Atlantis SquarePantis (SpongeBob SquarePants)

'"Atlantis SquarePantis" is a SpongeBob SquarePants episode from season five. In this episode, SpongeBob and his friends journey to Atlantis. It is the first SpongeBob made-for-TV film.

The film received mixed reception from fans and critics alike.

Bad Qualities
Note: Don't say anything about David Bowie not singing in this episode because apparently, he suffered a heart attack and retired from singing before this episode aired.
 * 1) The main problem is how lazy the writing is, as the film is padded just about throughout. Not much else is happening besides the characters moving from one place to another while the writers concurrently come up with music to place in favor.
 * 2) It feels like a big rating trap due to the false advertisements and trailers, as they make it seem like this was going to be a SpongeBob TV movie by only showing the climax of the movie and didn't show any of the songs that were used in the actual release. The plot makes it feel more like a musical than an actual TV movie.
 * 3) One of the episode's main arcs, that being the oldest living bubble residing in Atlantis, is perhaps the most laziest and nonsensical part of the whole episode. Can't you be more creative than this?
 * 4) *Plot hole: Why didn't the big bubble pop until it was touched by something sharp?
 * 5) Speaking of arcs, the main characters themselves feel very generic and one-dimensional. We know that SpongeBob & Patrick love bubbles, Squidward loves art, Mr. Krabs loves money, Sandy loves science, and Plankton loves weapons, but this episode and their respective songs seem to act like these are the only defining traits to their personas.
 * 6) *What's not helping is that this TV movie started Sandy's flanderization as she started to become more interested in science rather than the other stuff she also likes like karate, making her bland and one-dimensional.
 * 7) Whenever any of the characters are singing, there are many different art styles and animation movements that are only here to make up for the lack of creativity put into the writing.
 * 8) The Lord Royal Highness (or LRH for short) himself is also a bland and generic character, and his design feels VERY cartoonish and out-of-place, looking more like a rejected Blue Meanie from Yellow Submarine than a character for SpongeBob SquarePants.
 * 9) *LRH is also unlikeable at the climax of the episode because he summons his guards to attack the gang just because Patrick pops the oldest bubble, which is nothing to get so upset about to begin with, although as part of the plot the bubble was treated as an important treasure to all of Atlantis.
 * 10) *His name sounds so cheesy, obvious to the audience, lazy, and unoriginal because you can tell he is a royal highness to the civilians at Atlantis. They couldn't have named him as Royal Bowie as an in-joke/reference to the legendary singer himself, but because of the lacking in originality on what to name that character, this was the best the team could come up with.
 * 11) An overabundance of musical numbers. Case in point, there are a total of seven (eight if counting Patchy's song) musical numbers, making this TV movie more like a musical.
 * 12) *There can also be times when there can be a musical number after that musical number, such example is Plankton's song, which happens five seconds after Sandy's song.
 * 13) *The songs themselves aren't even good songs, seeing as they've all got forgettable melodies with horrendous lyrics and mostly terrible singing.
 * 14) The fact that some of the machinery in Atlantis, most notably the tanks that Plankton was trying to use, can shoot out ice cream is also pretty nonsensical and unintelligent.
 * 15) The plot feels like it is trying to recycle that of the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (even though the aforementioned film came out 37 years prior) due to its many similarities, except that film was executed way better than this one.
 * 16) The Patchy the Pirate segments, while not terrible, just serve as filler.
 * 17) *The Patchy the Pirate segments can also come with VERY bad timing; one very impotent example is before the climax of Plankton with a tank. We get commercials, which seems fine at first, but instead of going to the SpongeBob segment, we get a Patchy segment where he also gets his musical number. Because The Patchy the Pirate segments are just filler, combined with the fact that the commercials are over 11 minutes long, that means it's literally 22 minutes of filler before the climax.
 * 18) The final battle is EXTREMELY anticlimactic, Plankton comes in with a giant monstrous tank, and... it shoots ice cream.
 * 19) *Adding into that, while it would seem very anticlimactic, that wouldn't matter much since many of the fans would have already seen it, because one of the very first commercials of this film shows the final battle.
 * 20) *What's even weirder is that the film spoiled the final battle in the commercials, and never do they say anything that it's a musical.
 * 21) *Question: Who the hell spoils the climax of a damn movie and yet never says anything about it being a musical?

Good Qualities

 * 1) While the aforementioned many different art styles and animation movements were pointless and only there to make up for the laziness put into the writing, they nevertheless look cool and offer a wide amount of variety.
 * 2) *Speaking of which, the animation is still pretty good and very smooth.
 * 3) The background design of Atlantis does look pretty cool.
 * 4) The voice acting is still on point when the characters are not singing.
 * 5) *David Bowie's performance as LRH is also pretty good.
 * 6) While the first musical number was overall bad like the rest of the musical numbers, the last line of it where SpongeBob says “...that will last all day” is heartwarming and decently sung.
 * 7) A few occasional funny moments, such as the intro where Patchy yells at a guy behind him saying "Do you mind?! I'm trying to talk to my parrot!", with the guy making a very disturbed look on his face.
 * 8) It had an interesting premise that was unfortunately wasted.
 * 9) The climax would have been better if most of the special were not padded with songs, character arcs, and the Patchy the Pirate segments.
 * 10) The songs, while annoying (except for Back in Encino), are admittedly catchy.
 * 11) *Patchy's song "You Gotta Believe (Back in Encino)", even though it is a very big filler before the climax, was the only good song in this episode.
 * 12) *Depending on your view, "Goodbye, Atlantis" and "The Bubble Song" can be very heartwarming songs.
 * 13) Depending on your view, the line "I'm Patrick! Patrick, Patrick, Patrick! And I like... um... uh, I don't know what I like." is funny.

Videos
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Trivia

 * According to Dani Michaeli's Twitter, this episode was originally going to be an 11-minute long SpongeBob and Patrick episode, but Nickelodeon requested turning it into a TV movie.
 * Casey Alexander, one of the show's writers, stated this was his least favorite SpongeBob episode to work on, implying that even he hated this episode.