The Community Movie’s Missing Show Elements Are Actually A Good Thing

Dan Harmon just revealed that The Community Movie would be missing several key elements from the original show — and that’s a good thing.

The Community movie is currently in the works, and it’s been revealed that it will be missing several elements from the show — and that’s a good thing. Community was known for its zany plots and wacky characters, meaning it will be tough to turn the massive series into a crowd-pleasing standalone movie all these years later. However, showrunner Dan Harmon actually ruled out several stories from Community that won’t be continued in the movie, meaning that the film is already taking steps to make the project something wholly original.

Community follows seven quirky members of a study group at Greendale Community College, with the characters having to navigate the wild world of Greendale in each episode. Throughout Community’s six seasons, many of the show’s stories were far more outlandish than its sitcom contemporaries, with the series being packed to the brim with genre homages, paintball wars, claymation, and other mediums and stories that can’t be found anywhere else. Now the show is finally completing its “six seasons and a movie” slogan, as the Community movie is finally coming to Peacock all these years after the show’s 2015 cancelation.

Related: Why The Community Movie Could Be More Important Than We Thought

Some of Community’s most memorable episodes revolve around Greendale’s paintball wars or dramatized games of Dungeons & Dragons, causing many fans to worry that the film would just be a rehash of these old storylines. Luckily, Community creator Dan Harmon has revealed that paintball and other classic Community tropes have already been ruled out when writing the movie’s story, saying “would anything ever capture the joy of the original paintball episode?” It seems like the Community movie will tell an entirely original story, not relying on popular stories from the past.

The Community movie not centering around paintball or D&D is a good thing, as they have already been done several times before. It wouldn’t feel right to have the entire cast come back just to rehash an old story that isn’t even original. On top of that, these classic stories only had to fill half-hour episodes, causing many to worry that the Community movie would try to stretch out these fairly shallow stories into feature length. Luckily, the Community movie is set to depart from these old tropes — but it still isn’t known what it will be about.

The story of the Community movie is still up in the air, with the cast giving no hints as to what it will be about. The movie could simply be about Jeff Winger reuniting everyone, as nearly every character departed from Greendale in the Community finale. A more popular theory is that it will follow the study group saving Troy from a band of pirates, with the series teasing that his ship was kidnapped after his series departure. There are lots of options for what the movie will be about, and with a show as zany as Community, it’s almost impossible to predict.

More: Community: How Troy’s Fate Was Teased In Season 5