Tuesday, January 8

Futurama: Bender's Big Score Review

Much like Family Guy returning, Futurama had to make its stabs at Fox as well but in a much elaborate fashion. The movie goes to the trouble of introducing the characters again but it is clearly for fans of the show, more than a mainstream audience. There is a lot of time traveling and Futurama logic to go through, but it is just great. They follow a lot of their rules and serve up so many past episodes, its hard to keep track. The movie's main antagonists the Scammers, three nude aliens, are lack-luster, hit and miss and don't come off as threatening as they should be. The movie is set in 3007. The movie goes through a extremely slow pace in the beginning but it is later learned that it is necessary for the aforementioned confusing plot points and twists. The ending is worth it though, it is touching. The ending also opens up the plot to the next movie.

The basic plot is that the evil nudist aliens Scammers plant a virus on Bender, making him their slave and he steals all the Earth's priceless historic treasures through time travel, they discover on a tattoo on Fry's ass. Nibbler reveals he talks once again to Leela... and most of the gang as well (he wiped their memories before) to try to stop the Scammers but fails. Hermes literally looses his head and his wife in the process and is stuck in a jar for the majority of the film. In the process, Leela meets Lars, a head-cleaner guy and they are so luvey-duvey that it gets on Fry's nerves. Fry then decides to time travel as well to go back home to 2000 and the Scammers send Bender to kill Fry.

There is a lot of butts, nudity (not full frontal), deception, and body chopping off, violence and such. Just warning those prudes. Well, that I haven't seen them like that, it is interesting to see them that way, a little hard to get use to but, they did go nuts with the allowance they got. As for Lars, I first I didn't want to like him, but he is likable, does grow on me. I did get a bit ticked off that the love Leela was feeling for Fry in the first season finale (He learns the holophonor). It isn't even mentioned in this episode. But without spoiling anything, the ending of this movie is worth it and I'll excuse it. The only thing that sucks is the songs. Well, nothing can be 100% perfect.

The DVD is delightful and full of funny gags throughout. Like, above, the chapters menu. It of course includes a commentary by David X. Cohen and Matt Groening and others. Also a live comic book reading by the cast (unfortunately we don't see them. We only see the comic book with the audio. Hilariously, Billy West gets confused doing Fry voice instead of the Professor voice), deleted scene storyboard animatics (there is a reason they are deleted), Al Gore 'You Tube' promo for An Inconvenient Truth with Bender (delightful video commentary with Al Gore, Groening, and Cohen), a math lecture (spotting various mathematical references in past episodes and the letter 'g' for the Alien Language #2.) with Cohen, Groening (who delightfully draws Bender off hand), the writers being kookie, 3-D models, the original first draft of the script, character design sketches, and more. The DVD is worth the bucks, beautiful box and illustrations inside. Even an offer for 1 of 195 works of art. Best Buy offers an extra disc featuring animatics and a un-colored sneak peak to the next movie The Beast With a Billion Backs.


SPOILERS
Scenes are scattered through. The big time rips from the ending of this one begins this one. The universe or Earth is in trouble, so the Professor and his rival Wormstrom get involved. Out of the rips, come these giant tentacles. Fry meets a girl (Brittany Murphy) and discovers she is a polygamist. The tentacles then control Fry to be some sort of pope and then all the humans leave the robots on Earth. Also Kif and Amy get married, which is more expected. Kif barely appears in Bender's Big Score, he is mentioned by Amy but there is no scene with them together. Zap B. is his best man. The Beast With a Billion Backs looks good.