'Team America': Building the World

The use of marionettes must have brought in a new set of problems of its own? Use on this scale in a movie has not been attempted since the 1960s with children's TV shows like 'Thunderbirds', obviously time has moved on and what could take ages to build and make, can now be done with CGI.Its also a credit to those early pioneers with their cantankerous lip sync mechanisms, mini explosions and the sheer good nature behind every episode. So its quite appalling really that the team behind 'Team America' could not muster one single tiny little nod to 'Thunderbirds' which obviously inspired them to make this movie and a great deal of money also?.

Another superb insight into the genius and incredible worth ethic and attention to detail that is everything Matt Stone & Trey Parker do and have ever done together. This one will really appeal to any fans whose eye tends to be drawn to the small, more subtle detail in the background which in all of their work be it the South Park episodes or the movies / musical.

Firstly, this movie was and remains the most painful, challenging and soul destroying project Matt & Trey ever worked on together to the point of them swearing never again to work with puppets and yet as with everything else they do, despite the utter tedium and the amount of graft and stress they encountered - they still refused to skip out or cut corners on anything and maintained their commitment and dedication to finish what they started.

"Building the world" covers everything from the sets and deliberate placing of all landmarks from each country in one area and stereotypical / generic ornamental items. For example the Paris set includes all of France's main landmarks together in one place and its paved cobblestones are shaped like croissants and the shots of North Korea includes "buildings" that are all made from Chinese take-away boxes.

Team America's belt buckles were US quarters, someone has a small pair of nail clippers attached to the utility belt and palm trees include leaves made from crumpled US dollars (and some cannabis plants) with the meeting with all the world leaders just filled with the best, most detailed stereotype for each country's representative.

The level of time, effort and painstaking detail that went into creating and building the world and the immense length of time researching and getting the tiniest thing absolutely perfect is breath-taking. Better still is the overwhelming majority of all this detail will be completely missed by most people and it's not until you see this you even realise just what went into creating the sets, what the props are and can full appreciate it all.

One of my favourite things Matt & Trey have always done consistently well is make a conscious effort to give something a deliberate "naff" feel and effect often using real life people and animals in and amongst their animation such as in South Park's "Pandemic" episodes with giant Guinea pigs storming the set dressed in various costume. They do the same here with King Jong's attack panthers which are just actual cats they released onto the set. The only thing I'd like to have seen is in the writing and recording of its music. Trey Parker's ability to make a scene that's so utterly crass, puerile and childish but give it an entirely different feel with the use of superbly written and emotive music is what gives his work that extra touch of pure genius. As a musician I have so much mad appreciation for how he manages to pull off some of the most vile, childish and puerile scenes and use music to invoke the most genuine, sincere sounding music despite what we're seeing on the screen such as when Gary nearly spews up his own pelvis behind the bar for example.

Fans of the movie and of Parker & Stone's work overall will absolutely love this and probably find themselves coming back to it more than once and then rewatching the film in its entirety to catch all the stuff that's included it's incredible how much is there under their typical "blink and you'll miss it" style.

This is the second of the seven short featurettes on the DVD of Team America: World Police, and details the creating of the world it takes place in. It slows down some from the first, and is almost three times as long(more precisely put, 13 minutes), both of which are very welcome changes, and obviously they're directly connected to one another. As this was a puppet movie, not one with human actors physically appearing, everything had to be built, in scale. This goes into that, and reveals a couple of the rather creative ways they integrated real-life objects into sets and costumes. It also includes other people than Matt and Trey, and that's nice, because while they are fun to listen to, the crew also have great things to say. This consists of interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and concept art, intercut with clips from the flick itself. It's well-edited, and never ceases to be interesting. It moves at a fitting speed, never too fast or overly slow. I recommend this to any fans of TA, those who made it, and anyone who wants to know more about the piece, or, to a lesser degree, the folks behind it. 7/10