Weekly Movie Review: Futurama: Into The Wild Green Yonder

[MockBot]

Automatically generated comment thread for Weekly Movie Review: Futurama: Into The Wild Green Yonder.

[berrypievision]

I do not think I ever watched an episode of Futurama that I like.

[Purple Man]

The last line of the review is the best news I've heard today.

[Julio]

Futurama rocks. I must take the opportunity to watch this. Thanks, Doc.

[Captain PirateFace]

Benders Big Score was rad people... C'mon!

[Nick]

I enjoyed all the Futurama movies, especially the last one. I just hope it doesn't end forever.

[Jonny#5]

I hated the Beast with a Billion Backs with a vengence but I thought that the other films were good. I liked this one too but I found that the confrontation with the baddie at the end was very anticlimatic and a big disappointment when compard to the floating brains. All well, here's hoping that there's more Futurama in the future.

[Relaxing Dragon]

While I actually enjoyed the first two Futurama movies (haven't seen the third or fourth yet), I do agree they're not nearly as funny as the show was. I keep hearing good things about this one, though, so I'll be generally optimistic about it (along with my continuing hope that Futurama continues on again, sooner or later).

[Cruxader]

I'd be willing to go on record that I've always felt that Futurama was much better and more funny than the Simpsons. Especially if compared to the Simpsons-drivel of the last 5 or so years. Yeah, don't bother arguing with me about the Simpsons sucking now. You won't change my mind. That said, I actually thought the first 3 Futurama movies were just so-so. I'll have to check this one out as it sounds like the show is going back to its roots.

[RadioNinja]

I thought Big Score was OK, more a vehicle for "airing out" the characters, Billion Backs was the weakest attempt of them all. Bender's Game has a place in my cold metallic chest cavity, except for the "knife infomercial" that went on wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too long. Finally, Green Yonder felt much more futurama-y and I enjoyed it throughout.

[Dr. Boogie]

From looking around at different reviews, it seems like most people thought the movies were so-so, but there's not much agreement on which ones were the least awful.

For me, the last three movies from best to worst are:

Beast with a Billion Backs
Bender's Big Score
Bender's Game


Maybe seeing them again would cause me to change my mind, but I seriously doubt I'm ever going to watch them again.

[Kilgore Cod]

I won't read this review, I'm too anxious to get my own copy of it. I love Futurama!

[FistfulOAwesome]

Dr. Boogie, I'm a big Futurama fan so I apologize if this post is too long.

I think you are a little harsh on the other movies. While they are of varying quality and I wouldn't rate any of them higher than a B I still feel I need to defend them.

I admit that BBS doesn't bring the funny as hard as the series but I still think there are a lot of great jokes (Kiss my front butt!). What really saves the movie though is its story. It mostly feels like a mix of The Why of Fry and The Luck of the Fryish/Jurassic Bark. It was exactly what fans needed to reintroduce us to the cast that we were all sad to see go. It also made sure to focus on the entire Planet Express crew rather than just the big three (one of the few failings of the series). The best parts of the movie are the Leeloo storyline and the awesome battle against the Gold Death Stars at the end (who couldn't love that!). The only real disappointment I had was that it screwed around with the stories of The Luck of the Fryish and Jurassic Bark. I didn't think that was necessary to tell its story.

I know you listed BWABB as the best of the worst but I think it is the simply the worst . While I will mention that the first chapter had me rolling off my seat (DeathBall and the Crackslam are awesome) the rest of the movie was absolutely terrible. Many of the Characters felt like they were replaced by Skull versions of themselves who looked and sort of acted the same as the PE Crew but with none of the charm or character development. Where as BBS knew that since the crew has known each other for 7 years and thus are great friends BWABB disregarded all that for an OOC story that was essentially one big date rape joke. What surprised me was that I tolerated the movie (and even liked it) until Yivo showed up. At that point the movie took a serious dip in quality. The first time I watched it I only laughed at one of his lines (the phone message after he disconnected from everybody). When you have David Cross record 40 lines for a character who is essentially a tribute to Japanese tentacle Hentai and only one line gets a laugh you screwed up.

Bender's Game was a lot better than BWABB. While I think that the LOTR chapters were the low point of the movie they made me laugh a hell of a lot more than the Yivo chapters of BWABB. Even though the crew doesn't like each other as much as in BBS they at least act like they would have in a series episode (although Leela's temper was fabricated to enormous proportions to fit the plot). I also think that the first half is a really great episode. Leela's Temper along with Benders inability to separate reality from fantasy along with the Truth about Dark Matter make a great episode that probably would have made a great movie if the writers had expanded upon those ideas rather than make a bunch of tired LOTR's jokes. Luckily, since BG is more like connected episodes than a movie you can actually skip the entire fantasy bit and have it still make sense (just pretend that Igner told the professor his secret in the Nibblonian chamber and ignore that the rest of the crew "magically" appeared in Mom's Lair).

Phew! I hope that didn't drain you. I just wanted to present my thoughts on what I thought were two pretty decent movies (and one bad one).

On topic, I have to agree with you that ITWGY is the best movie of the series (and in my opinion one of the best episodes). We're back to the close crew of BBS and especially some development between Fry and Leela. Both the New Mars Vegas and The Purple Dwarf Star Segments are expertly written and very funny. If the show returns I hope that all the episodes can be as good as this movie.

P.S. I was purposefully vague about ITWGY so as not to ruin it for people who haven't seen it yet (looking at you Kilgore. You are in for a real treat).

[Ozzie]

Wow. I must be a sheep or a fanboy or something because I didn't dislike any of the movies. The only thing that really bugged me about them was that the long awaited Bender's Game D&D storyline turned out to be yet another Lord of the Rings pastiche.

Granted, they really cut back on some of their "1% of the audience gets it" jokes, like about P and NP, and the uncertainty principle, and I whole-heartedly believe they're worse off for it, but I still really enjoyed these movies.

[pac-man]

All four of them were good. Maybe never as good as the best episodes, but never as bad as the worst episodes. Plenty of laughs even if you don't have a math degree or aren't a sci-fi fanboy. I'd wager that we'll see more Futurama in some form.

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

I liked the movies too. Beast With A Billion Backs was actually my favourite.

I don't think they were as good as the show, though.

[Doctor_Who]

Just watched it. Yes, it is the strongest of the four movies, and would be a fine note to end the series on. I personally still hold out hope that we'll get more, though. The sales of these DVDs have certainly been high enough.

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

I actually liked Beast with a Billion backs the least out of the four. Need to watch this one again. When Benders Big score came out I must've watched it 3 times that night alone.

[Kilgore Cod]

I agree with everything FistfulOAwesome said, especially regarding Beast With A Billion Backs. It took alot of the heart out of the characters at the expense of a plot that wasn't that good to begin with.

I watched Into The Wild Green Yonder last night and immediately fell in love with it. There were so many times where I just laughed out loud.


*****SPOILER BELOW*****


I loved how they ended it with Fry and Leela finally coming together. They could had gone for something very dramatic and over the top, but it would had undermined the whole thing. Instead it was touching and poignant and the perfect way to end the series (if it is the end).