The Simpsons Movie

[Alex]

One handicap that The Simpsons Movie suffers under, I'd say, is the fact that the TV show is still on the air, which must be horribly limiting (even in a TV show like The Simpsons where continuity isn't so important).

One common approach to these TV-to-movie adaptations is to spoof the source material (The Brady Bunch, Car 54 Where are You?, McHale's Navy). Another is to re-envision an artifact of the past into the modern day presentation (Charlie's Angels, S.W.A.T., The Mod Squad). A third would be to take the original as an inspiration and then just tell your own story (Maverick, The Addams Family, Mission: Impossible).

For The Simpsons Movie they can't really make too much fun of themselves and there is no temporal separation to offer up a different perspective. And having to return to the small screen in the fall it would be difficult to truly and completely shake up the Simpsons universe.