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     How Did The City Lose Power? 
  • How did Springfield lose power? It has a nuclear power plant inside of it, which we can clearly see is inside of the dome, so how did Springfield lose power? I can understand the portions of the city that were left outside the dome having their connection cut, but not the parts inside!
    • There was one scene in the movie which that shows Burns plans to (or already) cut the power supply of the city, and Apu, Chief Wiggum, and Dr. Hibbert are in his mansion asking/bugging him to turn on the power.)

     Digging Their Escape 
  • Why, oh WHY didn't they just DIG their way out? Not everyone in Springfield is as stupid as Homer (although many are), so why didn't someone like Lisa or Professor Frink think of it?
    • Who knows, maybe there was something underground that killed the possibility of digging such as garbage being dumped and piled up underground right below Springfield just like in "Trash of the Titans".
    • The Springfielders might have wanted more than just freedom outside of the dome, they likely also wanted the dome torn down so that supply trucks with fresh food, coffee, books, and other goods can come into their town. They're just way too comfortable with their current lifestyle to abandon it. That could also be the reason why none of them bothered joining the Simpsons in the sandbox which they saw for themselves was the only known easy way out.
    • It was heavily guarded by people, who would probably shoot anyone who tried to leave.
      • If they really cared about that, would they have been trying to shatter the dome?
      • By this time they had gone crazy, they probably were willing to just fight their way out if needed. Plus, if the dome shatters, you have the entire population of millions to fight with, rather than the two or three that can come out of a hole at a time.
    • My impression was that the sinkhole was the only feasible way to get under the dome, and the wreckage from the Simpsons' house plugged it up.
    • Addressed in The Fool Monty when Mr. Burns attempts to put another dome over Springfield.
    • I guess that Springfield's store that supplies such effective digging supplies was cut off from the people by the dome. But then again, just because some people in Springfield are (at least slightly) smarter than Homer doesn't mean they had the common sense to dig.
    • All in all, it was just to keep the movie's plot running and make the dome seem even more of a burden and horrifying experience for the people.
      • Russ Cargill said the dome would be patrolled by "roving death squads" and, while we don't see the death squads, the Springfielders probably didn't want to take a chance.

  • Were there no drainage ditches, gullies, or general low zones anywhere under the rim of the dome? Did nobody own a shovel? Why were they trapped? I know Springfield has geography as consistent as water but nowhere is it completely flat.
    • Fridge Brilliance: They once moved the whole town five miles away from where it was, so they probably never put in a whole lot of underground infrastructure because it would impact mobility.

     Russ's Plans 
  • Why would Russ Cargill wanna blow up Springfield anyway? He never showed his true motivation or reason for that. It just came out of nowhere. So why the heck would he want to destroy Springfield?
    • He's gone mad with power, remember? Not to mention that people have escaped once, and may do so again, so he plans to cover up all traces of his mad plan with mass murder. Murder Is the Best Solution.
    • I agree. He likely realized how he would be forced to answer up for himself endangering the citizens of Springfield by using a method that goes beyond the norm to try and contain the pollution if the situation was resolved, which could not only easily put his career on the line, but suffer further consequences. Not to mention blowing up Springfield is a good opportunity to replace it with an attraction for person profit, which makes it clear he values his own agendas and decisions over the lives of others. So it would be killing two birds with one stone: No loose ends and something he can use as an excuse for his own personal gain. That's why he tricks the President into choosing to blow up Springfield. He wants to have the final authority on something if it means he gets something out of it.

  • Why didn't Option #3 call for all of Springfield to be quarantined instead of only the lake?
    • Or I hypothesize that was what either Option #1 or 2 could have been. #3 was just a more extreme measure.
      • Remember, the President said he was only going to lead not read. If he had read it, he might have vetoed it but he didn't so Cargill was able to go with Option 3

  • I know that Cargill said Springfield had been taken off the map but did NO ONE stumble across the domed Springfield? Not even by accident? The town does receive supplies and yeah the government could've canceled all deliveries but SOMEONE would've decided they wanted to pay a visit to one of their relatives or friends in Springfield. How did this not become a huge media event like in Under The Dome with news reports, protesters, and people trying to dig in?
    • As someone answered, Carl did point that out and that Springfield is "kind of out of the way", though, we do have a trope called "Where the Hell Is Springfield?", so, even if people were to hear about Springfield being domed, they wouldn't know if it's the show's specific Springfield or some other "Springfield".

  • So the second time Cargill has the president's vote, he manipulates him into picking #4. Why didn't Cargill put the option he wanted as either #1, which would normally be thought of first, or as #3, which the president already went with by instinct the first time?

     The Lake and the Pollution thereof 
  • How did the Springfieldians not get sick or ill from drinking the water that Homer contaminated with his pig's excrement?
    • The same way/reason they still well and sound after being under the redaction, from the power plant....especially from Sector 7-G, where Homer works as THE safety inspector and is in charge of literally "preventing a meltdown in the reactor core." for so many years. (Short answer: Springfieldians are mutated (by redaction). So they can take more than normal people.)
      • The lake isn't their main water supply.

  • When the Springfielders started to throw things at the Green Day band, why didn't the band members think about jumping and swimming far away as soon as the citizens started to attack them?
    • The lake was so polluted it ate away at their boat.

     The $ 10 
  • Before Homer entered the motorcycle sphere challenge, Marge announced they only have $10 left. Once Homer spent that fee on the challenge, how'd they get money for gas, beef jerky, soda, and hot dogs? This was before they received the $1000 Alaskan stipend.
    • Perhaps $10 was the only amount of money Marge was going to give Homer to try to win the motorcycle sphere challenge. She had more money in her wallet, but she wasn't going to waste it if Homer wasn't able to perform the task well.

     Lisa's Sax 
  • Lisa ran from Springfield empty-handed. Where did her saxophone during her captivity in the EPA van come from?
    • For that matter, how come Marge had her and Homer's wedding video with her? The Simpsons left Springfield in a hurry with none of their possessions, save for the clothes they were wearing. Does Marge always carry the wedding video with her?
      • She explicitly went back for it when they were fleeing the mob, and she shoved it in her hair.
    • As for Lisa's sax, The Simpsons either still had access to their bank accounts and Lisa was able to dip into her savings and buy one used, or the cabin they ended up living at just so happened to have one that the previous tenant left behind. Also, since we're never told just how long the Simpsons were in Alaska, we only know it was long enough for the town of Springfield to go from mostly okay to looking like a warzone, it could have been long enough for at least Homer and Marge to get jobs, maybe Bart and Lisa as well, so maybe she was able to save up money for it. Yes, if they access their bank accounts and applied for jobs Cargill may have busted them, but remember; Cargill isn't the most competent, is also mad with power, and likely didn't bother with the possibility of them getting to Alaska, brushing off that concern with since they're wanted by the government, they would be caught at the Canadian border.

     Homer or the Family? 
  • The angry mob openly stated they only wanted Homer. But why were there five hangman nooses on the tree?!
    • They caught the rest of the family trying to (albeit barely) help him. You do have to kill the witnesses, after all.
    • They also could've been lying. Or that was only a handful who wanted only Homer. Besides that one line, nobody seemed to be selective in which Simpson they killed; Nelson had a red arrow prepared for archery so he knew who he got, and Krusty's first order upon breaking in was for his monkey to kill Maggie.
    • Homer's a fat man. They probably didn't want to take the risk of him actually causing the rope of a single noose to break before he died.
    • Also, only Carl promised that Homer's family be spared if Homer surrenders himself. Jimbo, Kearney, and Dolph (who put up the nooses) did not. Perhaps they just put up five nooses to tease the Simpson children or that mob planned to kill the other members of the family as well in case Homer didn't surrender.
      • If I remember the episodes correctly, there have been times the other Simpsons members did things that the other members of the town didn't like, ie Bart with pranks, Lisa with the whole antipollution campaign in the movie, and Marge for enabling Homer, Bart, Lisa, or all three. I don't remember anything that Maggie did in particular besides possibly shooting Mr. Burns.
    • Could be they simply changed their minds and decided to go after all of them instead.

  • When all of Springfield rallied together to kill the Simpsons family because of Homer's responsibility for provoking the government to trap the city under the dome, why didn't Krusty help the Simpsons family just like Flanders tried to do if Bart was the one who cleared his name in "Krusty Gets Busted". Upon breaking into the house, Krusty's first order is for Mr. Teeny, his monkey, to murder Bart's little sister! What the heck, Krusty?
    • Either the movie has its own continuity, the movie came before that episode, or the townspeople have had it with the Simpsons' antics, and what Homer did was the final straw. Why they went after the rest of the Simpsons family (besides Abe because he was in the mob, too) was probably because they have grievances against the rest of the family for the stuff that they did and figured they'd defend Homer, though, I'm not sure why they'd go after Maggie.

     Final Confrontation 
  • At the climax, when Cargill confronts Homer and Bart at the gorge, his clothes are tattered. How did his suit get tattered and torn?
    • He could've had the crap beaten out of him by the townsfolk or he could've been under the dome when it was destroyed.
    • The shockwave from the bomb's explosion could've done that, as it did to all those trees.

     The Dome's Construction 
  • If the dome was as tightly sealed as everyone treated it, how did no one suffocate?
    • There was that hole at the very top where the bomb was loaded in.
    • Oxygen is provided by trees and other plants. Suffocation is a moot point if there are a sufficient amount of plants in the enclosed space, and the enclosed space isn't that enclosed. So a town-sized dome with a decent supply of plantation would, at worst, take an extremely long time to cause air-related issues.

  • Could a glass dome the size of a city REALLY hold up its own weight without immediately shattering the second it was dropped and could such a massive thing really be transported by any number of cargo helicopters? And wouldn't the weight of the dome cause it to start sinking into the ground? And if Cargil was going to get so concerned over a crack, why not just construct the dome out of plastic? It'd be a HELL of a lot lighter and sure as hell wouldn't be able to be damaged as easily.
    • Since it's bulletproof, it might not really be glass but acrylic or that combined with polycarbonate—either of which is VERY hard to break, taking more than enough to shatter (remember that small but powerful explosive Russ mentioned?). Why not just plastic? Well, plastic is more breakable than glass and even the strongest plastic will yield if enough force is applied and is more vulnerable to the elements in a way that whatever the dome is made of isn't. For ref, there's a brief scene where Stampy manages to crack the dome with his head (it's a very small crack—mostly a scratch), so he probably would have busted a hole in the dome if it was plastic, though, the fact that it was only cracked by an elephant tells you it wasn't just glass either.

  • Furthermore, how could a dome like this be constructed without A), someone noticing it even by accident, B) getting anywhere near completion without breaking because it appears to have been built as one thing, we never see anything to indicate it's multiple sections and C), wouldn't a big hole.
    • And although Russ could claim "The president authorized this, I'm not beholden to anyone except him", the DOJ would definitely open an investigation into a potential conflict of interest fraud, being that Russ's own company was chosen to build the multi-billion dollar dome with flatscreen TV capacity and security cameras placed around town. The records of the dome being built and flown into position would be undeniable, public proof that Cargill had Springfield sealed up.
      • Carl asked this in the movie, to which Russ told him that they'd just expunge it (and they did by taking it off the map), however, Springfield does seem like a city that's more "out of the way", so, unless you live in the surrounding areas or would be going that way, you probably wouldn't know it.
      • Where the Hell Is Springfield? would probably be at play here, as there are a lot of places named "Springfield" besides Arizona and North Dakota, which don't have a "Springfield", so no one would probably find it unless they knew which "Springfield" there is.

  • Did Russ have the dome pre-made and merely waiting on the President's authorization? Because firstly, the EPA became aware of the squirrel (even though Bart and Flanders were the first-ever people to see it and they had no time to notify anybody else), then its mutation had to have been determined to be a result of the pollution, which was deemed a severe enough problem for Russ to meet with the President, who randomly chose one of his proposed courses of action straight away so Russ could not have foreseen his decision, and yet no-one in Springfield has noticed the pollution of their drinking water. How long should it take to build a dome that big?
    • There isn't a real counterpart to the glass Springfield dome, but a good equivalent is the Louvre Pyramid, a structure very similar in size and shape to a pyramid and built almost entirely out of glass. The Louvre Pyramid took roughly 4 years to be constructed. So supposedly Cargill and his men did 4 years' worth of construction in a few days.

     How'd they get back in the dome 
  • How'd the EPA put Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie back in the dome? The whole point of it was that no one could get in or out of the town, so how did they get 4 people not only into the town, but deep into the town?
    • There is that giant hole at the top they could use to get them into the city, with a helicopter or something.

     A few continuity plotholes 
  • This has always bugged me since the film was released, but if Bart came up to the streets on his skateboard naked, why any student from Springfield Elementary hasn't teased or bullied him with that since then? Almost all the students and teachers from the school, to not mention the police and some of the townsfolk, saw him naked and for some reason, nobody remembers this in the episodes that come after the movie. Why does no one recall this?
    • A possibility can be that in regards to the school children and teachers, they didn't tease him because they didn't recognize Bart. Yeah, Bart passed in front of them, but perhaps Bart passed too fast that they didn't have time to identify the naked kid as Bart Simpson. In regards to the townsfolk and the police, it's possible that they don't remind Bart of this as a courtesy.
      • However, this doesn't explain why Nelson doesn't tease Bart with it in the show, as Nelson clearly saw Bart naked and in balls when Lou brought him to "play" with Bart and even laughed at the handcuffed Bart. Given how Nelson loves to be a bully in school, it's kinda strange that he would refuse to recall the instance when Bart went to the streets naked to humiliate him. Unless the other kids didn't believe him...
    • Alternatively, it's possible that the movie takes place in an Alternate Continuity. A friend of mine suggested me this possibility. This may have some sense after all, as while Colin seemed to be the perfect boy for Lisa, he never appeared ever again after the film and Bart's relationship with Homer is still not so good although the film implies that they have a more loving father-son bond now on. On the other hand, the movie may be canon with the show and just all the events of it were reset by the next episode. This is unsurprising of course, as it's normal for many animated shows that whatever happens in an episode doesn't affect the following one, and everything that happened in such episode returns to normal inexplicably.
    • Aside from the whole Negative Continuity thing, it might just not be fodder for making fun of him. It wasn't like he was forcibly stripped or something, he was going streaking. If anything, living up to the dare might be more legendary.
    • They probably did, off-screen. Then they forgot about it after the dome arrived.

     Church's carpet 
  • Homer puts Grandpa on the church's carpet and takes it away, Father Lovejoy doesn't complain about this. But why he doesn't complain when Homer opts to keep it? The carpet is still the church's property.
    • I think they gave it back offscreen.

     Flanders saving the family 
  • Speaking about Flanders' attempt to save Bart and his family from the Springfielders, what was Flanders planning to do if the Simpsons had successfully made it to his house? Did Flanders just expect people to say "Oh, they got into Ned's house, so let's forget it" and go?
    • Beware the Nice Ones. They would go after him, too, however, Ned could make them back off, at least, temporarily.

    Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie 
  • During the Itchy and Scratchy short at the beginning, Itchy decides to blow up Scratchy with missiles because he was going to expose the fact that he had left him for dead on the moon, but if Itchy was able to hear Scratchy while he was on Earth and Scratchy was on the moon, and Scratchy knew that Itchy, and by extension, the people on Earth, could hear him, why didn’t he just yell about Itchy's treason? It's not like Scratchy could leave the moon as Itchy had taken the rocket, so I don't know how he was planning to tell the truth if Itchy hadn't sent any missiles...

     Why Blow Up Springfield? 
  • Aside from becoming the most polluted city in the history of the planet, why exactly else did Springfield deserve to be blown up?
    • I thought it was because Cargill got scared some more citizens would escape, or someone would spot this doomed city and wonder what was going on, and since he was insane by this point, decided the best solution was just to destroy the place altogether.

     Non-American President 
  • How can Arnold Schwarzenegger be president? You have to be a natural-born U.S. citizen to be president and Schwarzenegger wasn't.
    • Simpsons universe had a constitutional amendment that eliminated that requirement? That's how they got him to be president in Demolition Man.
    • For that matter, why not make Rainer Wolfcastle president? It's essentially the same character. And I think there are very few people who wouldn't get the joke (the same goes for the EPA guy sounding exactly like, but not being, Hank Scorpio).
      • Scorpio was going to be the villain but was dropped for some reason. Must have been pretty far in if they brought Al Brooks back in to do the voice. Also, Schwarzenegger was actually going to be modeled after the Real Life version, but, again it was cut. Seizing control of the East Coast is probably a better ending for Scorpio than becoming head of the EPA, anyway.
      • Hank Scorpio is one of the most fan-beloved characters of all in The Simpsons (Despite being in only a single episode), mostly due to his combination of ruthless supervillain and Benevolent Boss. To make him the straight-up villain, actively working against the Simpsons and the rest of Springfield, would have been a massive kick in the teeth to all the long-time fans.
      • This would make sense. In the episode he was in, Scorpio and Homer got along extremely well, and he was sorry to see Homer leave (and it seemed out of genuine affection). So it would be very off-putting to have him act so antagonistic toward the Simpsons. Plus, why would a guy determined for global conquest settle on being the head of the EPA?
      • In the case of Schwarzenegger probably fear of Small Reference Pools meet Viewers Are Morons: they expected the movie to be watched by a broader audience including non-fans or casual viewers who may not know who Wolfcastle was and would get confused. Whether this worry was justified or stupid, is up to you.

     Life inside the dome? 
  • Even before Cargill got desperate and decided to blow up Springfield, what exactly was his plan for keeping the town alive? Oxygen could probably get through the hole at the top, but there are no other entrances or exits to the dome, so no way to bring in food or drink. Was Cargill just planning to let them starve to death? If so, why bother blowing up the town to get rid of them?
    • Springfield was erased from the map, so it looks like the original plan was for them to slowly starve to death. Once he realized that people getting out was an option, he switched to the plan of blowing up the evidence.

     Fast Growing Facial Hair 
  • At one point, Kent Brockman delivers the news of the day about life under the dome. His hair is poorly combed and his beard has grown a lot, yet his day count says it's only been a few weeks under the dome. Even if they're poorly kept, razors and combs should last longer than that. Did Springfield really run entirely out of razors and combs in less than a month? If so, then facial care companies that ship to Springfield must be loaded with cash.

     Cargill Inside the Dome? 
  • Why was Russ Cargill at Springfield Gorge, inside the dome, as the bomb went off? Were it not for Homer and Bart, he would've been killed.
    • He only appears at the gorge after the bomb goes off and destroys the dome, so he must have come in afterward.

     Family crimes 
  • What exactly is the family wanted for at all? Sure they got the town doomed, but "getting your town domed in" is not an actual crime. At worst, Homer is guilty of littering and the rest of the family is guilty of harboring a fugitive. That's it. Neither of those crimes would warrant wanted posters across the country. In fact, if the townsfolk did lynch the family, that lynching would be more of a crime than anything the family did.
    • The townsfolk are a frenzied angry mob, so they probably aren’t thinking about legalities.
    • Cargill is hunting them because they could reveal the truth about Springfield's predicament to the world.

     The Sinkhole 
  • What kind of sinkhole appears in the film? Its behavior, especially during the Mob Scene when it expands and destroys the Simpsons' possessions, is not something I have seen in any other real-life sinkhole.
    • I guess that it's one of those sinkholes caused by a lack of groundwater. However, sinkholes IRL can do that but not to the extent in the movie,

     What the hell, Marge? 

     Easily-forgiven Simpsons 
  • When the Simpsons escaped from the dome, they barely got out with their lives since literally, EVERYONE in town was out to lynch the entire family, minus Grandpa, for Homer getting the town stuck, but when Marge, Lisa, Bart, and Maggie are put back inside the dome, they first encounter Moe who is pretty much like "Oh hi, welcome back." and even gives them a quick rundown of what happened... and everyone else doesn't pay them any mind even after it's revealed that the entire city is going to get blown up. The entire city was literally ready to kill them but once they're back in the dome, all is forgiven? Even when Homer screws up everybody's last chance of escape and causes the bomb to reduce the time left until detonation by half, he just gets yelled at and things thrown at him until he runs away. Considering they were ready to hang him just for getting the town stuck under a dome, I'm surprised he wasn't torn to shreds the second he hit the ground.
    • Maybe they thought it wasn’t worth it, since they were all likely about to die anyway.
  • Same could be said for the Simpsons themselves; aside from Homer, the others seemed to forget that their so-called friends and loved ones tried to kill every single member of the family, including the children. Even Abe shot at them with a shotgun. Yet, once they were placed back in the dome, they bared no ill will towards the townspeople and never even called them out for it. Even Homer, despite the reception he was given mentioned above also forgave them for it.

     Citizen Out of Town 
  • Was there no citizen of Springfield out of town on vacation or anything else while the dome sealed the city? Because if a citizen was out of town at that time and returned home to find their home sealed by the dome, they could've reported it to the press.
    • Maybe Cargill managed to catch them and put them in the dome like he later did with Marge and the kids.

     Hammerspace 
  • This movie employs the use of Hammerspace so much. Marge was the only family member to go back for something, which was her wedding video. Everyone else fled with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. Yet somehow, they apparently had snow clothes, Bart's slingshot, and Lisa's saxophone with them, and that's just the start of it!
    • They end up getting a large amount of cash upon entering Alaska, so they could have bought the items after moving in and settling down. It's also not explicitly stated they went to the carnival,where Marge reveals they're poor, immediately after leaving the dome, so they could have bought those items offscreen and were poor as a result.

     Removing Silo Under Dome 
  • How did the crane fish out the silo from the dome if it was on the edge outside the dome?
    • It was Frink's drill that was outside, not a crane.
      • But how did Kent and the cops get to Lake Springfield?
      • The lake was inside the dome.
      • Couldn't they have at least covered the lake and use the sandbox portal or what Homer made in the movie.

     Flanders Joining Mob 
  • How come the Flanders didn’t join the mob? Did they even watch the news?
    • Flanders is a Nice Guy, as shown when he tries to help them escape.

     So Do They Just Want Homer or Not? 
  • In the Movie, when Homer worries that the angry mob will kill Marge too, Carl responds, "No we won't, we just want Homer!" But then, a few minutes later, the mob is preparing five nooses for the entire family anyway?
    • The other four are "helping" Homer by way of not joining the mob at that point.

     What Happened to the Pig? 
  • In the movie, whatever became of the pig?
    • Presumably it was killed and eaten by the mob.
    • In a deleted scene, it shows the pig, Santa's Little Helper, and the mutated chipmunk helping rebuild the Simpsons' home, and the pig shows up in one of the couch gags at the beginning of the next TV season. So it's probably still alive.
      • It does appear in the next Halloween episode, so it's probably alive somehow. Not that it counts as solid evidence, but still...
      • In one of the comics, Krusty tries to find the pig as his commercials were popular. He gets disguised as Ploptimus Prime and escapes with the family. I forget where he ended up. Probably Cletus' farm?
    • It still makes cameo appearances every now and then, usually for a quick visual gag.

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