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Seltzer and Friedberg: Difference between revisions
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Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg are a pair of writer/directors that collaborate with each other on all of their projects. They create comedic movies that parody and reference pop culture in the [[Airplane!|Zucker, Abrams and Zucker]] style of [[Rapid-Fire Comedy|rapid-fire gags]] [[Negative Continuity|without concern for the overarching plot or characterization]].
Their first official project was the 1996 film ''[[Spy Hard]]'' and they contributed one of the many scripts that was folded into the first ''[[Scary Movie]]'', but they did not gain notoriety until 2006 with ''Date Movie''. While panned by critics, the film made back triple its meager budget and secured them a contract to do a couple more films. While 2007's ''Epic Movie'', January 2008's ''Meet the Spartans'', and August 2008's ''Disaster Movie'' received worse critical reception and inspired a vocal [[Hatedom]], it wasn't until the last that the public rejected them (although it's unknown whether or not the film's failure was simply due to the different audience provided by its August release). In 2010, the duo released ''[[
Their next movie, [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1929394/ The Biggest Movie Of All Time 3D], is currently slated for release in 2012.
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* [[Drop the Cow]]: Literally in ''Disaster Movie'' -- [[Rule of Three|three cows]] fall on different superheroes during the tornado scene, and another falling cow caps off the [[Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number]].
* [[DVD Commentary]]: Two film critics who did not like the movie were hired to commentary ''Date Movie''. Highlights include pin-pointing exactly where movies like ''[[Airplane!]]'' succeeded while ''Date Movie'' failed. The directors themselves did a commentary for one of their films that started out informative, but quickly turned into a tongue-in-cheek bullshitting contest.
* [[Exactly What It Says
* [[Fan Disservice]]:
** The amount of times they show a woman with extreme cellulite is [[Sick and Wrong|just downright disturbing]].
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* [[Inherently Funny Words]]: ''Meet The Spartans'' was called ''[[Ratatouille|Spartatouille]]'' (pronounced "Sparta-too-eee") in France.
* [[Magic Pants]]: Parodied, of course, with [[The Incredible Hulk]]. [[Drop the Cow|Then a cow falls on him.]]
* [[Narrow Parody]]: The movies "parodied" are often only one or two years old. For example, ''[[Disaster Movie]]'' had parodies of ''[[Juno]]'', ''[[Hannah Montana]]'', ''[[Iron Man]]'', ''[[Sex and
* [[Negative Continuity]]:
** Main characters in ''Epic Movie'' suffer numerous life-threatening and traumatic injuries and are just fine in the next scene.
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** Amy Winehouse's belch in ''Disaster Movie''.
** Silas shooting Mr. Tumnus to death.
** In ''Meet the Spartans'', they parody the famous "[[This Is Sparta]]" scene from ''[[
* [[Padding]]: ''Meet the Spartans''' total runtime is 86 minutes, but the actual movie (before the end credits) is between ''69-70 minutes''.
* [[Parody Failure]]: Sometimes, they make jokes that were present in the original source material. For example, the Wolverine parody in ''Epic Movie'' uses his middle claw to flip Edward the finger. This would be a valid parody of the character... if the real Wolverine didn't do the ''exact same thing'' in the first ''[[X-Men (
* [[Parody Names]]: Not often, but they're there. <s>[[Juno]]</s> Juney, the [[The Chronicles of Narnia|White]] <s>[[The Chronicles of Narnia|Witch]]</s> Bitch, [[Pirates of the Caribbean|Captain Jack]] <s>[[Pirates of the Caribbean|Sparrow]]</s> Swallows, etc.
* [[Rapid-Fire Comedy]]: In the [[Airplane!|Abrams, Zucker and Abrams]] style, but most of the time, they throw in near-exact replicas of scenes from other movies instead of jokes.
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"I AM ''[[Kung Fu Panda|KUNG FU PANDA!]]''" (See [[I Am Not Shazam]]) }}
* [[Shallow Parody]]: Not surprising, since the producers have admitted they generally just watch the trailers and go from there.
* [[Tongue
* [[Unintentional Period Piece]]: One of the main criticisms of their work is that the pop culture jokes that they rely on become outdated within just a few years, with the things that they're parodying having fallen out of the collective consciousness. A few of their gags had fallen out of memory before the respective movie came out. Their tendency to base brief parodies on the trailers to movies that wouldn't be released until well into their own production probably has something to do with it.
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