For YMMV tropes from the main series, go here.
- Awesome Music: Thomas Chase and Steve Rucker's already filmic score for the show getting played by a live orchestra is what really pushes the special from just being a long episode into a full-blown Big Damn Movie.
- Catharsis Factor: The fight between all the Dexters and Mandarks is pretty awesome, though seeing Twelve finally snap against all the crushing abuse he suffered from his Mandark and brutally kick the shit out of him is especially gratifying.
- Critical Dissonance: The movie wasn't all that well-received by TV critics. Now, go ask some of the fans what they thought of it. The answer you'll get will likely be pretty different.
- Crosses the Line Twice: Number 12 having a PTSD attack at the sound of Executive Mandark's voice? Not funny. Him screaming like a girl when that happens? Hilarious. Oh, and Executive Mandark is still voiced the same way by Eddie Deezen.
- He Really Can Act: Jeff Bennett's performance as Action Dexter is an incredibly impressive one, as he not only manages to perfectly sound like what an adult Dexter would sound like down to the accent, but he also replicates the intonation and cadence of the younger Dexter flawlessly.
- Heartwarming Moments:
- Dexter's motivational speech to his young adult self, a poor, timid young man who desperately needed to regain his confidence.
- In a way, the fact that Mandark has still loved Dee Dee after all that time.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Dexter is egotistical enough to believe that he saved the future, and willingly travels there to watch himself do it. Genndy Tartakovsky's next, more famous show is about a humble man who actually saves the future after being sent there against his will.
- Moral Event Horizon: Mandark of series prior was a callous rival of Dexter, but rarely escalated past being a egotistical Jerkass and even had odd sympathetic moments. The time span shown throughout this movie shows how Mandark's obsessive hatred of Dexter will embitter him so deeply that he’ll steal Dexter’s ideas to rise up the corporate ladder, outright murder his boss, and use his newfound power to torture and break Dexter on the flimsiest of pretexts.
- Squick: The scene in which Dee Dee distracts the four Mandarks and presses the button that saves the world is meant to be funny, given how Dee Dee ends up being the one who saves the future and how the Mandarks never stopped loving her. However, while this is okay for young Mandark, the other Mandarks are older men and Dee Dee is a young girl...
- Tear Jerker: Mandark whipping Number 12. Unlike the show proper, this is the first time he actually hurts anyone. 12 shouts in pain, flinches easily, and in general is just such a broken, pathetic man compared to the boy genius he used to be.
- The Woobie: 12. He has been under Mandark’s control for who knows how long and had lost a good portion of his confidence due to Mandark publicly torturing him and stealing his ideas. The poor guy is such a coward that the mere sound of Mandark's voice sends him into a Troubled Fetal Position.
