Idiocracy (Mike Judge, 2006)

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Well, it looks like Fox has buried another Mike Judge film. Apparently, he shot the film a couple of years ago, then a test screening around March 2005. Rumour has it that the screening's very poor ratings from the audience prompted some re-filming taking place in the summer of 2005. A theatrical release was stalled possibly due to a civil suit in which several companies (Costco, Starbucks and Fuddruckers) were not thrilled with the way they were satirized in the film.

A release date was finally set for September 1, 2006. But less than a month before it was set for release, only for it to be put on hold indefinitely. The release went ahead as planned, but it was only a limited release (125 theaters) with screenings in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago and three cities in Mike Judge's home state of Texas--Dallas, Houston, and his hometown Austin.

According to Austin360.com, 20th Century fox, the film's distributor, has done nothing to promote the movie -- no trailers, posters, television spots or even press kits for media outlets are being provided.

The Onion A.V. Club has a review.

An interesting article on the sordid history of the film/profile of Judge in Esquire.

And a review in the Toronto Star:

Idiocracy

Starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, Terry Alan Crews. Written and directed by Mike Judge. 83 minutes. 14A

I watched Idiocracy, Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge's second movie (his first was 1999's cubicle-based cult comedy Office Space) while sitting entirely alone in a huge multiplex theatre somewhere near the 401. And as much as I liked the movie, which has been sitting unreleased for nearly a year and bears the signs of having been edited by hands other than the filmmaker's, I also felt kind of sad for it.

Unambitious enlisted man Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson) is volunteered for a military program designed to preserve soldiers in their prime for use in future unpopular wars. The trick is to hibernate them, but the program goes wonky when the scientist who designed it gets busted for pimping. Consequently, the hibernees are forgotten about and literally tossed out with the trash. This results in Joe — along with Rita (Maya Rudolph), a hooker who happened to be the only worthy female the Armed Forces could find — waking up five centuries from now in a world so dumb the president is former wrestler, law degrees can be bought at Costco, crops are watered with sports drinks, cops accidentally shoot airliners out of the sky and the most popular TV show is a testicle-crushing reality show called Ow! My Balls!

Idiocracy, which has been dumped — like Joe himself — in only a few theatres without any press screenings, is a funny movie about epidemic stupidity that may have fallen prey precisely to the condition it's trying to warn us about. Which is to wonder: was it too smart for its own good?

Judge's low-rent cross between Planet of the Apes and Rip Van Winkle is a movie about all-American idiocy that's brimming with ideas that project our current state of cultural devolution into an all-too-frighteningly credible future. It's a world where all clothing bears brand advertising, the most popular movie is a 90-minute shot of a flatulent posterior called Ass, and anyone who speaks anything resembling proper grammar is immediately labeled a "fag."

Immediately conscripted by the White House, the rather dull-witted Joe is discovered to be the smartest man in the world and assigned the post of Secretary of the Interior. His job is problem solving, but its greatest challenge simply involves trying to get his double-digit IQ colleagues in cabinet to understand what the hell he's talking about withoutsounding too much like a fag in the process.

Even in its current, apparently truncated state — the movie's rhythm is choppy and wonky, and the frequent passages of voiceover narration suggest some clumsy attempts at post-production duct-taping — Idiocracy is a potently scruffy dystopian satire. It understands that the greatest threat to democracy isn't terrorism, but unchecked consumption (one fleetingly funny visual gag depicts a TV chair with a feeding tube and toilet seat attached) and it is unsparing in its implication of everyone in the coming great dumbing down.

But that might also be its own undoing: when you charge everybody from Starbucks (offering a "Full Body Latte" in 2505) and Hollywood with obliterating the neurons of the most powerful nation in the world, you run the risk of playing to empty houses in vast multiplexes on the city's fringe.

So I wonder: did the present beat Idiocracy to the future?

[Antoine Doinel]

Nerve's Screen Grab blog has done an excellent job of rounding up various news about the film - both good and bad:

Idiocracy: An Insider Speaks!
9/6/2006 4:00:00 PM

A fine, fine individual with some inside knowledge of the Idiocracy situation wrote us today. They asked to remain anonymous, but here's their email and their take on the situation. It should be noted, however, that those of us chiding the studio for their release (or lack thereof) of the film aren't necessarily making the case that this is some kind of brilliant, perfect film -- it's clear from everything even its fans have written that Idiocracy has many, many flaws. It's simply that the piss-poor dumping strategy Fox has followed suggests not that they have no faith in the film (although I'm sure they don't), but that they want to see it die a quick death. That's what bothers me...

But without further ado...

So, I worked on the advertising for this movie for over a year at one of the biggest trailer houses in LA...I got to see it get cut from a little over an hour and a half down to its current, what, 70 minutes? I'll admit I haven't seen the final cut in theaters, but I saw what they were working with about 3 times.

We kept going through different story lines for the trailer, starting with humanity's de-evolution, trying a planet of the apes style "he's just in the future as the smartest guy on earth", and explaining the army experiment to its fullest. Once this story was out of the way we got into all the fat, stupid, balls jokes, usually accompanied to the song "Dah-dah-dah." The trailers never really tested, and neither did the different cuts of the movie, and execs live by testing. It is worth noting, however, that the studio was trying to make it work, even if they did push the relase date back over and over again.

Basically, the studio didn't think the larger population would find it funny because it makes fun of them so mercilessly. "Look how stupid you white-trash hicks are, shooting out babies so quick! Look at the stupid things you think are funny and entertaining and important!" Yeah, it's prety good satire. But at the same time, the people are stupid, but almost not stupid enough. Luke Wilson gets to hear the line "You can read? What are you, a faggot?" But it's just some fat guy acting a little slow. Though if anyone ever watches daytime courtroom shows, check out Dog-Eat-Dog, then compare it to the judge in the film. It's more scary than anything else. And Starbucks as a place where you can get blowjobs is pretty great, assuming it's still in there.

People at the office thought it was Mike Judge's own private little joke. "I'm going to make a movie about how stupid people are, then get those people to pay to see it."

Basically it seems like one of those movies that was just better on paper. But in reality, making a movie about stupid people makes for some pretty stupid jokes. For everyone who defends Judge's genius, Office Space is an incredibly smart comedy, and even Beavis and Butt-head have their moments, but this one suffers a little too much from loving its premise and not offering much more than variations on the people are stupid joke. So depending on how much you enjoy one note jokes, that might be how much you enjoy the movie.

Personally, I'll just say that no director is perfect, and this is one of those cases. You gotta love the guy for trying, but he just didn't pull it off.

Idiocracy: No, I Will Not Stop…

Back to Idiocracy. I wish I had more to report. David Poland (the man who runs Movie City News, writes the daily Hot Button Column, posts The Hot Blog, and hosts the weekly Lunch with David), spurred on by my plaintive messageboard jihad, decided to see the film for himself yesterday afternoon. Here's what he reported back:

“It is not total garbage... But it's no winner either. I suspect that the reality here is that the movie needs a theatrical release to trigger post-release dollars in Home Entertainment and cable, so they did it. To me it is about enough to fill a minor episode of a 22-minute sitcom or animated sitcom. There are laughs, but they are basically on the level of "Oh, My Balls!" -- a recurring gag about stupid people laughing at a guy being hit in the balls. Most of the laughs are sight gags, which are ok, but hardly memorable…

“I don't see any big Fox conspiracy here. Yes, Fox News is still around 500 years into a stupid future, but the joke is soft and the anchors are wrestlers in spandex, so the political sting is minor.

“Not a good movie, but there have been worse released. I think that the problem is that counting every theatrical release expense versus every dollar likely to come in was still a loser, while a DVD release in Judge Nation should be strong regardless. I think it's just that simple.â€

[Antoine Doinel]

Variety

[dx23]

For some reason, I was thinking about this movie a couple of weeks ago and yesterday, I stumble upon a newsbit on bwe.tv, that it had a limited release. The conspiracy theorist in me tells me that this is a marketing ploy to make this film a cult-classic like Office Space is, but my rational side believes that this is another dumb-headed move by Rupert Murdoch's FOX. The same FOX that canceled Arrested Development and kept pre-empting Futurama and Family Guy. The same FOX who give us those quality reality shows like The Swan and The Simple Life.

[Antoine Doinel]

From the Chicago Sun-Times: Sharp, funny view of a stupid future

[Noir of the Night]

Has anyone here seen this? I'm gonna try to see it this weekend, or sometime this week, before it disappears.

[Oedipax]

Has anyone here seen this? I'm gonna try to see it this weekend, or sometime this week, before it disappears.

I saw it last week. Some very funny parts, but overall it never totally cohered as a movie to me. As some of the reviews have mentioned, how much of this is Judge's fault and how much can be put down to studio meddling is unclear. It's still worthwhile viewing, but it does feel like a somewhat missed oppurtunity in places. It's pretty good, but it could have been amazing.

[Faux Hulot]

I can't even find the trailer online. This seems less like a "release" than an assassination... feels like someone at Fox has a score to settle with Judge, and they're killing the film just to spite him, or prove a point in a private argument. There's got to be more to this than meets the eye.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

There is no trailer. I suspect the only reason it got a theatrical release at all is to fulfull a contractual obligation -- otherwise I'm sure it would've gone straight to video.

[Faux Hulot]

I just caught an afternoon show in Atlanta, where I was one of fifteen paid customers, and where the preternaturally chipper guy at the concession stand had never heard of the film:

"What you going to see, anything good?"
"Idiocracy."
(draws blank)
"...I don't believe I'm familiar with that one!"

I quite liked it, even if it's not as consistently strong as Office Space. Some great gags though (I'll never again be able to enter a warehouse store without hearing the official greeter saying "Welcome to Cosco -- I love you"), and the Futuramic art direction deserves a web site of its own. In the prologue and epilogue the narration worked well, but some scenes were clearly cut down from longer sequences and reduced to virtual montages where the the narration flat-footedly explained the jokes (memo to Fox editors: there is nothing less funny than a joke explained); in those places I was reminded of the TV edit of Brazil. I don't have time to elaborate further, but if you like smart satirical comedies, it's definitely worth the price of admission.

[milk114]

Myself and the other 8 paying customers laughed heartily throughout Idiocracy.

I'd recommend it for anyone who can differenciate on-screen violence from parodying on-screen violence. If that makes any sense.

I agree that it felt like someone butchered the film in editing but I think, compared to the high-gloss crap I've seen this summer in the theaters, Idiocracy still holds up. A good indicator is that I would pay to watch it again before I'd do likewise for any other film right now. And I will. With a large group of friends. before it disappears.

It's worth seeing. Especially now, before Fox buries it to only be released with a third edition of Office Space.

[Polybius]

For anyone intrigued by his mention of Cyril Kornbluth, who hasn't read him, seek out a story called I Never Ast No Favors. It's mean spirited fun and the co-funniest SF story I've ever read (along with Alfred Bester's Will You Wait?.)

[Antoine Doinel]

Slate weighs in:

Idiocracy, the feel-bad comedy of the year

By Reihan Salam

Mike Judge could have gone the easy route. His last movie, Office Space, became a smash hit on DVD because the frat boy douchebags he mercilessly mocked became its biggest fans. But rather than make another feel-good comedy, he's made the extremely bizarre Idiocracy, which you might call a feel-bad comedy about the silent killer of American civilization, namely our collective stupidity. A feel-bad comedy that has grossed just over $400,000 to date, barely enough to cover the cost of spray-tanning the stars of Laguna Beach. Given that the release was limited to six cities—and that there was literally no promotion—the poor showing makes perfect sense. The tragedy is that Idiocracy is easily the most potent political film of the year, and the most stirring defense of traditional values since Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France.

This should come as no surprise. Office Space, perhaps Judge's most celebrated work, appears at first glance to be a simple s--ts-and-giggles romp about how work sucks. Buried just below the surface, however, is a critique of the modern American workplace and of the materialism that makes us slaves to our machines (particularly our fax machines). Not only are we supposed to work mind-numbing, soul-sapping jobs without complaint—we're supposed to love every minute of it. When Peter, our hero, leaves his desk job to become a manual laborer, he breaks with bourgeois convention to embrace a vigorous, manlier, more traditional life.

If Office Space is about taking responsibility for your own happiness, Idiocracy is about something larger, namely our responsibility for our shared future. Like all the best dystopian fables, Idiocracy is a scathing indictment of our own society. And so it begins in the present with a brief portrait of the villains who are destroying America, represented here by an affluent couple and an imbecile ne'er-do-well named Clevon. The two yuppies are shown agonizing over the decision to have a child. It's never the right time, until the right time finally comes—and the couple is infertile. The yuppies will leave no legacy behind. Clevon, in contrast, lustily and enthusiastically impregnates not only his wife but a bevy of gap-toothed harridans, each one dumber and uglier than the next. The screen slowly fills with his spawn, foreshadowing the nightmarish future to come.

What follows is a series of events, including an all-too-brief discussion of the distinction between a pimp's love and the love of a square, that send hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Rita (Maya Rudolph) and the extremely average Army Pvt. Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson) into separate hibernation chambers for a supersecret military experiment. Like so many of us, Bowers has spent his life avoiding responsibility. Whenever his commanding officer tells him to "lead, follow, or get out of the way," he invariably chooses to "get out of the way." So, when he is tapped for this dubious honor, he's none too pleased.

Fully expecting to wake up after a year, Joe instead emerges from his icy casket in the year 2505, a nightmarish future populated exclusively by Clevon-like simpletons. The last geniuses died perfecting advanced methods for regrowing hair and sustaining erections, beautifully illustrated by a quick cutaway shot of a lab monkey with what looks to be a Jheri curl, a lit stogie, and a gigantic boner. As a result, the machines that have kept the masses of morons happy and fed are falling apart. Starvation looms as crops die across the land, all because Americans, or rather Uh-mericans, are too stupid to water them with anything besides a colorful sports drink rich in electrolytes.

At times, you get the sense that Idiocracy is Mike Judge's penance for unleashing Beavis and Butt-Head on the world more than a decade ago. The most popular film in 2505 is called Ass, a lineal descendent of Judge's own outré creation that features two pairs of human buttocks audibly discharging methane gas as though they were dueling banjos. Though no words are spoken, Ass is said to have won an Oscar for best screenplay.

Because Joe occasionally enunciates, he is immediately under suspicion as a "faggy" and otherwise obnoxious person, infractions that somehow lead to his incarceration. Eventually, Joe—with the help of the defrosted Rita—chooses not to "get out of the way." At great personal risk to himself (he narrowly escapes death at the hands of a monster truck built to resemble an enormous metal phallus), Joe saves the world from starvation. But he also saves himself from his own laziness and self-absorption, not least of all when he starts a family with Rita.

Now, Idiocracy isn't perfect. Despite being only 84 minutes long, it drags at points and feels more than a little shaggy. Plus, there's obviously something a little creepy about all this. Is Mike Judge really saying that some people should breed and others shouldn't? Well, sort of. But he's also taking on the laziness and the self-absorption, and the materialism and the willful ignorance, of his own audience. Watch Dogville or Fahrenheit 9/11 or even The Passion of the Christ and you get the distinct sense that you're being congratulated for believing the right things. Rare is the movie that challenges your beliefs. Rarer still is the movie that tells you you're a fat moron, and that you should be ashamed of yourself. The unmarried adultescents swarming the cities, the DINKs who've priced families with children out of the better suburbs, the kids who never read—these are Hollywood's most prized demographics, and Mike Judge has them squarely in his sights. Is it any wonder 20th Century Fox decided Idiocracy would never be boffo box office?

Idiocracy challenges a central article of faith in American life, the notion that we are destined for moral, material, and intellectual progress. And what if things really are getting worse? What if, more to the point, we really are getting dumber? Recently there's been some troubling evidence that the arrow of intelligence is pointing downward. A British study found that the intelligence of British 11-year-olds has actually declined during the last 20 years. Data from the Danish draft board indicate that intelligence peaked in the late-1990s and has now fallen to levels not seen since 1991, when MC Hammer-inspired parachute pants were all the rage. If that's not enough to make you slit your wrists, I don't know what is.

To his everlasting credit, Mike Judge doesn't counsel despair. Instead, he's telling thoughtful Americans that we can't expect other people to solve our problems for us. If you're alarmed by the callousness and the crassness of our culture, which you certainly should be, do something about it. Lead or follow. Getting out of the way is not an option. Failing that, you should at least try to outbreed the people you hate most.

[Antoine Doinel]

You can read or download the script here

[miless]

I wonder if this will ever get released on DVD, or if it will just dissappear and become some strange sidenote in futuristic-dystopian-sci-fi-comedy? (like Nothing Lasts Forever). Let's hope that it does come out on DVD in it's full cut (90minutes)

[Antoine Doinel]

Well, at least we won't have to wait long for the DVD. It arrives in January. From DavisDVD:

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment will release Idiocracy on January 9th, 2007. Meet Joe Bowers. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed. But when a government hibernation experiment goes awry, Bowers awakens in the year 2505 to find a society so dumbed-down by mass commercialism and mindless TV programming that he's become the smartest guy on the planet. Writer/director Mike Judge's comedy, starring Luke Wilson, was all but abandoned by the studio for its theatrical release. The DVD arrives with a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks, five deleted scenes (Trashy Guy & Girl in Truck, Girlfriend #1, Girlfriend #2, Museum of Fart, Joe in White House Looks Out) and three trailers. Retail is $27.98.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

What a surprise -- a lackluster DVD release just like with Office Space. Let's hope Judge has learned his lesson and never works with Fox again.

[miless]

Or maybe he'll learn his lesson and never make movies again... (at least that's probably what Fox wants)

[mikeohhh]

What a surprise -- a lackluster DVD release just like with Office Space. Let's hope Judge has learned his lesson and never works with Fox again.

Fox has been renewing his TV series each year for over a decade despite never being a ratings juggernaut. I think their relationship is stronger than many on this forum would like to believe. I simply doubt Judge is particularly proud of this film, hence no commentary, let alone Fox.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I believe the Office Space SE is so barren because Judge had little interest in revisiting it after the crap he had to go through making it. Given that Fox compounded the humiliation with Idiocracy by giving it a release that made Office Space seem like a summer tentpole, he's probably even less eager to revisit that one.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Fox has been renewing his TV series each year for over a decade despite never being a ratings juggernaut. I think their relationship is stronger than many on this forum would like to believe. I simply doubt Judge is particularly proud of this film, hence no commentary, let alone Fox.

Well, I believe it is a love/hate relationship. I've read that Judge refused to do an Office Space SE DVD because Fox originally cut him out of any profits of the original... esp. from home video where it has been consistently one of their top sellers and the sticking point with the SE DVD was that Judge wanted a cut of the profits from that which Fox refused to do. Now, I don't know if they came to some agreement with the last version that came out because Judge did participate on the retrospective featurette but it still felt pretty bare bones...

[Antoine Doinel]

fox has been renewing his TV series each year for over a decade despite never being a ratings juggernaut. I think their relationship is stronger than many on this forum would like to believe. I simply doubt Judge is particularly proud of this film, hence no commentary, let alone Fox.

I presume you're talking about King Of The Hill - and that show makes tons of money in syndication rights which is reason enough to keep it going and I'm pretty sure those types of decisions are well out of the hands of Mike Judge. If there wasn't money to be had, Fox wouldn't waste their time.

As for a lack of a comment from Judge, it may just be that Fox took the film from him and as an agreement for the film to even see the light of day, he had to keep his mouth shut. I recall that Paul Schrader was pretty much under same instructions from Morgan Creek for the whole Exorcist prequel fiasco. In interviews when his version finally did come out, he was very guarded or didn't answer any questions regarding the initial falling out with the studio. Same with his comments on the DVD.

I'm pretty sure Idiocracy was the last film Mike Judge was under contract for with Fox and his future projects will probably be with a different studio altogether.

Fox wouldn't know funny if it bit them in the ass. Remember, these are the same people that pulled Arrested Development off the air.

[Andre Jurieu]

Fox wouldn't know funny if it bit them in the ass. Remember, these are the same people that pulled Arrested Development off the air.

Is that really FOX not knowing what funny is, or is that more about North American TV audiences not knowing what funny is? Arrested Development was a great show, but it never achieved the ratings success it was due despite FOX keeping it around for 3 seasons. Sure they could have stopped moving it around on their schedule and let it air consistently, but sooner or later they have to admit that it's just not going to catch on and it's time to quit spending money on something that only a niche audience appreciates. Also, the creators didn't seem so keen on letting it have life on another network. Those negotiations went nowhere.

[jon]

Yah Arrested Development was great, but it didn't get the good time slots, it didn't get the advertising. If you remember, David Cross had some pretty unkind things to say about their advertising campaign and the shitty job that fox was doing to promote it. Though, I am truly surprised that it lasted 3 seasons. I do commend Fox for at least keeping it on that long. It is too bad, however, that one of the greatest shows to come around in a long time didn't find an audience.

I told my friends about the show all the time and they just thought it didn't look good. Finally, I got a chance to show it to a friend and we ended up watching the whole first season he enjoyed it so much. It was great. I don't think it was too much of a niche show at all, which is what it was labeled. If people watched it, they would get into it.

I have a feeling that the reason it failed somewhat was that it had so many jokes that dated back episodes before. Watching it all in sequence is wonderful, but I am sure some people got confused or missed some of the more subtle comedic moments, despite the explanations of what was happening.

Still was amazing though.

[Andre Jurieu]

Arrested Development was great, but it didn't get the good time slots...

Didn't it start out in the time-slot after The Simpsons?

... it didn't get the advertising.

I completely agree with that point. However, at the same time, I can't really think of a way to advertise that show effectively without just quoting a random assortment of TV critics, which is usually useless when it comes to advertising TV shows.

If you remember, David Cross had some pretty unkind things to say about their advertising campaign and the shitty job that fox was doing to promote it.

Yeah, he might have a point, but Cross can bitch, nag, and complain about anything. Of course, I have no problem with him doing so, since it usually results in some fantastic comedy.

I have a feeling that the reason it failed somewhat was that it had so many jokes that dated back episodes before. Watching it all in sequence is wonderful, but I am sure some people got confused or missed some of the more subtle comedic moments, despite the explanations of what was happening.

Very true.