#andamovie

Warning: Spoilers in this post for various episodes of Community from every season and also Spiderman: No Way Home

I wrote this Warning long before writing most of the rest of the post so I have no idea why I was planning to spoil NWH, much less which part I was going to spoil. I've included a major spoiler just to satisfy the warning though, so you're still not safe.

You might not have heard this news. But if you follow even, like, a fraction, of the people I follow on Twitter you will know that #sixseasonsandamovie is finally happening!

If that still means nothing to you, you're probably not on the best post you could be on. Stick around for the moment though.

To clarify, this means that the Community movie is happening! #sixseasonsandamovie was a joke introduced in the season 2 episode Paradigms of Human Memory:

This was just a joke, originally referring to the short-lived TV Show The Cape, which was also referenced several other times in Community. However, the fans picked up on the phrase and despite multiple cancellations; we eventually got our 6th series in 2015.

Like many people, I only discovered Community long after it finished, mainly because of Lockdown, but once I started, I watched all 6 seasons in about two weeks. I have recorded my opinions on some of the episodes, and if that post is live, you can view it here. Also, the movie's probably out by now so this post will be invalid anyway. If not, sorry.

Thanks to the massive resurgence in popularity because of people like me discovering the show through NetFlix (UK) and other streaming services (look up for your own country or use a VPN), the cast reunited to do a readthrough of the season 5 episode Cooperative Polygraphy:

Walton Goggins, who originally played Mr Stone, was not available so was replaced by Pedro Pascal, who struggled with a particular part of the episode:

However, far more exciting was in the Q&A afterwards, in which most of the cast said they were up for a movie (38:29): 

If you just watched from the timestamp above and are confused about why Dan Harmon took his shirt off, hopefully this will help.

Notably missing from the cast was Chevy Chase (Pierce Hawthorne). The episode they were reading is the first episode set after Pierce's death. However, Chase was written out of the show in season 5 due to creative differences with Harmon and the cast.

A movie would take place now, eight years after the show ended, so one of the main problems would be reuniting the cast. To remind you, here's where the characters were when we left them (source):

• Jeff: Teacher of law at Greendale
• Britta: Bartender at a nearby bar, also still a student at Greendale
• Abed: Working in Hollywood as a PA on a Fox show
• Troy: Lost at sea with LeVar Burton, captured by pirates
• Frankie: Likely still employed by Greendale 
• Pierce: Died in Series five
• Professor Buzz Hickey: Possibly dead in a season 6 easter egg
• Shirley: Left Greendale to look after her ill father
• Elroy: Gets a job at LinkedIn trying to work out why no one uses LinkedIn
• Annie: Interning for the FBI

• Dean Pelton: Still the dean
• Chang: Left ambiguous, but probably living and/or working at Greendale
• Dr Ian Duncan: Still working at Greendale
• Alex Osbourne (Starburns): Ambiguous but probably still a student
• Leonard Briggs: Still a student, but since deceased because the actor who played him, Richard Erdman, died.

One commonly proposed fan plot for the movie would be the main cast trying to track down Troy/rescue him from the pirates. However, that plot would require Donald Glover to be involved, and as of writing this part of the post four months after the initial announcement, the only confirmed cast members are:

• Joel McHale (Jeff Winger)
• Gillian Jacobs (Britta Perry)
• Danny Pudi (Abed Nadir)
• Alison Brie (Annie Edison)
• Jim Rash (Dean Craig Pelton)
• Ken Jeong (Ben Chang)

There are also rumours that Keith David will be returning as Elroy Patashnik, although I could not find any other source for this. However, it's possible that this rumour is actually just that David is in it, and people have assumed that he's playing Elroy. He could also, of course, just be narrating all or part of the movie like he did in the season 3 episode Pillows and Blankets. 

(source)

Update: David himself has denied this: https://twitter.com/ImKeithDavid/status/1695890734837358833?t=iO4ekVeOoMdNeSB9Tk2DSQ&s=19

LAST CHANCE TO AVOID SPIDERMAN: NO WAY HOME SPOILERS

Of course, they could be doing a No Way Home on us and saying that Andrew Garfield isn't in it. Poor Andrew, all he wanted to do was promote Tick Tick Boom, but all the talk show hosts had other ideas. To clarify, I mean that they could be hiding Glover's involvement, not Garfield's. With that said, a Community movie involving Garfield's Spiderman would definitely be a movie I would watch. We already know that Community/MCU crossovers work.

UPDATE: I have discovered a source saying that Donald Glover would like to be in the movie, although it is unclear from the article whether scheduling conflicts might stop this from happening.

So what do we know about the movie?

Well firstly, no paintball. Also, no Dungeons and Dragons.

Community is famous for its high-concept episodes, with some of its most popular (according to IMDb) ones (excluding paintball and D&D episodes) being:

Season 3, Episode 4, "Remedial Chaos Theory"

Season 3, Episode 20, "Digital Estate Planning"

Season 3, Episode 17, "Basic Lupine Urology"

Season 1, Episode 21, "Contemporary American Poultry"

Season 5, Episode 5, "Geothermal Escapism" 

(source)

One of the key (and easiest) ways to identify high-concept episodes is to look for multiple storylines. Most episodes split the characters into groups and each episode will have an A story, a B story and a C story. As a rule, high-concept episodes tend to have only one story (although sometimes it is shown from different perspectives).

Movies almost by definition only have one plotline, so a Community movie would be high-concept by default. 

So in that case, how can Community do something different? Possibly by doing the opposite and having multiple concurrent storylines? To the best of my knowledge, no other TV show-turned-movie has ever done this so it might work. That's probably not the way that they'd do it though. Widely regarded as the best episode is Season 3, Episode 4, "Remedial Chaos Theory", also known as the timelines episode. Quick summary: 

Troy and Abed have just moved into an apartment together. They have a housewarming party and invite their friends (the other 5 members of the study group). They all sit down and start to play Yahtzee, but the door buzzer goes. The pizza has arrived. Jeff devises a system to choose fairly who will get the pizza, by rolling a die and numbering people based on their positions around the table. The episode then shows how the following few minutes pan out depending on which person gets the pizza.

Watch the full episode (playlist). These videos were uploaded by the official Community Youtube channel so it is not pirated.

Most of the timelines are never heard from again, but the show continues in the 'prime timeline'. There is some debate about which timeline this is but it's generally assumed to be the timeline where Jeff gets the pizza. All we know for sure is that Troy did not get the pizza, because that led to the 'darkest timeline', in which among other things, Pierce dies and Jeff loses an arm.

The darkest timeline shows up multiple times throughout series 3 and 4, culminating in them invading the prime timeline in season 4's Advanced Introduction to Finality. It's possible that the darkest timeline was destroyed in this episode, but if not, this could be a key part of the movie. 

Note: This episode may possibly have taken place completely in Jeff's head, in which case the Darkest Timeline is still out there.

Alternatively, it is possible that something happened in any one of the other five timelines that caused them to invade the prime timeline. It's also entirely plausible that in one of those timelines Pierce is still alive (in the Darkest Timeline he died in Season three's "Remedial Chaos Theory", and in the Prime Timeline he died just before Season five's "Cooperative Polygraphy" (The episode is set just after his funeral)). However, that is unlikely given Chevy Chase's relationship with the series.

There are also a number of high concepts that weren't attempted during the series:

One take - This would mean that the entire movie was filmed in a single shot, like 1917

Real-time - Basically what it sounds like. One minute of watch time equals one minute of movie time. This is how the show 24 works, and also my favourite episode of M*A*S*H (the one with the war).

POV - This stands for Point Of View. The movie would be filmed as if shot through the eyes of one of the characters. This was sort of done in the episodes Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking and Documentary Filmmaking: Redux, which were both filmed as documentaries made by Abed, but also both included brief shots of Abed talking to the camera.

Found Footage - This is where the movie is presented as discovered video recordings which had originally been filmed by one of the characters (in Community's case, probably Abed). However, this technique is almost exclusively used in the Horror genre, so would be a great idea for an episode, but wouldn't work as a movie because the movie would need to be a comedy.

With all that said, a Community movie would do best if it tried to further explore multiple high concepts. Dan Harmon has already ruled out paintball and D&D, but has so far made no comment about the Darkest Timeline or any of the other high concepts. Therefore, it might be interesting to include multiple high concepts. Obvious examples include direct movie parodies, stop motion, flashbacks, musical numbers and animated portions.

But high concept is just part of what should be included. There are also a number of tropes and recurring gags which were central to the show. 

The Dean's costumes - Over the series, Dean Pelton is seen wearing a number of ridiculous outfits (full list). No Community movie would be complete without at least some outfits. Possibly, even have the Dean change costume in every scene, or even between shots (this could lead Abed to point out continuity errors).

Shut up Leonard - Leonard is the oldest student at Greendale and frequently, when he says something, another character (usually Jeff) says "Shut up Leonard, I know about ___". However, Richard Erdman who played Leonard died in 2019, so this would not really work.

Every "Shut Up Leonard"

There's no reason not to include any of the other recurring students (Garrett, Vicky, Alex, Magnitude or Neil) though. At the very least we should get a "Pop-pop!"

Changisms - "It's not uncommon for victims of memory loss to experience some syntactical confusion. Thus the inappropriate insertion of his name into an unrelated phrase."

"No, he's always Dean that."

Yes, a movie needs some Changisms (see also: Changuage), and plenty of Dean puns too (as seen in 

Paradigms of Human Memory, this works best in tandem with multiple outfits.

Gas leak year - This was the nickname given to Season 4 because that was the season when Dan Harmon got fired from his own show, resulting in a dip in quality. This is frequently referenced throughout seasons 5 and 6, and a movie would be remiss to not at least mention it

Troy and Abed in the morning - This is Troy and Abed's morning talk show (not filmed because "Who would watch this?")

Um, maybe these people?

 

Shut up Leonard, you're hard to draw around using a trackpad.

Obviously the absence of Donald Glover would mean that this wouldn't work, so I've devised three possibilities:

1. They get Glover in for the whole movie (TBA, but not announced as of writing this post) and the jingle is used in another context, like in most of these clips.

2. Abed is mourning the absence of his friend, and sings the jingle to himself (and/or one of the other characters sings it to him).

Sorry, that one got a bit dark

3. My favourite option. Glover is not announced, but they pull a Garfield on us and he appears in a version of TaAitM in a post-credit scene. In this scene Troy and Abed interview Donald Glover about his new Spiderman movie, to create further links with the MCU.

Daybreak - This song was pretty much the only song they could use throughout season three because of using Roxanne in Remedial Chaos Theory. Therefore they ended up using Daybreak A LOT, to the extent that it actually became a running joke and was used in subsequent seasons with bigger budgets as well.

Did I copy and paste the above paragraph verbatim from my other Community post? Yes. Work smarter, not harder.

Because of its association with the show, it makes perfect sense to include it in the movie.

The monkey - You can easily find out the name of Troy's monkey from Season 1's Contemporary American Poultry (as voted for by Twitter), but unfortunately it's not family-friendly enough for this blog.

Pretty sure you've said worse in another post. - Ed.

Prove it. Video or it never happened. - Phil

I don't think you understand how blogs work - Ed.

Crystal the Monkey (her real name, so I can avoid using the character name) only appeared in 5 episodes of Community, but she certainly made an impact. She was last seen in the season four episode Heroic Origins, but as that was a flashback episode, it was not her final canonical appearance. That was in season three's Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts. 

Resolving Shirley's outburst from the Pilot: "Adults get respect but they also get grabbed by the back of the head and pushed through jukeboxes." - I wrote this down, but have since realised that it was resolved in the season four episode Heroic Origins. If not, this would be the ultimate example of a brick joke.

Check out this Tweet sent by Joel McHale (Jeff) not long after the movie was announced:

In it, he has tagged the following:

Alison Brie (Annie)

Ken Jeong (Chang)

Danny Pudi (Abed)

Yvette Nicole Brown (Shirley)

Donald Glover (Troy)

Gillian Anderson (Britta)

Peacock/Sony (Production companies)

CommunityTV (Social media account for the show)

That's a perfectly reasonable tweet to send. He's tagged the other cast members so they can all be involved. What's wrong with that? - You

Look closer. He correctly tagged Alison, Ken, and Danny, but there are other problems. No, Peacock weren't involved in the TV series, but they are the distributors of the movie. That's not a problem. 

Problem 1: Yvette and Donald had not at that time confirmed their involvement (and still haven't) 

Problem 2: Jim Rash (Dean Pelton) isn't tagged. He's not on Twitter (although his right leg is), but the traditional response to that is to say #JimRash

Problem 3: Gillian Anderson was not in Community. You're thinking of Gillian Jacobs. She's not on Twitter either, but the same rule applies #GillianJacobs

https://www.newsweek.com/gillian-anderson-may-actually-join-community-movie-after-joel-mchale-post-1750953

https://twitter.com/joelmchale/status/1575852929415671808?t=s-QM02Erg94JXdWN-ZpwqQ&s=19

Unrelated fun fact: Although I got into watching it properly in Lockdown, this is the first clip I ever saw from Community:

Finally, what next? Season 7? This was what was discussed in the final episode of Season 6, but should it happen? No. Why not?

SIX Seasons and a Movie

COMMUNITY: And a movie 2? No again. Why?

I don't know how many times I need to say it.

A spinoff about Troy and LeVar Burton's piratical adventures? Only if it lasts 3 weeks.