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I just finished reviewing the last of the Futurama season collections when I heard that Futurama would be releasing 4 straight to DVD movies. This is the first of them and I am so happy to have this show back.
The Main Characters
Futurama has 7 main characters, broken up into 4 main characters, and three other minor main characters. The whole shebang is based on Fry, the slacker Gen X-er from 1999 who wakes up a millennium later and doesn’t know what to do in the new world. He ends up working with a strange bunch of ‘toons. There’s Professor Farnsworth, the crazed, senile scientist and also Fry’s great, great great (great……………) nephew. Leela, a one eyed-purple haired woman/alien with an attitude, joins them. Also there is Bender, a foul-mouthed, beer-swigging robot. To round out the strange cast of misfits is Zoidberg, an octopus like alien who is a physician, Hermes Conrad a Rastafarian man who works is a bureaucrat, and Amy Wong, Farnsworth’s intern who is also from a very rich family.
The Setting
New York City in the year 3000.
The Film (1:28:45)
The movie starts with the gang getting their jobs back after being cancelled by the Box network (the Box Network Logo has the B that blanks out a bit and looks like an F, oddly enough). The gang celebrates, Hermes has his head cut off, and we hit the opening. They show all the characters, like a real sitcom does, with the familiar scenes from the original. The opening sequence cartoon is actually the first episode, too. So Hermes’ head is put in a jar, the gang has to go to a naked planet for a delivery where they meet an alien race of naked aliens who take their e-mail addresses. They send everyone spam and soon they start taking over Earth when all the morons just hand over their credit cards and such. It is a funny look at how spammers get idiots to just give their credit card information. So these naked aliens take over, take control of Bender with an Obey program, and soon find that Fry has some very valuable information tattooed on his ass in the shape of Bender. It is a binary code that allows people to time travel! So the aliens send Bender through time to steal everything valuable. Once they have everything they plan on killing Fry to rid the world of the code. Fry escapes into the past and Bender is sent to kill him (leading to a Terminator type spoof). This leads to an interesting trip through time that would make people’s heads spin if I mentioned it here. So we go between Fry’s 12 year life in the past and the current events in the future. The earth people end up on Neptune with Santa Claus and plane to strike back against the scrammer creatures.
Movie Review
This was everything I had expected, and more. They had all the main characters, of course, but a lot of the sub-characters showed up as well, including Scruffy the janitor, Hypno-Toad, Santa Claus, and a whole bunch of inside references. The story is very well-written, as the case with Futurama, and it flows smoothly from one section to another. You can actually sort of see where the episodes will be split when they put them on Comedy Central later on. It is a fond return to everything we loved about Futurama with a whole load of time to develop the storylines. They introduce some new aliens and even explain how some things happened in the show (how Fry’s dog became a rock, for instance) and with a great combination of past show references with new material, this is a must for any Futurama fan, whether you’ve seen every episode or just want to find out what the fuss is about. This was just incredibly well-written, with all the twists and turns coming together at the end perfectly. To entice us to buy the next DVD, it is an open ending, too.
DVD Features
A) Extras
1) Audio Commentary
Commentary was recorded by Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, John DiMaggio, Phil LaMarr, Claudia Katz, Dwayne Carey-Hill and Ken Keeler. They talk at first about being cancelled, and then how they were brought back. Billy West asks if they put on Wikipedia that Futurama is back. This was recorded (according to David) in August of 2007 and it is the not quite finished version. The voice actors said it wasn’t hard to come back to the primary characters, but the secondary characters were tougher. David said the code originally had meaning to it but has lost the meaning over the rewrites. Matt discusses debating mathematical formulas in the writers room and he comments that they should’ve spent time on writing jokes. Originally the binary code were lotto numbers Bender wanted to win. David Cohen talks about the uninteresting number paradox. They talk about Al Gore being in the movie and David says that it inspired the gang to make the DVD a reduced carbon emissions copy. They talk about the dog episode and how it upset a lot of people and someone jokes about Michael Vick. They kept the conversation going for all 90 minutes and it was interesting and entertaining so full marks for them.
2) Futurama Returns! (8:51)
This is a live comic book reading by the Futurama cast. They have the comic on the screen, with the pages shown, with the cast doing reading the balloons in the panels. There is laughing in the background, so maybe it was read live at a Con or something. They do make a reference to San Diego Comic Con so I guess that’s where it was.
3) Everyone Loves Hypnotoad (22:01)
This is an episode of Hypnotoad, as shown in the movie. It has a regular opening credit section then the rest is just the toad sitting there with its hypno gaze. They show establishing scenes resembling Everybody’s Loves Raymond and Seinfeld, as well as commercial breaks. I actually watched the whole thing, too.
4) Deleted Storyboard Scenes
These are the storyboards for all the scenes below with all the voiceover work.
---A) Monte Carlo Scene (1:23)
Bender still looks for the Fry with the tattoo on his ass and finds a man in a casino who doesn’t want to show his ass. Bender loses at cards and has to resort to depanting the man.
---B) Robot Mafia Scene (0:32)
The Robot Mafia in 3005 blow away a stand from Tiny Timbot for working on the wrong corner.
---C) Limbo Contest Scene (1:41)
Hermes has a new body and challenges Barbados Slim to a limbo contest.
5) A Terrifying Message from Al Gore (1:24) / (3:10)
This is an animated message from Al Gore about Global Warming and his movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Bender is there, too, making his usual snarky comments. This comes with commentary as well, which is slightly longer, as Al Gore records commentary with David Cohen and Matt Groening as David keeps messing up the intro. This was a promo that was posted on YouTube and Al talks about how the promo was put together. I think it is fantastic that Al Gore is a fan of the show and that he is actually involved in it.
6) Bite My Shiny Metal X (26:04)
This is a Math Lecture! Dr. Sarah Greenwald is a noted mathematician who lectures on math in popular culture and this one is based on the math of Futurama. This was recorded on 3/15/08, as Sarah says that yesterday was Pi day (3/14 or 3.14). We go from Pi to talk of the alien code that appears in the show and Bender Hangman being played. They talk about 1729 appearing a lot in the show, and 1729 is a significant math number in that it is talk of a interesting number. It is the smallest number that can be written as the sum of two cubes twice. It can be 9 cubed plus 10 cubed or 12 cubed 1 cubed. Greenwald talks about her Greenwaldian Theorem, that a squared plus b squared > c squared on a sphere. There is a particular type of infinity (oliffnull?). This was a lot of fun, especially for math geeks like myself.
7) 3D Models / 3D Turnarounds (1:12)
These are 3D models and turnarounds of things that appeared in the movie (the Scammer’s ships, their gold deathstar, and the Chanukah ship.
8) Bender’s Big Score
This is the original first draft of the script. They challenge us to spot the differences but I didn’t go through it. I would’ve preferred if it had some sort of auto-scroll feature.
9) New Character / Design Sketches
This is the same deal as the the script. You have to go through it by yourself, but it is only a few pages so it wasn't too bad.
10) Original 5-Minute Comic-Con Promo (4:56)
This is the promor for the film that played at the San Diego Comic-Con.
B) Audio/Video
This is is in Widescreen 1.78:1 and I have never seen the show look better. The colors are bright, vibrant, and the animation is just perfect. The audio is in 5.1 Dolby Surround and it is what you’d expect from the original TV series.
C) Liner Notes / Packaging
This is not in the standard DVD case but in a fold-open sleeve with a holo-foil cover that is housed in a slipcase. There are two Fox DVD leaflets, a Futurama sheet with a naked Volleyball painting on the back and an ad for the comics on the front. Finally there was a sticky sleeve attached to the back telling all the different extras and a synopsis of the DVD.
D) Easter Eggs
1) Time Logic Scribble
To access this, go to the second page of extras. Highlight “Main Menu” then press right to highlight Bender. Press enter and look at Ken Keeler’s and David X. Cohen’s Futurama time logic scribble.
Overall Review
This is just a great return for Futurama. The movie was just flawless, combining the humor and intelligence of the original show into one great package, with the return of many of the minor characters used in the show. The extras were some of the best they’ve had on any Futurama collection. The extra scenes, the really entertaining commentary, the Math lecture (who knew a math lecture could be so enjoyable?), a table reading for the comic and just other great illustrations. Of course, there’s Hypno-Toad too!! This is just a perfect return for the Futurama crew and I can’t wait for the next three movies.
Overall Rating
10.0
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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