South Park: Imaginationland

I'm gonna judge this as both a movie and as individual 3-parter episodes since they were originally the latter, but were edited together as a feature-length movie for it's DVD release.

As a MOVIE, it's obviously no Bigger, Longer and Uncut. That film was pretty much a perfect film adaptation. It used as many characters from the show as possible, has gags and elements you'd see on the show (such as Kenny dying), and stays true to what you'd see on the small screen whilst upping the scale to make it feel truly epic. Even after my second rewatch, it's still an experience. Imaginationland is still a really solid movie, but definitely does feel lacking in comparision. It does feel like a movie for the most part, but it becomes obvious when they transition between each episode. They show the original title cards (they also read Kyle Sucks Cartman's B**ls instead of Imaginationland, which is strange), and that confused me since Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story was also three episodes edited together as a movie, but didn't include those credits at the beginning of each part that you'd see in a normal episode. I don't know if this was the case for the actual episodes, but the movie with them combined had an original intro in the style of the 'Road to' episodes that showed the credits there.

But I don't wanna compare it to Bigger, Longer and Uncut too much since the latter was a theatrical release, while this is just something made for TV with a lower budget, so of course they can't reach the same quality as something made for cinemas. It's not really fair.

So how is it as a 3-PARTER EPISODE? Fantastic. Some of the best episodes from the show. The stakes are high, the plot is engaging, and the concept (of fictional characters like Strawberry Shortcake, gods like Zeus, and holiday icons like Santa Claus living in their own land together) is really cool. And because this is South Park, they give it an edgy twist without being too bleak, and instead, hilarious.

As a direct-to-video movie, it's an 8/10, but as a 3-part episode, it's an easy 10/10.

Full disclosure: I'm one of those Family Guy people.

South Park at its best can be fairly charming and inciteful but otherwise...

This was a lot of fun though. I think this show plays to its strengths when it has these macabre, silly adventures full of intertextuality.

It has the scale to justify being a TV movie but I agree that it is not "the sequel" to that other mover.

This bizarre sub-plot of Cartman trying to get Kyle to fellate him and apparently not in a gay way is bemusing but, hey, it keeps you weirdly compelled.

There isn't anything satirical. The military presence says nothing that hasn't been said before.

My favorite SP episodes are the ones that are more self contained stories instead of direct of the time social commentary. Those are amazing when they release but get dated quickly. But here it feels timeless.

Imagination Land is one of their multi part episodes, it really is an... "imaginative" idea and Trey & Matt really are able to find so many great directions with the story while including a lot of aspects from their history for long time fans.

Imaginaaaation, imaginaaaaation, I - MA - GI - Naaaaaaatiiioon

I have not seen the version on DVD, but I have seen the 3 episodes on television and on On Deamand for free.'Imaginationland' is basically 3 episodes combined together to make an entire movie.For 1 hour, I sat in my sofa and was entertained.Since I'm a huge fan of 'South Park', I love just about any episode.I even liked the 1999 movie 'South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.'Imaginationland' is just as excellent as any other good episode.The only difference between the this and the others is that this is more of a movie than just 3 episodes combined to make 1 movie.Just know that this episode is full of very rude humor and some slightly graphic animated violence, so this one isn't for everyone.Overall, I highly recommend this movie if you love the television series, funny and crude humor, and the first movie.Using your imagination has never been this funny.