Pajiba

This clip in a nutshell is why I stopped watching South Park. Matt Stone and Trey Parker are brilliant satirists, but I find their humor annoying when they act like they're above all of it.

Basically they're guilty of doing what they accuse Inception of doing. In other words, if everything is stupid and has no inherent value, why should I care about Matt and Trey's opinion about anything?

I'm not one of the people that found Inception clever, so this clip made me fall out of my chair laughing. Great way to start a Friday at work. And I also believe that in comedy nothing is sacred.

Yeah, they pretty much nailed it. I do agree with Tom up there, they don't seem to care about anything, to the point of coming across as ...being so non-comformist that they won't conform to being non-comformists.

Well, I thought the entire episode was pretty damn funny, one of the better ones they've done in a while (I liked the Jersey Shore ep, but it's an easy, easy target) and I still love Inception like a good Nolan fanboy should. They really did break the film's plot down to it's base, and ridiculed it as a silly fantasy to which people gave too much credit. They're not wrong, but the movie establishes itself as a fantasy* early on, so everything that happens is perfectly fine within the structure of that filmic universe. It is pretty silly of them to attack the film's rules, when it sticks to its rules. All the same, it was damn funny.

* I use "fantasy" and intend all of its meanings, deliberately.

I warned my brother before he got to watch this episode that Matt and Trey really hate Inception and Sharon of all characters is their proxy for the hatred. I still loved the episode and very much enjoyed Inception. The entire episode is more of a send-up of the conceit of Inception than a declaration of the film being horrible or stupid, no matter what Matt and Trey's intent really was.

I enjoyed Inception, I won't lie. It was visually stunning and conceptually new. But halfway through the movie, I realized I was just watching a heist movie. And while it still looked really pretty, it got real boring, real fast.

The best part of this was the mockery of the music.

Reductio ad absurdum is only funny when done correctly. That is not the plot of Inception, it is what someone who didn't like Inception thinks the plot to Inception is, and for me that renders the argument invalid even if it weren't reductio ad absurdum which is automatically an invalid argument.

Usually, or a few years back, which is the last time I was regularly watching South Park, they were above most things because that's where the opinions of the show rode -- above both sides, arriving at really good objective areas that didn't tow a party line or one side of an argument. This is just the argument of people who didn't like the movie, and that's what annoys me about it. If I want to hear a flat argument like this, I'll watch Family Guy. Only, wait, Family Guy just did an episode where Brian becomes a Republican after finally reading what Rush Limbaugh's actual opinions were instead of what other liberals told him Rush Limbaugh's opinions were, then went back when he realized he just wasn't a Republican at heart. That's sound like more of a South Park episode than this joke does.

I didn't think Inception was cool because it was complicated, I thought it was cool because I read lots of complicated literature and science fiction and therefore understood Inception, allowing me to figure out that Nolan pulled off something really cool that happens to be buried under a mountain of plot. BTW, if I reduce Star Wars down, it becomes: "A farm kid gets into a fight with his dad over religion."

Godfather: "College kid begrudgingly takes over family business."

Casablanca: "Guy runs into ex-girlfriend -- awkward!"

Dune: "Avatar."

Wow....I've never watched South Park and never felt like I was missing out on a lot. So, yeah, I didn't watch this clip and don't care.

I was confused as hell by Inception, but still thought it was pretty cool.

It would have been even better if they had actually seen the film, rather than ripping off much of the episode from the COLLEGE HUMOR parody:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/south-park-creators-apologize-for-borrowing-from-c,46720/

Oops.

"Everyone is in favor of saving Hitler's brain. But put it in the body of a great white shark and ooh! Suddenly you've gone too far!"

Okay, not the same show, but the point still valid, I think.

Like anyone, I think South Park's social satire is funnier when I agree that whatever they're lampooning is dumb (Jersey Shore for example ... or republicans). But if they make fun of something I like or think is important, it makes me uncomfortable.

They've said for years that they were equal opportunity insulters, and they make no bones about that. I can't think that the Terry Shaivo parody episode is great, but the global warming parody episode is misguided. They're both poking fun of national topics, and they both take the absurdity of one side or the other to a ridiculous extreme. That said, there's nothing wrong with liking one episode more than another.

Honestly, my favorite South Park Episodes tend to be the ones where the kids are just being themselves, and there's no broader social or cultural theme to the episode. More and more, it seems like they end up doing themed shows. The "Inception" show, the "Facebook/Tron" show, the "Family Guy" show, etc.

My favorite shows are the ones like when they got ninja weapons and accidentally stabbed Butters in the eye. The "boys will be boys" episodes tend to be the funniest, I think, and have the longest shelf life.

I love both Inception and South Park. That said I was disappointed that the episode didn't have any shots of the van falling off the bridge for two straight hours. When Leo said "thoughts of my dead wife sometimes manifest as trains" I couldn't stop laughing.

Well I can't belive that people who get paid to make jokes made fun of something I like. I'm gonna get all butt hurt and accuse them of being pretentious and plagiarist.

This is what you sound like right now...

Sorry boys and girls, but when you get so caught up in your own sense of self importance that you can't take a potshot at something you like, well then YOU are the punchline to this joke. Congrats Trey and Matt did it again.

On that note. Inception was the best movie of the year. Not because that plot or dream within a dream schlock was so groundbreaking. Just because it was a well acted well filmed movie. Yet somehow I still watched this south park episode and laughed my ass off... Probably has something to do with it being funny. Life's good when you don't take it too seriously.