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“Six seasons and a movie!” has long been the rallying cry of Community fans who hope to keep their beloved show from getting canceled, but it might soon become a reality. Not long after creator Dan Harmon promised in an interview with HitFix that even “if the movie has to be made out of clay and duct tape in my basement, then that’s how the movie will be made,” TVGuide reports that talks have begun about transferring the study group to the big screen. Although the project is still in its beginning stages, Justin Lin has been mentioned as a possible director. Having directed several episodes of Community in the past, including the first paintball epic, “Modern Warfare,” he would be a good fit to helm the project.
Of course, news about a Community movie wouldn’t be possible without that much anticipated sixth season. Fortunately for fans, though, a renewal seems to be highly likely, especially since NBC has struggled to find a new hit comedy for their Thursday Night lineup this year. Harmon also seems to feel confident in a sixth season, as it was recently revealed that the April 17 season finale will end on a cliff-hanger, which should made it easy for the show to segue into its final 13 episodes.
However, as exciting as the possibility of six seasons and a movie is, it’s hard to imagine what a Community movie could possibly entail. Because the show prides itself on the ability to jump from genre to genre and construct elaborate, detailed homages to every pop culture phenomenon on the planet, it’s hard to predict what path the writers would choose for a film. Do they shoot for a realistic comedy, or go for broke with an over-the-top action thriller? An introspective character study or a stylized film noir? The possibilities are practically endless, so we’ve come up with five potential plots of our own, based on what we, as fans, want to see on the big screen. Spoiler: the answer is Garrett. We always need more Garrett.
Advanced Explorations in Astronomy
The writers of Community have dipped their toes into science fiction before, but we’d like to see them commit fully to going boldly where no study group has gone before. The film kicks off with Inspector Spacetime arriving at Abed and Annie’s apartment in his flying police box to ask them to accompany him on an intergalactic mission to fight the Blorgons, who have somehow captured Troy. Desperate to save their friend, they agree, and convince Jeff, Britta, Shirley, and Dean Pelton to come with them as backup. Well, the Dean didn’t really need to be convinced; he was just following Jeff. Their journey through the deepest reaches of space and time forces them to confront aliens, roguishly handsome bounty hunters, and Britta’s determination to prove that the whole adventure is Abed having a psychotic breakdown. Halfway through the film, they will discover that Chang has somehow stowed away on their ship, which immediately puts their lies in danger. Pierce’s hologram will also make a cameo appearance, although he won’t actually help much, and the Dean will discover that his hoodie is actually a time-hoodie.
Financial Management and Marine Biology
On his travels around the world, Troy accidentally stumbles across an old map that promises to reveal the location of buried pirate treasure. With LeVar Burton as his trusty first mate and more rum than all three Pirates of the Carribbean films put together, he sails back to Colorado in order to recruit his study group to join him on his quest for a cut of the treasure. Of course, on their way to the remote island where the caverns containing the treasure are located, they encounter all kinds of difficulties: Shirley and Britta manage to offend native colonies and get kidnapped, forcing them to work together to be freed, Troy and Abed’s friendship is tested when Troy refuses to let Abed take control of the quest, Annie accidentally becomes the captain of a rival pirate ship, LeVar might be plotting a mutiny, and Jeff finds himself at odds with the rest of the crew when they discover he’s not doing his share of the work. Somehow, they make it to the caverns, where they discover that Chang has followed them with a crew of his own (one that includes Duncan, Vicki, Garrett, and Todd) and he’s determined to get to the treasure before the study group.
Advanced Sociological Education
In her post-Greendale life, Annie has made a new group of friends, but she finds herself unable to connect with their stories about college adventures. Deciding that she never had a real “college experience,” she decides that the third time’s the charm, and enrolls at a major state school. Troy and Abed decide to tag along with her, and are recruited by a fraternity full of nerds to use their immense movie knowledge in order to transform them into the coolest house of Greek Row. However, their new home is thrown into tension when one of Troy’s old football buddies, still undergrads all these years later, pressure him into rushing the athletic frat. Meanwhile, Britta comes to visit Annie and becomes the leader of a young anarchist collective, who want to hear her stories about New York and help her rage against the man. Shirley finds a group of her own with a group of mothers who went back to school, only to find that she misses the weirdness and freedom that the study group gave her, and Annie’s having a hard time finding anyone at all to hang out with. Back at Greendale, the Dean has become so despondent at the loss of his favorite students that Jeff gives in and decides to help him take down the university’s obnoxious dean. There will be guitar smashing, toga parties, wild pigs on the lawn, evil professors, and that one really annoying a capella group that won’t stop forcing people to listen to them sing.
Custody Law in the Tech Marketplace
The study group spoofed David Fincher in Season 5, but this time around, they’re going to channel his most mainstream film: The Social Network. Abed comes up with an idea for a new social media app and Troy uses some of his new millions to invest in it. All seems to be going well until, under Jeff’s council, Abed starts cutting Troy’s shares, as he’s too busy running Hawthorne Wipes to keep up with the app’s progress. He decides to sue Abed, and calls Jeff’s former colleague Alan (Rob Corddry) in as council, setting up a double legal showdown. Meanwhile, Britta and Shirley realize that Abed’s app was inspired by a conversation they had with him in the study room, and decide to sue him for stealing their ideas. Dean Pelton is pressured by the superintendent to sue Abed as well, since he developed the app of Greendale’s property. Annie will be Jeff’s assistant, who convinces Troy and Abed to drop the lawsuit and repair their friendship, and there will be cameos by Garrett, Neil, and Magnitude, all of whom have been brought in as character witnesses. Abed will also recite, word for word, part of Jesse Eisenberg’s deposition-room monologue, until Jeff points out that not only is it a reference, it’s completely irrelevant to the matter at hand.
Advanced Military History
In a third alternate timeline, Chang’s plan to take over Greendale succeeded, and over time he expanded his dictatorial rule until he managed to take over the whole country. Civilization has been divide up into groups, and forbidden from interacting with one another in order to prevent them from rising up and taking down the Chang Dynasty, as he’s come to call it. When he discovers that the study group is organizing an underground resistance, he forces them to compete against each other in a televised battle to the death. Although there were some early casualties (Leonard, we hardly knew ye), Jeff eventually realizes that they only way out of this situation is for everyone to band together. They come up with a plan to pretend to keep attacking each other, while really working together to take Change’s arena down from the inside. Once Troy stops crying and Shirley comes down from her jungle-induced power trip, the rebellion is under way. Dean Pelton, meanwhile, is creating more and more elaborate outfits to express how worried he is about Jeff, and Professor Hickey infiltrates Chang’s government as a mole.
