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YMMV / Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe

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  • Alternate Character Interpretation:
    • Just what kind of person was Shirley Beavis? According to the realtor, she claims to have been devastated by the loss of her son. However, the duo's assorted comments about her throughout the series imply she was negligent of Beavis at best and abusive at worst. It's likely she never gave a damn about him and only sued NASA for money, fabricating her grief to make her case look all the more convincing. On the other hand, maybe she didn't realize how much she cared about Beavis until he supposedly died. Being as she never even appears on screen, it remains a mystery.
    • Considering the daydream Beavis had where Serena decapitated Todd, his feelings towards Todd before the duo's time travel adventures began is up in the air. Was Beavis finally growing sick of Todd and truly growing out of his hero worship of the thug, hence why he fantasized about Serena killing him? Other than the daydream, we don't otherwise get to see Todd physically appear and the duo never really mention him so it's not too clear how Beavis really perceives him at this point in time.
  • Catharsis Factor: In Beavis' daydream, Serena decapitates Todd with a broad sword. Todd always got off scot-free after beating the two up in the original series, and this is the only time other than Virtual Stupidity he's seen getting any comeuppance.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Beavis and Butt-Head causing their usual brand of mayhem at a college campus? Funny. Them doing it while declaring, unselfconsciously, that nobody can stop them because they have white privilege? Hilarious.
  • Fridge Brilliance:
    • In the end of the movie, it revealed that while Smart Beavis and Smart Butt-Head are the smartest versions of the duo, they still aren't that bright and tend to make mistakes. But there's a clever indication of this earlier in the movie. When the smart duo met regular Beavis and Butt-Head, they tried to help them understand about alternate dimensions. They ask if Beavis and Butt-Head have seen "the cartoon Spider-Man movie" (referring to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), using that as an example, to which Butt-Head answers "no". The smart duo forgot to take into account that regular duo came from 1998, a good 20 years before Spider-Verse came out, and they only just arrived in 2022 a few minutes ago.
    • On a larger scale, the multiverse is the ultimate handwave for continuity problems, so all those inconsistencies between Beavis and Butt-Head, its revival series and Daria are officially non-issues. This is even utilized in the Old Beavis and Butt-Head episodes in the 2022 revival, where Smart Beavis and Butt-Head open the segments up by describing a universe where the duo were teenagers in the 90s who grew up naturally from there.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Smart Beavis and Butt-head made the one crucial mistake of telling their counterparts about Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse which completely flies over the duo's heads because the movie came out 20 years after 1998 and there was no real chance for the duo to have seen it, having just arrived in 2022. In retrospect, they might have had a slightly better chance of getting B&B to grasp the concept of the multiverse and maybe listen to their instructions if they had referenced the final two episodes of Spider-Man: The Animated Series which premiered at the beginning of 1998 and actually did deal with a multiversal Crisis Crossover between Spider-Men before Into The Spiderverse came about. Of course, there was no guarantee it would have worked either (and no guarantee the two even watched the show) but Smart Beavis and Smart Butt-head might have had a better chance of reaching the duo because S:TAS was a thing of the 90s and well within the living memory of Prime Beavis and Butt-head.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The whole scene where Beavis and Butt-Head destroy the satellite. Everyone is shown terrified as the shuttle spirals, and the on-board crewmember is last seen floating through space looking quite dead. The duo, as usual, are unaware of this.
  • Signature Scene: The scene where Beavis and Butt-Head abuse their "white privilege" is considered the funniest scene in the whole movie, and is often brought up in reviews and social media.
  • Tear Jerker:
    • The Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure. Beavis feels like he's genuinely in love and Butt-Head does nothing but mock him for it. When they go their separate ways, they are lonely without each other, and clearly miss laughing at dirty jokes together.
    • There's also the scene where Beavis is talking in the hotel room with (who he thinks is) Serena on the phone.
      Siri: How can I help you?
      Beavis: Oh, just, you know, like, listening, you know, helps a lot. Heh heh. I guess I never really had anybody that, like, actually listens when I'm talking and stuff, you know... like nobody hears the real Beavis.
      Siri: I don't understand Beavis.
      Beavis: You know, neither do I sometimes! Heh heh. Neither do I.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Most of the show's supporting cast (surprisingly, even Daria) only has a cameo in the courtroom scene of the movie, and Todd only appears in a dream sequence. While Tom Anderson and possibly Principal McVicker would very likely be dead due to their ages in the '90s, it would have been interesting to see the others and what they've been up to over the years. Unfortunately, their present day counterparts don't even so much as make a cameo.
    • The following revival shows Van Driessen and, surprisingly enough, Anderson's lives in the present day, with the former still working as a teacher at Highland High, and the latter still alive and well, suggesting he is healthy in spite of everything. Yet, we don't get to see how they react to Beavis and Butt-Head being back in their lives and the fact that the duo are the same age as they were 24 years ago.
  • Unexpected Character: Daria makes a cameo in the courtroom scene, despite initially being Exiled from Continuity in the 2011 revival due to her spin-off (the scene she was is in is implied to take place before she moved to Lawndale).

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