The Lost Adventure

It's like an average episode of Futurama, only much uglier and not nearly so well-written, with one or two bits that just don't make any sense.

Plus it has bits of game-play footage in it.

If you've already watched every other bit of Futurama ever made and you're still aching for more, or you're just intensely curious to see what happens when you edit the cut-scenes from a game into a half-hour film, then you might as well watch this. Otherwise you can probably find a better way to spend half an hour.

Maybe go for a walk or something.

I've not yet seen Bender's Game but the recent movies have not really satisfied me as Futurama output and stumbling onto "The Lost Adventure" on the DVD made me think that it must be an extra episode that was never shown. What it actually is, is an "episode" made up of the cut scenes from the video game, with some bits of gameplay in there as well. The story is that Mom has bought Planet Express, paving the way for her to take over the earth. The crew of Planet Express flee and try to work out how to get things back to normal.

In most games the cut scenes are generally not things worth watching apart from getting direction or clues – this is a situation that is rapidly changing but in the past that is the way they work. With Futurama, they are impressive as part of a game and, were I playing it, they would be welcome reminders that I'm watching a proper Futurama product that appears to have had a bit of effort put into it and not just being a rushed out cash-in (although I'm saying this having never played the game). It is a nice idea to put these scenes together for people who don't have the game to watch and it is perfectly fine for what it is. Watching it as an episode though and ignoring the fact that it is only a video game, it doesn't stand up in any way to the series (yes, even some of the weaker episodes).

The animation is obviously a lot uglier but this is understandable, while the writing is solid but nothing special. If anything this film does rely a lot on affection for the characters because it doesn't do much new or clever but instead just coasts on the fact that Bender doing Bender is funny, Zoidberg is funny, the Professor is funny being the Professor etc etc. Treating it as an episode, it is easy to dismiss it as lazy because of it not being sharp or hilarious but watching it for what it is, it is just a cheerful little bit of Futurama that does what it sets out to do (connect levels in a video game) while also being quite amusing and warmly familiar.

The Lost Adventure is quite the curio as it's an episode assembled from the video game cut scenes that was used as bonus dvd footage on one of the feature length movies.

Being that the video game was for the Playstation 2 I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it looks more than a little ugly and for continuity they even added some gameplay footage into it.

At just 30 minutes in length it certainly demonstrates how short the game must have been. Take a modern video game and you'll have 30+ hours of cutscenes!

Now I'm not a big fan of Futurama so based upon those facts I thought this would stand no chance but oddly it's the best thing from them I've watched so far. Sure it's ugly and sure the editing is questionable but it has a real charm about it.

I actually laughed, I appreciated all the remix's used for the gameplay sections soundtrack and really quite enjoyed it. I'd call this essential viewing for any Futurama fan.

The Good:

Well written

Oddly charming

The Bad:

Very ugly

Some questionable editing

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Someone forgot what colour Leela's hair was supposed to be

To take over the planet you just need brains and evil

The Futurama video game was not very good, but it was distinguished by terrifically written cut scenes. At a certain point, I gave up the game and found a cheat code that allowed me to just watch the cutscenes sequentially, and I always thought they should be released as an episode.

They were, but the resulting episode is hit and miss. They have taken all the cutscenes, and since many cutscenes are intros to gameplay, they show little bits of the gameplay to give you a sense of what's going on (although for some reason there are several instances where they show the end of a boss battle but not the beginning, making it feel non-sequitorish).

Written by and voiced by the same people who made the series, there are some very funny bits in The Lost Adventure, and a wonderfully clever ending. But because so much of the episode is devoted to setting up gameplay, the story comes across as episodic and underdeveloped. There's about the same amount of material as you would find in a regular episode, but to fully flesh out the story for the game you would need the story sequences to be twice as long.

Still, watching the game this way is a lot more fun than trying to play the game!