Team America Articles

Comic-Con: Saturday Update

Empire has such sights to show you… Well, tell you about..., July 24, 2004

Team America

Make no mistake: the new movie from South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, could well be the greatest movie ever made. Well, ok maybe not, but in a year that has seen some amazing comedies – Dodgeball, Anchorman, Bad Santa, Van Helsing – this could well be the funniest.

Brief background: the movie is a Marionation (yes, the process used on Thunderbirds et al) political satire, concerning the efforts of a pumped-up US anti-terrorism team to restore democracy to the world and to blow up evildoers in the process. And if that idea doesn’t already seem like genius to you, then you’d best move on. And not hear about how the trailer, specially cut for Comic-Con (the movie is still shooting, nine weeks and counting and while Stone and Parker were hilarious, that showed on their faces), starts with a litany of A-list names. ‘Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, George Clooney, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, George W. Bush, John Kerry and Kim Jong-Il… are all going to be really pissed when they see TEAM AMERICA!’

Or maybe not. Maybe they’ll be too busy laughing themselves silly at the opening sequence, in which Team America has a truly hilarious gunfight with Osama Bin Laden and his weapon of mass destruction in Paris. (Sample dialogue: “Hey, terrorist… terrorise this!”) You will believe the Eiffel Tower can fall on the Arc De Triomphe! You will believe that Marionation (complete with wires and lolling heads) can look good on the big screen!

Or maybe they’ll be busy crying themselves silly at the second sequence shown by the South Park guys (as the audience insisted on calling them), in which the movie’s main villain, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il (with a voice that sounds suspiciously like an Asian Cartman) lures UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix to his underground lair, and deals with his request to look for WMD (“If you do not, I will be forced to write you a strongly-worded letter!”), Bond-villain style. And maybe you had to be there, but the line “Fuck you, Hans Brix! Fuck you, you fucking cocksucker!” could well be the greatest line written by man or beast).

Along with Fahrenheit 9/11, this could well lose the US election for Dubya… that is, if John Kerry wasn’t as wooden as the stars of Team America. “We didn’t want to work with actors,” said Stone (or is it Parker? We get confused). “But they can do things like point, and pick up things, and walk.”

Team America & Sky Captain Hit Comic-Con

Source: Jerry Katz Sunday, July 25, 2004

Paramount Pictures held a fantastic panel at Comic-Con International in San Diego on Saturday. First up, Matt Stone and Trey Parker introduced their new flick¸ Team America: World Police. The guys were very tired as they complained at how tough using puppets can be, though they seem very proud of the film. The guys showed off a trailer that started like a typical, summer action movie, using names like Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen. George W. Bush, and John Kerry will all HATE this movie. There were then a ton of quick flashes of puppets and the logo, "Team America: World Police".

The trailer was met to thunderous applause and the two other clips included the opening of the film in which France is obliterated by Team America and Kim Jong Il is investigated by at UN inspector. All the scenes went over very well with the crowd. The guys fielded questions from the audience that ran the gamut from when the new season of South Park will begin (October) and why That's My Bush was cancelled (Comedy Central made them choose between South Park and the latter.) The guys also said that the central reason for making "Team America" was to spoof Jerry Bruckheimer movies and there will be musical numbers, although it's not a straight-ahead musical. The studio just launched the official website for the film as well.