Garfield Goes Home

Garfield's Judgement Day is a 2023 American 2D/3D animated comedy-drama film produced and animated by Blue Sky Stuidos and Paws Inc. and based on Jim Davis' famous comic strip character Garfield. The film's story is heavily based on a scrapped Garfield project pitched by Jim Davis himself.

Summary
Garfield is a lazy tabby cat who has an obsession for lasagna and a strong dislike of Mondays. He spends his time booting his canine roommate Odie off the table, showing very little sympathy over his nerdy owner Jon's failures, hanging around with his mouse friend Squeak, abusing the cute kitten Nermal, and trying to impress his pink-furred girlfriend Arlene, whilst keeping a far distance away from his stalking but lovable Penelope Pussycat. Life is just perfect for Garfield...

Or is it? Garfield's dorky owner Jon Arbuckle gets married to his newly beloved wife Liz Wilson former vet. And he tries his hardest to please her the most trying not to mess things up. Being the dork he is. Garfield and Odie on the other hand question what might happen to them when Jon might have a kid, and plan to move to The "U.S. Acres", in case their remaining Feline and Canine years will be nothing but a bloodbath for them.

However they end up in the Big City, where Garfield reunites with his mom again, and while Odie meets a new breed of dogs, who happen to look just like him and are more smarter than he is. However things might just look down to our favourable duo, as they learn about a horrible storm brewing. It's coming soon. It could mean the end of everything Garfield has loved the most in his life. So it's up to him and his friends to avert the entire disaster before its too late.

Cast

 * Nick Bakay as Garfield
 * Jim Cummings as Odie
 * Justin Timberlake as Squeak
 * Will Ferrall as Jon Arbuckle
 * Jenifer Aniston as Liz Wilson
 * Eden Sher as Arlene
 * Kath Soucie as Nermal
 * Liliana Mumy as Penelope Pussycat
 * Julia Roberts as Annie (Garfield's Mother)

Production
In 1989, production on another Garfield television special was nearly finished. The main difference between this one and the previous specials was that it was about 90 minutes, making it more of a TV movie. Jim Davis wanted this special to be one of the best Garfield specials he had ever done (his "magnum opus" so to speak). It was much more serious in nature than the other Garfield works, involving a tornado destroying their hometown. This production was unique in the fact that Disney was the studio working on it.

The special went through scripting and was full-out story-boarded. An estimated 15-minutes-worth of animation was finished as well as several songs finished and all the voice acting completed. Disney cancelled the special, feeling the subject matter was far too dark and depressing for Garfield. Davis tried to script the special twice more, but the studio showed no interest both times. The story was eventually incorporated into a Garfield picture book of the same name in July 1990.

A good twenty eight years later, director of The Peanuts Movie, Steve Martino approached Davis for a theatrical film based off of the fat and chubby cat. He said yes, only under the condition that he would have the same amount of creative control over the project. Davis showed the script for Judgement Day to Martino, and he enjoyed it for the most part. The only thing he hated was that it didn't really feel that much like a proper ending to Garfield.

"The script seemed a hell of a lot like some sort of finale for the 80s cartoon, and even the comic strips, but it wasn't quite there really. I wanted to put Garfield and Odie in a sort of position where they're maturing into new animals, and proper adults."- Steve Martino

Originally the movie was going to be fully CGI like the direct to DVD specials, however Davis declined this offer to make it fully CGI and said that he wanted a "mixture so to speak".

"Those hand-drawn comercials from the past that we did were a giant influence on the movie. I wanted a style that was basically a throwback to when Garfield was one of the big things in America."

Trivia

 * The movie serves as being a theatrical sequel to the Television Specials from 1982 to 1991. Having the same tone and music genre, and the story was rewritten in a way to actually end the show
 * Unlike previous Garfield films, this one is a full mixture of the 2D cell animation from Garfield and Friends and the 3D background, modelled by Blue Sky Studios.
 * The animals' mouths don't open whenever they talk. Only when they get scared, scream, burp or are eating. Much like Garfield and Friends.
 * In the opening of the movie, the song "Here Come's Garfield" is heard. Only that it is a hybrid of Rock Guitar and Jazz. Lou Rawls's vocal preformance is still present in the song though, and is mixed with Desiree Goyette's vocal preformance.
 * There's a scene in the movie which takes place at one day, before the tornado strikes the hometown of Garfield's life, and he's feeling extremly suicidal about the whole situation and attempts to commit suicide by climbing into an oven full of Lasanga but before entering the oven, he sees Odie sleeping in a box and walks over to him rembering all the times they've had fun together, all while over the song "So Long Old Friend." preformed by Goyette.