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New Futurama Movie Coming in June 126

Posted by Zonk from the good-news-everyone dept.
walterbyrd writes "Bender's Big Score is just getting set to air on Comedy Central, but already Fox has announced that the next straight-to-DVD Futurama film/series is coming in June. The title? 'The Beast with a Billion Backs.' 'In what Fox is calling the most tentacle-packed Futurama epic, space itself rips open, revealing a gateway to another universe. What lies beyond is a mix of horror and love as the Planet Express crew encounters a repulsive, planet-sized monster with romantic intentions. The second feature-length Futurama film will be followed by at least two more movies from series creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen. The show's entire voice cast and most of its main writers have returned to help revive the series, which FOX cancelled in 2003.'"
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New Futurama Movie Coming in June More

New Futurama Movie Coming in June

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  • Better in half-hour installments (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aapold ( 753705 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:04PM (#22800006) Homepage Journal
    Bender's Big Score had many awesome moments, but it made me realize Futurama is better in shorter installments, it begins to wear at the interest after awhile. BBS is best watched in pieces IMO. of course straight-to-dvd you're free to do that. But I'd take a series of tales over a single long one I think. I do hope for another episode of "Everyone loves Hypnotoad" on the extras though.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Coraon ( 1080675 )
      we love the hypnotoad...
    • I agree. I wish they would release a dvd of four new episodes instead of a movie. The old series was as close to perfect as a show gets, IMHO.
      • your wish shall be grant little one, as when they have made all 3 movies, they are going to chop them up into episodes like family guy did the Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. Of course whether that will make it any better is to be seen.

      • Subscription Model (Japanese OVA) (Score:4, Interesting)

        by StCredZero ( 169093 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @06:12PM (#22800828)

        I agree. I wish they would release a dvd of four new episodes instead of a movie. The old series was as close to perfect as a show gets, IMHO.
        Lots of great animation went straight to video in Japan. (OVA = Original Video Animation [wikipedia.org]) This was a way that new, innovative, and quirky shows could get produced even when no network execs had the courage or foresight to touch them. It's time we had more of that in North America! The technology is certainly there on the production side, with good software and commoditized hardware like scanners and digital cameras to support independent production. Someone should do a combination of Machinima + live action greenscreen.

        If you want to see what amateurs can do with greenscreen, take a look at Star Wreck [starwreck.com]. Amazing what you can do with attention to detail, home made costumes and greenscreens, and a render-farm of 3 PCs in your living room. Oh, and it helps to have a hot girlfriend [plaza.fi] and goofy actor friends [plaza.fi] to play parts!
    • All hail the Hypnotoad!

    • Re:Better in half-hour installments (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rutulian ( 171771 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:15PM (#22800160)
      That's funny because I thought Bender's Big Score was terrible. My roommate and I loved the old Futurama episodes and have watched them all several times over. About 30 minutes into the movie, we were looking at each other and asking, "Is this Futurama?" I had to force myself to sit through the whole thing, hoping that it would get better, but all I got was a seemingly endless stream of jokes and gags repeated over in a bad way from the series. And the fart joke level of humor was pretty excessive. I always liked Futurama because it didn't have a lot of that, and instead had a lot of subtle humor that could really be appreciated by geeks.

      I'm really hoping the second movie is better....
      • Excessive fart humor? That's un-PPPPHHHHHFFFFFFFTTTTT-possible!
      • I agree completely. I'm a big Futurama fan, and I've watched every episode, and I thought the movie Bender's Big Score sucked ass. They must have changed their writing staff or rushed production, because the humor was just lame. The next one had better not be this bad, or I'll have to write Futurama off as a total loss.
        • I agree too. But my hope is that they will have learned a few lessons about working in larger forms. For one, you can't make a good story better by adding a lot of pointless filler (and there was a good story underlying Bender's Big Score; maybe a shorter cut of the movie, around 45 minutes, focusing on that story, would have worked).

      • Re:Better in half-hour installments (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CKW ( 409971 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @06:03PM (#22800722) Journal
        YES. That's exactly what I thought. They went out of their way to re-do gags they've done before and "show" every character ever in the series, no matter how irrelevant to the plot. Like you were watching a kitschy movie trying to remind you of how great it's past was - but DOING NOTHING NEW OR INTERESTING. HUGE disappointment.

        Any two episodes from the series was better than the first movie. Any two. Many individual episodes from the series were better than the whole movie.
      • I guess it's all a matter of opinion. I didn't think Bender's Big Score was on par with the series' best moments, but I would rate it as being in the better half of the Futurama material... there are a good few regular series episodes that were weaker than Bender's Big Score.

        And as for the "fart joke" factor, I'm not sure what you even mean. Specific examples?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by bobobobo ( 539853 )
        Yeah, that was my initial impression in watching it, that it didn't have many funny moments, if any at all. It was however a really great piece of sci-fi. I don't think a time travel story so convoluted was ever pulled off so well or tightly before.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
        Hate to do a "me too" post, but I felt the same way--and I was a HUGE Futurama fan. "Benders Big Score" seemed diluted. About the only thing that I liked about it was that the dog from "Jurrassic Bark" at least finally got a happy ending.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by morari ( 1080535 )
      Agreed. A half season of new stand alone episodes would been much preferred.

      Also, did anyone else notice that Bender's Big Score suffered from "jaggies" on many straight lines through the animation? I noticed a similar, though not as severe, effect on the Simpsons Movie once it was released to DVD as well.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by LunaticTippy ( 872397 )
        Maybe you are used to these shows on a SD feed, which would tend to blur this. Another possibility is your TV is higher res than the dvd and the upscaling artifacts are visible.
      • I also noticed this in a big way, but I think we're in the minority. I have a Toshiba dvd player with a Faroudja scaler (basically one of the last good mass market priced DVD players made) and I saw jaggies through the whole thing. That was when it was hooked up to an SD television (Sony Trinitron). After I replaced the TV with a 720p plasma, I did not see the jaggies (either with the DVD player set to interlaced or progressive). Still not sure what caused it but it was there and VERY distracting.

        And fo

    • I'd like to see more "Scary Door", though a full length episode of that would be missing the point.

      About halfway through Bender's Big Score, I got the "aren't we done yet?" feeling. But I got into it again after that. I'm used to watching 5 episodes at a time, though. I'm still looking forward to the remaining movies, and anything that might come after that.

    • Re:Better in half-hour installments (Score:5, Insightful)

      by explosivejared ( 1186049 ) <hagan@jared.gmail@com> on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:23PM (#22800254)
      The thing about Bender's Big Score is that it wasn't made to be successful in the normal sense. It was much more an homage to the fans that have waited the series out. The plot is one essentially that would work really well as a half-hour episode, but instead it's intentionally stretched out to allow for a lot of in-jokes and nods to long time fans. They knew exactly what they were doing when they made BBS. I see the new one being a regular old movie with no ulterior motive other than to entertain. Now I know making a movie that is successful and able to stand on its own is hard, but I have faith that David X. Cohen and the rest of the lot can do it.
      • I saw BBS like a week's worth of Dilbert cartoons by stringing a bunch of unrelated absurdities together under an odd theme. Personally, I felt like there were too many gratuitous naked spammer sceens.
      • Comedy is all about timing. The pacing in BBS was atrocious. They did NOT know exactly what they were doing. This was their first time to try to make Futurama work at that length and it showed. Plus they just made some completely boneheaded decisions like thinking the whole FOX Executive Powder joke was funny after the 500th time. And why did Zapp Brannigan have less screen time than BARBADOS SLIM, for Ja's sake?

    • Re:Better in half-hour installments (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:30PM (#22800312)
      Actually, the "Anthology of Interest" episodes (you watched it - you can't unwatch it!) were among my favorites from the original series, indicating that extremely short episodes really provided the structure that helped the writers to shine. I wouldn't mind seeing more Tales! Of! Interest! included as bonus features on the upcoming DVDs.

      I liked Bender's Big Score a lot better than, say, That's Lobstertainment or The Honking, but they really had some great episodes during the original run that'll be hard to top.

      On an unrelated note, I seriously hope they improve the media and packaging quality for the next DVD. My DVD player is barely able to play the BBS disc I got (no scratches or anything, just can't seem to stay focused on the disc, especially layer 2), and the packaging only manages tenuously, at best, to keep the disc from falling out and rolling across the floor.

      • Re:Better in half-hour installments (Score:4, Informative)

        by dq5 studios ( 682179 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @06:11PM (#22800818) Homepage

        On an unrelated note, I seriously hope they improve the media and packaging quality for the next DVD. My DVD player is barely able to play the BBS disc I got (no scratches or anything, just can't seem to stay focused on the disc, especially layer 2), and the packaging only manages tenuously, at best, to keep the disc from falling out and rolling across the floor.
        I'm told it's because they wanted the packaging to be carbon neutral or zero emissions or what ever the term is for what Al Gore's been talking about.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Gatton ( 17748 )
        That's Lobstertainment was one of my favorite episodes. But then I love Zoidberg :-).
        I agree with what everyone else is saying about BBS not being as good as the episodes. I understand that they have (or will) planned to show the movie as four episodes with commercials. I wonder if it wouldn't come across better that way.

        My oft repeated Futurama quote anytime I do something as a favor for a friend - Zoidberg: "Hooray I'm useful!"

        I just wish I could do a stereotypical Jewish accent as well as Billy West or H
      • that is strange.

        i got my copy off of the pirate bay, and burnt it to DVD myself, and I have had no problems at all with playback.

        another reason to steal rather than going legit?

        (p.s. I live in asia, getting legit copies of N.A. films is nearly impossible. I have supported the rest of the seeries by buying all the seasons on DVD)

    • Re:Better in half-hour installments (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:35PM (#22800352) Homepage Journal
      I noticed a similar issue with the Family Guy movie.

      The sort of bit comedy that the Simpsons started is hilarious, but hard to maintain plot lines over twenty minutes because most of the humor is helped my plot twists, and they can only twist so much.
    • I dunno, I thought it worked pretty well. Not my favorite Futurama outing, but it certainly holds its own.

    • Re:Better in half-hour installments (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @06:12PM (#22800826)
      Wow. I'm shocked. Am I the only one who utterly loved it? It had a good involving storyline, it had real science fiction (the idea of time travel duplicates is something I have been wanting to see explored well in some story for a long time), and it even grips your heart at the end. Yes, short instalments are often quite funny (what if life were more like a video game?), but the ones I will remember the most were the ones with a good story. Also, you'll notice a lot of cool details during the second watching. That said, it was still pretty damn funny. I can't wait for more.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Progman3K ( 515744 )
        You're not alone.

        I also thought it was great.

        To appreciate it you really have to concentrate. There are lots of subtle details that were put in the movie, time-travel stories like BBS require more from the viewer.

        I believe this is the reason some fans didn't like it. It out-geeked its supposed geek audience.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bugg ( 65930 ) *
        Nope, I loved it too.

        I'm also a sucker for endings that pull on your heartstrings - and this movie ranked up there with Jurassic Bark for emotional response at the end.

        I did apologize to those who watched it with me, however, as they weren't really futurama fans, and all of the in-jokes were a bit much for them. I found myself having to explain why santa was a robot who killed things, etc.

        Does anyone know how strong the sales were? I'm trying to decide whether I should buy my own copy - I don't really eve

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Skater ( 41976 )
        You are not alone! I loved BBS too.

        And the Simpsons movie. That's the only movie I've gone to see in the theaters more than one time.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Gulthek ( 12570 )
        I loved it tons, I even reviewed it [xyzzyb.com] (5/5).
    • Yeah, i have to agree. Although the episode was good, it was far too long, and too complex. I don't mean the time paradox, but throwing Hermes problems, Leela and Art budding romance, the scammers, etc all into one LONG episode caused things to jump around too much. I think this would have worked better if they had released them in 4 longer episodes (maybe full 30mins, rather than 20mins episodes) on each CD... this way, if other networks like Comedy or the Toon network wanted to pick them up and air'd the
      • Comedy central *IS* picking up BBS and airing it, one episode at a time. That was part of the plan all along.

        And his name was Lars, not Art.
    • Bender's Big Score was too much Futurama at once, I kept looking at my watch to see when it was going to start wrapping things up. But I will admit that Bender's Big Score was one of the strangest mixed up episodes. Talk about taking time travel paradoxes to a confusing extreme :)

      I think I would rather see a DVD released every 3-6 months with another 3-5 episodes on it. Hypnotoad is great to play at parties on a random TV. Just leave it on repeat (and low volume) and see if anyone tries watching it.
  • Good news, everyone!

  • Futurama (Score:3, Insightful)

    by boyko.at.netqos ( 1024767 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:06PM (#22800036)
    It makes you wonder why TV shows don't skip the network alltogether and go straight to DVD in the first place.

    • It makes you wonder why TV shows don't skip the network alltogether and go straight to DVD in the first place.
      Who's going to pay for the production?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Higaran ( 835598 )
      Because if you have never seen something like on the big screen or on tv, there is almost no chance of you going out any buying or renting it. Unless its christmas shopping time, and you grap like 10 dvds from the bargin bin at walmart for like $5.00 to give out as stocking stuffers. I welcome our new overload the beast with a billion backs.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jerf ( 17166 )
      We're getting there, incrementally. We can't jump to it all at once for the reasons cited by others.

      If you want to see that world, be sure to support the Futurama movies, and pick up Stargate: The Ark of Truth, too. Right now, that's the most direct way to indicate interest in this.
    • And they've been around for decades there.

      One advantage the Japanese have is that often, OVAs (Original Video Animation, sometimes Original Animated Video) are based on comics or video games that already have a large fan base.

      There are also plenty of direct-to-DVD movies here in the states, but they have a (largely deserved) reputation for sucking.

      I'm actually betting that we never see a big direct-to-DVD-series market in the US because I bet technology will beat out the marketing shift, so that people can
    • It makes you wonder why TV shows don't skip the network alltogether and go straight to DVD in the first place.

      Because most of television is still about being a gimmick to get people to watch advertisements. They aren't called "soap operas" because everyone is clean; it's because the serials started as a way to sell soap. It makes me shake my head at people bitching about product placements when at one time all radio and television were were a series of product placements.

      Yes, it is evolving and netw

  • Movie good, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Xelios ( 822510 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:10PM (#22800092)
    I'd have been happier with new direct-to-DVD seasons rather than long movies. The last one seemed drawn out and the jokes were a bit sparse. It just doesn't translate well into feature length.

    I hope this one will be better, but either way I'm glad they're not giving up on Futurama.

    • Re:Movie good, but... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by realmolo ( 574068 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:16PM (#22800164)
      I have to agree.

      Though, to me the major problem with "Bender's Big Score" is that they just threw everything but the kitchen sink into the plot. By the end of the movie, it's just a confusing mess of plots/subplots. The STRENGHT of "Futurama" has been that the plots are typically pretty tight. They ALWAYS had a good plot, and stuck with it.

      • Re:Movie good, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by moderatorrater ( 1095745 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:19PM (#22800192)
        My opinion is that they had to do some fan service for the first movie, and that these next ones should be able to get away from that.

        • Re:Movie good, but... (Score:5, Informative)

          by kimvette ( 919543 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:23PM (#22800246) Homepage Journal
          They state this is exactly the case in the commentaries. The first one is for the long-time fans and the following three are less complex and lighter/easier to follow.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Chris Tucker ( 302549 )
            Fan service all the way! And greatly appreciated, too!

            I loved how they retconned a happy ending for "Jurassic Bark".

            It was great seeing Seymour again. And seeing him happy and with Fry.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by glwtta ( 532858 )
          My opinion is that they had to do some fan service for the first movie, and that these next ones should be able to get away from that.

          Wait, are you saying no more deliveries to the Nude Beach Planet?

          That'd be very disappointing!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jZnat ( 793348 ) *
            Considering the only human or human-like beings on that planet were the Planet Express crew themselves, I say good riddance to that planet. I especially don't want to see any more Nudar-like people.
        • To me, a fan who has bought all the seasons and this movie, the best service they could have done was to make a funny movie. They took their eye off the ball with BBS. Hopefully the next one is better. I agree with the other poster who said they should do direct to dvd seasons (or mini-seasons).

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by surgen ( 1145449 )
        It does seem that they threw a lot into the plot but that is because it is four times as long. If you break the movie into four 22 minute segments you can see that each part stands on its own very well. I enjoyed that the plot was driving the story forward, if hadn't have had such an active plot the story would have just felt like was drawn out and moving too slowly. I think a lot of the anger at the plot is sparked when people try to wrap their head around the time travel and which instance of a charect

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        Though, to me the major problem with "Bender's Big Score" is that they just threw everything but the kitchen sink into the plot.
        Name one complicated time travel story (i.e. beyond "everything is back the way it should be" or "the timeloop collapsed and nothing happened") that had a straight forward plot...

  • Welp, (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jailbrekr ( 73837 ) <jailbrekr@digitaladdiction.net> on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:12PM (#22800116) Homepage
    we're boned.
  • Do you think they'll have some gratuitous nudity - like Lella? I really want to see her naked!

  • Finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ZJVavrek ( 952066 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:15PM (#22800152)
    Tentacle romance comes to Western Animation! And on a planet-sized scale, too.
  • To FOX,
    Bite my shiny metal ass

    Love
    -The Cast/crew

  • Best Day Ever (Score:3)

    by putzin ( 99318 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:38PM (#22800388) Homepage
    This is all I can say about more Futurama being anounced.

  • And the winner ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Random BedHead Ed ( 602081 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @05:45PM (#22800470) Homepage Journal

    And the winner of the best animated series to return to us via DVD is ...

    ...

    ... THE HYPNOTOAD. ... ALL HAIL ... THE HYPNOTOAD [r33b.net].

    • Re:And the winner ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Graff ( 532189 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @06:16PM (#22800876)
      Random BedHead Ed [slashdot.org] had this [slashdot.org] to say:

      ... THE HYPNOTOAD. ... ALL HAIL ... THE HYPNOTOAD [r33b.net].
      I think the funniest part of that web page is the source code. Not only does it have an ASCII-art hypnotoad comment but it also uses the special iPhone icon setting.

      What's funny about that last part? Well, pretty much all the content on the web page is in a Flash movie and the iPhone can't view it because the iPhone doesn't support Flash!

      Kinda ironic that your iPhone bookmark will have a pretty icon for content it can't view...

      • Re:And the winner ... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @06:20PM (#22800924) Journal
        Well, after all, Apple is the Hypnotoad of the 21st century.
      • And for Extra-Fun-Filled-Party-Action, put your browser in kiosk mode and just see the flash animation http://r33b.net/flash/r33bit.swf [r33b.net]
  • I LOVE Futurama! I bought the DVD, and will buy the next one. But BBS was a huge letdown for me, I don't know if it was because it was long or what, but it didn't live up to my expectations at all, I hope the second one is better...

  • My review of Bender's Big Score (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nova Express ( 100383 ) <lawrenceperson.gmail@com> on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @06:20PM (#22800926) Homepage Journal
    Can be found here [locusmag.com]. For those interested in such things

    ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

  • A minor correction: (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The_REAL_DZA ( 731082 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @07:57PM (#22801852)

    "...The show's entire voice cast and most of its main writers have returned to help revive the series, which FOX cancelled in 2003.'"
    Should have been "...The show's entire voice cast and most of its main writers have returned to help revive the series, which FOX stupidly cancelled in 2003.'" There, I fixed it for you.
    • That's fairly redundant. Fox's MO has always been:

      1. Get a great show.
      2. Put it on long enough to generate a loyal following.
      3. Kill it for no apparent reason.
      4. ???
      5. Profit from stupid reality shows. (Guess I found the ???)
      • That's their FIRST MO. Their other MO continues off 1 and 2:

        3. Keep it on the air LONG after most of the original writers and/or actors have left the show or died and it stops being a quality show and becomes exhaustingly self-referential and formulaic.
        4. Profit as long as the die-hard fans from #2 keep tuning in and telling themselves that it's still a good show.
        • I see you've been watching the Simpsons again. I deleted the Simpsons entry from my DVR a couple of months ago because I simply couldn't take it any more.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by The-Bus ( 138060 )
      Yes, but their executive powder at least really soothes the burn.
  • .... The new stuff isn't as good as the original stuff.

    There. I said it.

    I bought BBS, and it was OK, but to compare it to episodes I'd say I laughed about 1.5x as much as I'd laugh at an episode, which is not what I'd expect given that it's about 4x the length.

    It reminds me of the other fan revivals, _Family Guy_ and _Jericho_.

    Still, relatively, I'd rather watch BBS than almost anything else on TV. In the Futurama Pantheon, I'd rate it 5 out of 10.
    • Three guesses as to where this pearl of wisdom is from:

      "No one, after having tasted old wine, wishes for new, for he says the old is better."

  • This Sunday! (Score:3, Informative)

    by computerman413 ( 1122419 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @08:07PM (#22801942)
    FYI, Bender's Big Score will air this Sunday (3/23) at 8:00PM EDT on Comedy Central.

  • In what Fox is calling the most tentacle-packed Futurama epic, space itself rips open, revealing a gateway to another universe. What lies beyond is a mix of horror and love

    Ha! And they called me a fool for getting a giant "I [heart] Cthulu" tattoo on my torso. What started out as Pascal's Wager [wikipedia.org] with the Old Ones [wikipedia.org], has turned into cartoon-pop-culture-indirect-reference coup d'etat! I can already feel myself becoming cooler.

    I only need two more developments to vindicate my tattoo choices: a massive, popular uprising of Schmoo [wikipedia.org] fanatics, and technology capable of generating the Care-bear Stare [wikipedia.org] with skin grafts.

  • ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD

    (and now some random text to get around the stupid filter that Slashdot employs to prevent postings with too high a percentage of capital letters)

  • Word (Score:1)

    by socz ( 1057222 )
    I'm just glad that they are putting more product out! I signed one of the crazy petitions to bring them back and am very happy to see this happen. I hope it works out for the fans like family guy who made a comeback.

  • Bender's Big Score has its ups and downs (Score:5, Informative)

    by LoveMe2Times ( 416048 ) on Thursday March 20, 2008 @01:36AM (#22803856) Homepage Journal
    A number of people have commented about having lukewarm feelings for Bender's Big Score, but haven't given much of an explanation, so I'm going to take a crack at it. WARNING: Potential Spoilers! For starters, yes, there is some fan service, for about the first five minutes or so, and yes, it's only kinda funny, and annoying on repeat viewings. However, there are some really great parts to this movie, and some parts that suck really bad, and the fan service is neither. The number one problem (and IMHO only problem) with this movie is that its setup is completely, utterly moronic and very pretentious. Everything relating to SPAM should have been axed completely, or at least made very VERY minor, and a different framing device used. The visual appearance of the alien villains could have been kept, and they could even continue to be annoying, but the way that SPAM infects this plot is just LAME. And letting your framing device drag down an otherwise good movie is a massive screw-up.

    That said, if you can get past your gag-reflex during the setup, the rest of the movie's pretty good. The core plot of time travel, Fry, Leela, Leelu, and Lars is a solid one. I think it would have been better if Lars hadn't lived Fry's old life, as that breaks continuity with the series, and was unnecessary for the Leelu plotline. The bits on Neptune and the Death Star sequences were great, with some amazing animation. The Hermes subplot is ok, but not great, and it displaced the far more important Amy/Kiff developments. I think that not even mentioning Amy and Kiff's relationship is a significant oversight, and I hope that is developed more in the forthcoming movies. Finally, I think having a plotline that revolves around time travel but doesn't even mention chronotons or Fry "doing the nasty in the pasty" is a big mistake. Fry being his own grandfather is one of the most important long-term plotlines from the series, and seeing as how the movie has Niblonians in it anyway, the omission is odd.

    I think that Bender's Big Score was a poor choice to be the first movie to put out, given that the end of the series was so powerful, I feel that it needed to be addressed much more directly. But aside from the SPAM bits, none of my other complaints really matter that much, but since the SPAM bits kinda drag the movie down, it makes all the other flaws more noticeable.

    But everybody should go out and get a copy (Today!) to ensure that we get more Futurama.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bugg ( 65930 ) *
      Anyone who says that Lars living Fry's old life breaks continuity does not understand paradox-free time travel.

      To resolve common time travel paradoxes, you simply allow for any backward travel to essentially fork() the universe, and then both universes continue on accordingly. It was suggested in the movie that the two possible outcomes of this are destroying the universe (running out of system resources, fork() never returning) and also, a 'doom' factor causing the two universe processes to re-converge at
      • I understand that if you're going to do a time travel plot, that you can make up the rules pretty much however you like. And yes, the code on Fry's ass is supposedly "paradox free!" and that's fine; I don't mind having multiple copies of the same character running around until the time-clones are destroyed by the doom factor. Just for me, subjectively speaking on the effectiveness of the movie and plotline, I would have preferred that they had left Fry's old life alone. Where exactly Fry was situated in
  • I really do hope that this next one is better than Benders Big Score :/ - honestly, it was ok I spose but considering how long they've had to think about a script, it just seemed well pretty bad, more like a video game than a Futurama movie.

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