Futurama: Bender’s Big Score
By fred | November 25, 2007
(DVD) Tonight on Fox, you’ll be able to watch a new episode of Family Guy, a series once canceled. Because sometimes, thanks to the great support & effort of fans, a show can survive its cancellation.
When it comes to Futurama, Fox did not change its mind. Never mind those morons, because the show will still be back ! First, there will be four direct-to-DVD movies done, which will then be reconfigured to air on Comedy Central as 16 half-hour episodes. Bender’s Big Score is the first of those DVD movies, which will consists of the first four episodes, will be available in store November 27th.
I got lucky enough to get a chance to watch it already, and sure as Hell wasn’t going to wait. And men, was it good to see Bender, Fry, Leela, and all the others !
I was delighted to see Futurama back, given that I’ve always loved that show. And if you loved the show you will most definitely be pleased to watch this movie. Of course because it was the good old show we all loved, but also because it was filled with lots & lots of references to the series.
All along the way we meet so many of the characters we had previously came across during the years the show was on. The main story was also used to celebrate what Futurama used to be, and which being a fan of the show is not required to understand what’s happening or enjoy it, to get all those references is a real delight.
There are of course too many to list them all, but let’s say we’ll meet more or less briefly the Nibblonians, Santa Robot, Zapp Brannigan, chef Elzar, a kid Bender met when he worked for the Robot Mafia, Fry’s seven-leaf clover lucky charm, Leela’s parents, Fry’s ex-girlfriend Michelle, Professor Farnsworth’s cloned son Cubert, the Harlem Globetrotters and Basketball players, Fry’s dog Seymour, and many more.
There’s also a few other hint like a suicide booth vs phone booth joke or, if you remember the pilot you’ll know how as Fry was frozen we saw a few wars go by. Well, one of them will be explained !
This will be a real delight for all fans of the series, and you’re guaranteed to enjoy this - even if you have never watch it before. Though it such case, what the Hell is wrong with you!!? And, you’ll probably want to get the DVDs and fix that mistake. Anyways, the adventure our friends went on was a great one, most of the times, but I have to admit that I somehow had torn feelings about the whole thing as I was watching it, after a while.
Let’s rewind a bit : it starts with a little acknowledgment of the situation the series has been in. Everyone learns that Planet Express has been canceled by the “Box” network - which easily misread as Fox - and as such they’re all fired. In fact, they were fired a couple of years ago already. But wait!
“Good news everyone! Those asinine morons who canceled us were themselves fired for incompetence! Not just fired, but beaten up too!” proclaimed Professor Hubert Farnsworth. Ah, if only…
This first bit is absolutely hilarious in each and every way you look at it, and I’m sure everyone who worked on it enjoyed that sweet “revenge”. From then on, a new adventure begins. An adventure that, to stay close to what Futurama was all about in the first place, in centered around time travel.
Time traveling had been used before on the show, but never as much as it was this time. It was hilarious, especially when they kept getting warning about paradoxes (oh boy were there a lot of those!) and how it could destroy the whole universe, yet everyone kept going back and forth in time just to go to the bathroom or get some warm pizza.
It was nothing but awesomeness for a most of the time. But then, after a while things changed a little. At a point I felt like they had to make the whole thing last an hour and a half, and a few things felt filler. We had some flashbacks about Fry’s life in the past, and his love affair with another species, but even though the whole thing and the point they were trying to make had became pretty obvious, it keep coming over & over again. I wasn’t a fan of those, or the singing we got a few times.
But I’ll be honest, as I think of it again I can only think of the good things, I can only remember all the references and the hilarious jokes we had. Because as the title does not indicate, this movie was centered around Fry. But after him it was indeed all about Bender, and there couldn’t have been a better choice. I don’t think he is only my favorite character on the show, I think he’s the favorite of most of not all. And for reasons.
“
- How can you possibly blame us ?
- It ain’t easy. It just proves how great I am !
”
All in all I would call this movie a success, because it was great, it was hilarious, and I watched it a second time with no problem. It was a pure hour and a half long Futurama, and it will be a very nice addition to the previous seasons. Definitely a must-see, especially for fans of the show. You’ll love it!
