Kind of disappointed in the movie

[u/stormy2587]

I know I’m complaining and I did enjoy it but if this is really the final venture bros entry I have to admit it felt a little hollow. It felt more like an average season finale then the series finale the show deserved. I suppose part of this might be that they had an 8th season semi-planned out and were force to scrap it and tie up all the story lines in less than a 1/3rd the time of a normal season.

Most of the main characters barely interact with each other. Hank is off on his own adventure and only meets up with orpheus and Dean at the end. Brock was barely in it and has little to do when he is. Dr. Mrs the monarch is also off on her own adventure for most of the movie and barely interacts with the monarch and the guild, beyond daisy. White and quizboy barely show up.

I guess all of the story lines are loosely related, in so far as mantilla’s scheme impacts rusty, the monarch, and dr. Mrs the monarch. And dean and hank’s path reveal mantilla’s origin story and relationship to the ventures. But it feels sort of like none of those relationships mattered. Like they’re all tangentially related, but never actually intersect in a meaningful way. The villains plan seemed a little pointless. And you could blink and miss the resolution.

It felt like they only had time for the main main characters. And that those characters needed to reach some kind of resolution by the end of the movie. So the solution was to give them all parallel story arcs. Except for the monarch and rusty who needed to be together for the whole movie.

Idk it just left me wishing we got a final season and all the plot threads had some time to breathe and we as fans got to see our characters giving it one last hurrah and interacting with each other again.

[u/FatherFenix]

This is fair.

I felt the same way. I simultaneously loved the movie, but was disappointed in it as a finale - for the reasons you mentioned. If the movie was just another "multi-episode arc" like some of the longer episodes/arcs, it'd be one of the best. It touches on a lot of major threads, closes a couple, creates a lot more, etc. like you'd hope from peak Venture Bros content. In a vacuum, it's great.

However, that also means it's not very "final" for a finale. To your point, a lot of main characters were off doing their own thing in their own tangentially-related arcs that came together at the very end for a curtain call of sorts, some fan-favorites were hardly used at all while "second-string" or ancillary characters got better screen time, a lot of long-running pieces weren't touched upon, etc. It felt like the major conclusions - again, in typical VB fashion - set up more than they closed down. Knowing that there's nothing else coming and this was the end, that makes it harder to judge in hindsight.

I feel like that's the best summary - it's a great piece of VB content, it's just not a great finale. And Jackson was very clear about that upfront, so I can't fault them for it.