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"Save the universe from yourselves, or you're fired" -Tagline

Regular Show: The Movie is an animated feature film based on the television series Regular Show.[1] It had its television world premiere on November 25, 2015, on Cartoon Network.

The movie first screened on August 14, 2015, at the Downtown Independent in Los Angeles, where it screened for a week.

Production[]

The movie was announced during the Cartoon Network 2015 Upfront in February 2015, having began production in 2014. On July 11, 2015, JG Quintel announced on Twitter that the film had been completed. On July 10, 2015, a trailer for the film was shown at the 2015 Comic Con International event, and was released online two days later. The total budget of the film was $3 million.

Synopsis[]

After a high school lab experiment goes horribly wrong, and accidentally creating a Timenado, the universe is on the verge of being destroyed and it’s up to Mordecai and Rigby to go back in time and make the things right, battle an evil volleyball coach in order to save the universe — and their friendship.[2][3]

Plot[]

Future[]

Rigby leads a rebellion squadrent (consisting of Benson, Skips, Hi-Five Ghost, Muscle Man, and Pops) against an evil cyborg named Mr. Ross and his army when he is erasing time. When Rigby and his team reach Ross himself, he reveals himself to be in possession of a weapon: the future version of Mordecai, who is a cyborg himself and has discovered a transgression Rigby did to him in the past and attempts to kill him over it. When the team gets incapacitated, Benson sacrifices himself in order for Rigby to get to a space ship/time-machine to head to the past to stop the chaos. Just as Rigby is about to travel back in time, Mordecai shows up and shoots Rigby when the latter hit the time travel button.

Present[]

In the present, Mordecai and Rigby barely keep themselves from being fired when they run late for work due to getting breakfast burritos from a food truck. When the space ship from the future shows up and crashes into the ground, future Rigby appears and tells the employees that when Mordecai and Rigby were in high school, they created a time machine that backfired and was destroyed, but created a "Timenado", a tornado that can travel through space and time, and that they got expelled for blowing up the science lab. Also, future Rigby reveals that Mordecai shot him, shocking the park residences that Mordecai and Rigby have receded their relationship. Then future Rigby tells his younger self that he'll soon have to tell Mordecai a secret that will help save the universe-even if it will cost him their friendship- before he dies.

Back in the house, Skips asks for further details, and Mordecai reveals they built the time machine because Rigby got into their dream college, College University, but Mordecai didn't. After the unfortunate ploy, Mr. Ross, who was their science teacher at the time, was blamed for the incident and was subsequently arrested. As the guys ponder over what could have caused Mordecai and Rigby's breakup as friends, Benson tries to write the whole thing of as impossible and claims Muscle Man did it as a prank (to which he retaliates by stating he would never do anything to his friends that would cause that level of psychological harm) and Mordecai and Rigby did it to get out of work (to which they state that they have easier ways to slack off), but Muscle Man soon finds future Rigby plasma shotgun and destroys Benson's new car with it. After concluding that they have to head back to the past to set things right, they board future Rigby's time ship and head back to when Mordecai and Rigby were still in high school.

Past[]

The group manage to get to the past (6 years in to be exact) but wind up damaging the engines in the process. Skips, Muscle Man, and High Five Ghost stay behind to fix the ship while Benson and Pops follow Mordecai and Rigby in finding the time machine. They succeed in slipping in but are forced to split up when they're confronted by the volleyball team. With no other options, Mordecai and Rigby are forced to get help from their past selves, who have access to the science lab because Mr. Ross, who was feuding with Rigby after his antics cost the volleyball team the championship, was forced by Principal Dean to allow Rigby to do an extra credit assignment in order to pass. The extra credit assignment was the time machine Mr. Ross was creating. He was creating it for two reasons: go back in time and win the volleyball state championship and to "get revenge". After successfully convincing past Rigby to create a model volcano instead, the past selves leave the lab, giving the present pair enough time to destroy the time machine. Pops and Benson arrive late to the carnage, all beaten and bruised after their volleyball jock encounter.

The group, assuming the work was over, head back to spaceship/time machine only to find the repairs stalled due to an encounter with Muscle Man and High Five Ghost's past selves. Complicating matters further is that temporal ruptures begin appearing just as the repairs are finished. Rigby, who had slipped away earlier, alerts them to the fact that past Mordecai and Rigby are heading to the high school to finish a second time machine Mr. Ross planted. The employees race back to the science lab but are quickly incapacitated by Mr. Ross and future Mordecai, allowing past Mordecai and Rigby to botch the time machine and create the Timenado. Mr. Ross then forces Rigby to admit the truth by threatening to kill Mordecai: He never got into College U, but Mordecai did and he faked Mordecai's rejection letter in order to maintain their friendship. As he reads the letter aloud, the park crew winces in shock from how critical the college was to Rigby and how his friendship with Mordecai only lasted all these years because of a lie. Mr. Ross then tries to kill Mordecai in the confusion, but future Mordecai intervenes, taking a heavy wound and forcing Mr. Ross to retreat.

Furious over the duplicity, Mordecai ends his friendship with Rigby by lashing out at him for being an idiot for not seeing that he was holding him back. Crushed by his words and angry at himself for his unintentional selfishness, a heartbroken Rigby runs off with the spaceship/time machine, while Benson, Pops, Muscle Man, Skips and HFG unsuccessfully chase after him. Before dying, future Mordecai gives his present version his ship (which is also a time machine) and tells him to patch things up, saying what Rigby did was no excuse to side with Ross. As the group tries to rebound, a distress call from future Gene the Vending Machine prompts them to help out. Meanwhile, after a failed suicide attempt to drive into the sun, Rigby encounters Father Time at a gas station, who is falling apart due to the Timenado and is convinced to apologize to Mordecai. Rigby heads to the future and races back to the Timenado but gets intercepted along with Mordecai by Mr. Ross at the crystal core. With Techmo's help, the duo manages to decapitate Ross and repair their friendship. Rigby willingly readies to sacrifice himself to destroy the Timenado by throwing plutonium in its core and allow the others escape as he does so, but Mordecai refuses to let his best friend die and they work together, finally destroying the Timenado. They later convince past Rigby to apologize to past Mr. Ross before he's arrested (which was what he wanted from the start), thus ending the issues between them and altering the future.

Back in the present, Mordecai and Rigby agree that, despite how cool their future selves turned out, they won't let their friendship degrade to them trying to kill each other, thus erasing their future selves from the timeline. The next day, as Benson catches them away from the park, the pair race back in future Rigby's spaceship/time machine with Rigby saying they'll "never be late again".

Cast[]

Characters[]

M01 Regular Show Movie Credits

Trivia[]

  • This is the first movie based on a Cartoon Network series since "Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show" in 2009, and the first one to be released theatrically since "The Powerpuff Girls Movie" back in 2002,[4], though unlike the latter, it was only released in select theatres, likely due to the underperformance of the latter film.
  • The production of the film impacted the episode count of seasons 6 and 7. Season 6 was supposed to have 40 episodes, but due to the film’s production, only had 31 episodes, while season 7 only had 36 episodes.
  • According to J.G. Quintel, he and Szeles began production of the movie at the beginning of Season 6, and the movie was’t finished until they were writing Season 8.
  • A trailer was first shown at Comic-Con on July 10, 2015.[5]
  • On June 11, 2015, J.G. Quintel announced via Twitter that the film had been completed.
  • Quintel confirmed that the film is canon to the events of the show, and is set between the first two episodes of Season Seven, "Dumptown U.S.A." and "The Parkie Awards". [6]
  • The animation of the movie is the same as the show, although CGI was used for the moving spaceships, the Timenado, the time beams, Father Time, as well as the hallway inside the Timenado.
  • During the scene in which Mordecai and Rigby rush to work through joggers, CJ can be seen running in the crowd.
  • Mordecai and Rigby's designs as teenagers are the same from "A Skips in Time", although Mordecai does not have braces.
  • Originally, the movie was supposed to be a 40-minute special, but J.G. Quintel refused, and requested for Cartoon Network to make it a full movie, and both agreed to it.
  • The movie was on the short-list for becoming nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, although it did not get nominated. This also marks it as the first Cartoon Network Feature to come into the Academy Award.
  • It is revealed that Mordecai and Rigby been best friends since they were toddlers.
  • Fred Tatasciore voices Father Time instead of Alan Sklar in "It's Time".
  • This is the first appearance of Mordecai and Rigby's old High School principal, Principal Dean, who becomes a reoccurring character in Season 7 during the High School arc.
    • This is also the first appearance of Mordecai and Rigby's old High School Bully, Francis Jablonski, who also becomes a reoccurring character in Season 7 during the High School arc.
  • Despite teenage Mordecai and Rigby getting expelled for blowing up the science lab, Mordecai is shown to have still graduated and received a diploma in "More Smarter". It's likely Mordecai's grades were good enough to receive his credits and qualify for graduation, just not attend school or the graduation ceremony. Mordecai also reveals that he went to a junior college instead and later dropped out of it.
  • It is revealed that Benson, Pops, Skips, Muscle Man, and Hi Five Ghost have been working at The Park since at least by the time Mordecai and Rigby were in High School.
  • It is revealed that Margaret had been riding in Chopper 6 since Mordecai and Rigby were in High School, which explains her fascination with the news as she audibly says "woah."
  • It is revealed that Mordecai and Rigby accidently created the Timenado from "A Skips in Time" when they were teenagers in High School.
    • This was foreshadowed when a portal to Mordecai and Rigby's teenage selves appeared when they tried to send teenage Skips back to his time.
  • It is revealed that Rigby is the reason that he and Mordecai work at The Park.
  • This is the 5th and last time Benson's car gets destroyed.
  • Despite the fact that the future timeline in this movie gets erased when Mr. Ross is stopped, it is evident that even in this alternate timeline, Benson and his crew would still end up being sent to the space tree, as it is seen in the background when Benson, Mordecai, Skips, Muscle Man, and Hi Five Ghost join the Galactic Space Rangers. This indicates the Spark initiative would still be in effect even in the future where Mr. Ross seeks to destroy time itself.
    • It is also interesting to note that Benson and his crew in this future all show signs of aging, meaning that in this timeline, they would have stayed on the Space Tree even longer than they do in normal timeline, possibly trying to find ways to stop Mr. Ross.
  • Retroactively, this movie conflicts with Pops’s ultimate fate, which was to fight Anti-Pops, as the future variant of Pops dies in this film.

Episode Connections[]

  • The response Mordecai said to Past Mordecai when he asked him if he gets into College U is a callback to the episode "Mordecai and the Rigbys".
    • In the episode, "Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise," is the same response Future Mordecai (the one that turned into a Rockstar) said when Mordecai asked about future events. If he got together with Margret to be precise.
      • In each scenario, the phrase meant no. 

Pop Culture References[]

  • The movie includes three real-life songs, "March of the Swivel Heads", "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" and "Pale Blue Eyes".
  • The real-life show, Everybody Loves Raymond, is mentioned.
  • West Anderson High School may be a reference to the filmmaker Wes Anderson.
  • When Mordecai and Rigby rush to the park, the situation is a reference to Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In Fact, the music was taken directly from the aforementioned movie.
  • A tune similar to Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels" plays when West Anderson High School first appears, making this sequence a slight reference to the cult movie Donnie Darko.
  • The plot of the movie is almost based on the combination of the Back to the Future and Star Wars plots.

Goofs[]

  • When future Rigby runs to his ship saying Stupid, stupid, the lip syncing is off.
  • Muscle Man wants to go to the restroom when he and Hi Five Ghost are guarding the spaceship. When they enter the restroom, Muscle Man's clothes are sucked by the toilet and he gets naked. After they go out of the spaceship, Muscle Man seems not to be naked. But when Muscle Man and HFG go out of the bush, Muscle Man is naked again.
  • The movie reveals that Mordecai and Rigby both got expelled from High School, but in "More Smarter" and "Rigby in the Sky with Burrito", and in the High school arc that proceeds the movie, Rigby was revealed to have dropped out of High School. Rigby was also going to fail science which would’ve prevented him from graduating, so he also could’ve flunked out, as Mordecai still got his diploma which likely indicates he had good enough grades to pass or he got a GED/equivalent.
  • After Future Rigby dies and is placed on the living room table, there is a jump cut that shows a view out the front window. After the camera pans back toward the table, Future Rigby's corpse is no longer present for the rest of the scene.

Release[]

Theatrical release[]

The movie first screened at the LA Downtown Independent on August 14, 2015, and continued to screen until August 20, 2015. The movie also screened at 6 Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas in the United States as part of a special event, [7] and it had special showtimes at the SVA Theatre of New York and the Cinema Montrereal CANADA during October 2015. The page on the Alamo Drafthouse website for the screening of the film stated that the film would “screen in theaters in the near future”, indicating a wider theatrical release was planned.

Television premiere[]

Regular Show: The Movie premiered on November 25, 2015, in the United States on Cartoon Network and premiered on Cartoon Network in the United Kingdom and New Zealand on November 28, 2015.[8] The film premiered in Asia (including the Philippines) on November 30, 2015. The film premiered in Central and Latin America on December 7, 2015. The movie premiered on Cartoon Network in Canada on November 25, 2015.[9]

Home media release[]

The film was released on digital platforms on September 1, 2015. The movie was later released to DVD by Warner Home Video on October 13, 2015.[10] Both the digital and DVD versions feature bonus features. The movie grossed $85,395 in domestic DVD sales.[11]

Reception[]

Critical response[]

Regular Show: The Movie received positive reviews from both critics and audiences alike. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an average rating of 4.1/5.[12] It also earned a 7.5/10 on IMDb.[13]

Ratings[]

The movie was watched by 2.17 million viewers and received a 0.5 rating in adults 18-49.[14]

International premiere dates[]

Country Airdate Channel
USA November 25, 2015

Cartoon Network USA

Korea December 24, 2015

Cartoon Network Korea

France December 18, 2015 Cartoon Network France
Portugal December 26, 2015 Cartoon Network Portugal
UK November 28, 2015 Cartoon Network UK
Latin America December 7, 2015 Cartoon Network Latin America
Turkey December 25, 2015 Cartoon Network Turkey
Central and Eastern Europe January 16, 2016 Cartoon Network CEE
Germany January 17, 2016 Cartoon Network Germany
Poland January 17, 2016 Cartoon Network Poland
Spain March 20, 2016 Boing Spain
Italy March 14, 2016 Cartoon Network Italy
Japan August 8, 2016 Cartoon Network Japan
Sweden July 15, 2019 Cartoon Newtork Switzerland

References[]

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