

SYNOPSIS: The men in town are at a loss of what to do when they realize with how the world works nowadays then can no longer go about things the way they used to. Meanwhile Eric has terrifying visions he feels are the doorways to multiple universes that bring him face to face with his most hated enemy.

REVIEW: You know I will give Matt and Trey credit because with the Post Covid specials and then the Streaming Wars I kind of thought they'd have all the specials be these two parters so they would just have to go with one big long story and not have to think of two separate plots for either of them. However this is actually a one part special that doesn't seem like it will have a second part later this year so whatever the other special is it won't be dealing with the Panderverse. However this does have a few of their bad habits in not only throttling one joke over and over, but also kind of shifting blame to one person who doesn't really deserve ALL the fault.

I will say this is better handled then "The China Problem" aka the last time Matt and Trey obviously felt betrayed by an Indiana Jones movie and railed against it but... yeah feels wrong to blame entirely Kathleen Kennedy for that. Even ignoring the fact there are Disney movies this year that succeeded like Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, why not go after like all the executives or director heads at Disney who have in part contributed to the feeling of pandering? You know the Kevin Fiege or the Rob Marshalls and the like? I mean they talk about all Disney movies having this problem but then just go after Kennedy who isn't involved with all Disney movies and it would make the point stronger of it not just being one person to blame if we found out there were other people then her going after and abusing the pander stone. That said I do actually like this does show some reflection of the SP creative staff who yeah are going to call out how obnoxious all the pandering is but also point out "you know just sitting her and constantly complaining about it and acting like that's solving the problem" is also an issue as well. Like a lot of people when hearing about Disney execs having issues with it were excited at SP taking a shot at the company which they are but it also feels like they're taking a shot at the people who get so worked up about these things as well. And weirdly enough I do actually buy that Eric when seeing what's behind the bad Disney movies actually decides to apologize to Kennedy. Like it weirdly fits since Cartman for all his terrible actions can have moments of self reflection and do the right thing like the Pandemic special so I like seeing that here. To me it would have worked better if maybe it was Cartman doing the most complaining but it was other Disney executives who were at fault then her but again way better balanced since at least there were better varaints on the jokes then just Indiana Jones being sexually assaulted and people getting shot in the junk unlike 15 years ago.

And you know I have to say the funniest stuff in this special was Universe B Cartman and not only her world to see how everyone was altered (best was Butters's Dad Stephen and Yates) but her interaction with the other boys. And you know I do appreciate based on how the boys act it's not that they hate the idea of the multiverse but are just sick of it being over used which yeah fair enough but I like them giving props to Miles Moralies and Stan realizing that yeah even this Universe B Eric really is Cartman as well as PC Principal forcing them to help her and Sheila just thinking the multiverse is neat without really questioning it. And honestly the Balder's Gate stuff works better then how Red Dead Redemption 2 was pushed in the Cereal two parter as they show it off well enough and have some good jokes about it like "save filed aren't switched well between PCs and PS5s why would they be between different universes". And I also like how even in the B universe there's typical boys shennigans and hey props to how the B universe Kenny's death was done.

The Randy and the other adult shennigans were probably the weakest point of this special. I mean this isn't super super obnoxious Randy causing the Covid kind of Randy from the first Pandemic special so I didn't hate it but honestly this felt like the most one joke aspect they didn't really bother evolving. Weird how you can have Cartman grow and show him actually evolving but Randy and the other adults still seem stuck in their stupid. That said the escalation between the two handymen going into space was kind of funny as was the guys pooling all their resources just to have one handyman built them a catapault while another fixes the damage. And at least the solution of "hey let's just bring in handy men all across the multi verse" actually was funny and even Randy freaking out over all the slightly different tweaks he would get from the multi verse was sort of funny and not obnoxiously padded out.

So overall pretty decent special. I feel the Post Pandemic specials were the best as they had a plot that felt like things were always moving with great character reveals built up by the future versions but certainly better then The Streaming Wars. I do feel bad my multiverse plot likely wasn't ever on their mind but i will fully copt to how ultra fanficy that felt and yeah if South Park was going to talk about the multiverse now this is the kind of story they'd do.

And that's my thoughts. Talk about what you think about this special down below.

 

[[classic swim]]

[South Park: Joining The Panderverse]

Their premise didn’t turn out that bad. Mediocre at worst.

I was still completely right in expecting their commentary to be tiring no matter what side you’re on.

I’m sure Musk and his lackeys have already chipped in their laughing emojis without even having to watch. Because it’s South Park, and it will always have the easy pass just for being South Park.



It could be for the best that the ol’ Rob Schneider stapler trailer was misleading. Then again, you have female versions of the four boys, with three of them just... pushed away after awhile.

They obviously were never going to actually commit to ‘more diverse South Park’ for an entire joke premise, but they still could have utilized them better so it wasn’t a partial waste in concept.



Female Cartman was cool because she actually proved a universal point that Cartman really doesn’t need to be fat or white in order to be Cartman.

Of course Eric’s devout racism almost always plays a role in his shenanigans, but Cartman in nature is simply a brat and a pig; which absolutely anyone can be.

And they can prove this point while humoring the entire mythos behind Eric Cartman being this ultra racist prick.



Got more laughs from Randy surprisingly just because of how out of left field his plot ended up being.

The peak being Randy and the townsfolk rallying outside of a college building to scream at said college for their student loans.

Went downhill after that, but that college scene in particular was just the type of South Park that I’m most familiar with.

 

[TnAdct1]

[South Park: Joining The Panderverse]

Female Cartman was cool because she actually proved a universal point that Cartman really doesn’t need to be fat or white in order to be Cartman.

If Power from Chainsaw Man is any indication.

 

[Golden Geek]

This is probably the strongest "special event" I didn't think The Streaming Wars was bad at the time, but do I remember anything from it at all? Other than the boat-making montage with WAP playing, nada.

Cartman Kathleen Kennedy is very funny ("It means PUT A CHICK IN THE LINGUINI AND MAKE HER <redacted> GAY!...And I want it LAME!"), but people are already clipping that out of context without taking home the message from the end in which Cartman has to let go of the anti-wokeness that's taken over his life in order to repair their universes.

The subplot about AI and rich handymen really does peak at them yelling at the college. The attempted commentary on the rich not doing anything while at the same time seemingly calling the working class lazy for acknowledging getting screwed and not learning how to fix things is...well, it's certainly centrist. I feel like "Deep Learning" handled the subject much better.

 

[Ace]

I think the issue is more so that it's a little late to this debate. I think that's a problem with talking about current events in the social media age is that discussion develops too quickly that by the time it comes out they're pretty much saying things that have already been said. The discussion about race swapping was a lot more livelier around the time when Velma came out.

I know South Park is well known for how little time it takes to produce but I think Matt and Trey don't have too much say over when these specials are actually released that's more of Paramount's job.

 

[harry580]

I think the issue is more so that it's a little late to this debate. I think that's a problem with talking about current events in the social media age is that discussion develops too quickly that by the time it comes out they're pretty much saying things that have already been said. The discussion about race swapping was a lot more livelier around the time when Velma came out.

yeah, this is why I wish gamergate didn't happened

I know South Park is well known for how little time it takes to produce but I think Matt and Trey don't have too much say over when these specials are actually released that's more of Paramount's job.

well, blame the Warner bros & paramount lawsuit

 

[dezIsNosredna]

That special was pretty good. Probably one of the best(?)

I don't remember much off Streaming Wars either