The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

          

           In The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the titular character must team up with his archenemy Plankton in order to discover who stole the Krabby Patty Secret Formula and bring order and peace back to the town of Bikini Bottom. By combining live-action elements with traditional 2D and 3D animation, playing with narrative conventions, and subverting audience expectations, the film is able to comment on its simple theme of the importance of teamwork, as well as convey more complex meanings such as questioning authority and authorship, and the traditional notion of good and evil in children’s media.

In order to understand the film in context, it is important to look at how Spongebob as a TV show and film series has dabbled in experimentation in the past.  The TV show, as well as the previous movie, have a tradition of experimenting with animation, as well as live-action narrative conventions.  In the episode “Frankendoodle”, an artist drawing in a boat drops his pencil into the ocean, where it is found by Spongebob and Patrick. They use the pencil to create their own doodles that unexpectedly come to life, acknowledging implicitly that their universe occurs within the confines and restrictions (or even freedoms) of an animated cartoon.  This is further acknowledged when one of Spongebob’s doodles uses the pencil to erase parts of the “real” world, including Spongebob himself.  Similarly, in the first Spongebob movie, the film combines animated and live-action elements in the third act when actor/lifeguard David Hasselhoff suddenly appears to take them back to their hometown of Bikini Bottom. To summarize, the show has never been shy about experimenting both with narrative conventions and animation techniques, both playing with the expectations of the audience and the medium of animation.

By combining 3D animation with live-action, the film crosses into new territory.  In the past, episodes of the show have utilized live action. In particular, the episode “Pressure” had the characters go on dry land, where they’re represented as silly puppets operated on poles.  However, the show has ultimately stayed away from utilizing 3D animation.  The film becomes experimental merely by combining live-action elements with 3D animation.  By experimenting with a combination of 3D animation and live-action, the film opens the door for further experimentation both on the show and future children’s media.

The film experiments with audience expectations by establishing patterns familiar to the show’s audience and using their familiarity with these patterns in order to trick them.  In the first film, the entire narrative is presented as a film that is being watched by pirates. On the show, certain episodes are introduced by “Patchy the Pirate”, a bumbling pirate host.  In essence, the target audience has been trained to see pirates as funny side characters that don’t influence the overall plot. Furthermore, most modern audience members are not trained to see a narrator as anything but an unbiased, impartial third party dictating the story. There are examples of media that experiments with this notion, such as Into the Woods, Dave the Barbarian, and George of the Jungle, where the narrator either takes a more active role in telling the story or interacts directly with the characters, who are aware that their story is being dictated by an invisible third party.  However, this film further plays with this narrative construct by having the narrator become the real antagonist of the story.  In context of the film’s previous history, where pirates are seen as wacky yet ultimately harmless narrators or mere observers of the story being told, this film subverts expectations by presenting the pirate Burger Beard as the traditional narrator, only to pull the rug from under the audience and have him abuse his position as the omnipotent narrator in order to steal the krabby patty formula and make a profit for himself at the expense of the characters.  Not only is he playing an active role in the film’s narrative, but he plays the antagonist role, a role normally reserved for series villain Plankton, who served as the first film’s primary antagonist.  By establishing familiar patterns and then subverting them, the film is able to provide an interesting antagonist that defies convention and helps the film to portray its overall message.

All of the experimentation with narrative conventions and 2D/3D animation help the film to portray its themes of the importance of teamwork, as well as the more complex ideas on authorship and good vs. evil narratives.  In order for Spongebob to save the town, he must team up with Plankton, a character who has a long history of working against the protagonist.  Indeed, by working with the go-to villain in order to save the town, the film is able to portray its moralistic message about the importance of teamwork and its power to overcome normal prejudices. This is especially true in the climax, where the heroes only prevail once Plankton joins the battle and works with Spongebob. This seems simple enough, but having the protagonist team up with a traditional villain is not a trope that the audience is accustomed to seeing, especially for children’s media.  Indeed, children’s media is often full of one dimensional villains with no redeeming quality, so it’s a breath of fresh air when a piece of media can portray a traditionally evil character as having redeeming qualities who is capable of working towards the greater good rather than simple self-interest.  Furthermore, by establishing the traditional narrator as the primary antagonist, the film sends a message to its audience to be suspicious (or at least skeptical) of who tells the story, and that it’s important not to take a story at face value without analyzing the source.  By experimenting with both traditional narrative conventions as well as with animation techniques, the film teaches messages both simple and complex about the importance of teamwork and the importance of questioning authorship and our own internal prejudices.