Futurama: Bender's Big Score

It was a sad day in 2003 when I learned that Futurama had ended. I remember watching the first episode and being hooked straight away. It's not very often humour and genuine sci-fi have been balanced so expertly. But thankfully, like Family Guy before it, Futurama has now been given a new lease of life in the form of 4 direct to DVD movies (to be split into 16 episodes to make up a new season).

When something this great is brought back, there is always the lingering fear that it won't retain the "magic" of the original. But I can confidently say that the magic is back! When Family Guy released Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, I feel it suffered the problem of seeming too much like an over-long episode, a problem I think that the Simpson's movie also suffered (though both were not without their fair share of laughs). However,Benders Big Score, the first of these new Futurama features FEELS like a movie.

I feel it should appeal to old fans (who will be spoilt by many in-jokes and call backs, as subtle as they may be) and those (and shame on them) who have never encountered Futurama before. The story kicks off with a quick introduction of the characters, and within 5 minutes, old fans will be in familiar territory, and newcomers will be brought up to date. What follows is nearly an hour and a half of laughs, sci-fi action, and romance.

This is a film I would definitely have paid to see at the cinema over the Simpson's movie. I hope that the DVD sales of this and the next 3 films do well, as it was sorely missed.

Welcome back Futurama!

The first of four Futrama DVDs gets a lot of things right. First of all it remembers why people liked the show in the first place from the oddball space aliens to the shipping romance (kind of an awesome pun for a show about international delivery agents) to the geektastic sci-fi humor and low brow slapstick. It's got everything, again. Only problem is, it's just not up to the series' admittedly high standards. It certainly hits more than misses though and repeat viewings reward with humour you may have missed or not fully been prepared for the first time around.

The plot is hilariously complicated featuring Nudist Spamming Alien Invaders, Time Travel Hijinx and the convoluted relationships between stupid men and the women they love.

Though the box features Bender prominently- our favorite Bending Latino Hearthrob plays second fiddle to a Fry/Leela romance love triangle that comes to a satisfying conclusion. There are so many returning characters from the series' run that very few of them have time to get comfortable before they are whisked away and only a handful have time to actually be funny (though far too many of them bomb) Its actually the little moments that get the biggest laughs.

It's good to have the crew of Planet Express back, even if our second date wasn't quite as hot as our first one.

Managed to see an advance copy of the DVD Screener of this flick. As an original futurama fan, I was eager to see how the TV genre translated as a feature-length.

It's hard not to draw parallels to the Simpsons movie - both are epic, and amusing, with the futurama film being arguably more so.

We're treated with references to all major characters and events past and present from the series, and similar gags that fans will appreciate, but I couldn't help but take the feeling that it was overly ambitious, perhaps sprawling.

The best part of the series is arguably that the episodes were compact, neat, quick witted and very well packaged. Although it's a solid production, it still feels a little confused. 8/10.

I'm not that familiar with this show, but the full length movie came on this morning, chopped up into four half hour sections, so I thought I'd give it a try.

It's pretty original stuff from Groening and company, and all of the time travel allows some good twists and turns in the plot. It is basically about three members of a not so clever species of nudist digital age scammers who end up defrauding the owner of Planet Express, stealing the company and downloading an obedience virus into robot Bender.

For some reason the employees don't leave and instead reluctantly assist the scammers in their efforts. The presence of a time portal allows the scammers to send Bender into the past, looting the earth of all that is valuable and returning it to the scammers, since a robot has no mortal life expectancy. As a result the current population of the earth becomes destitute with everything being owned by the scammers.

Meanwhile, Leela falls in love with Lars and even becomes engaged to him while Fry looks on.

The part about scammers using pretty obvious methods to steal is still pretty timely, but Fry being willing to use dirty tricks to get in the way of Leela's happiness has not aged well. The guy is a stalker. Leela's not avoiding Fry because there is some kind of animal attraction ala David and Maddie in Moonlighting going on here that her brain tells her is not good for her. She's simply not into Fry. But I imagine this will all work out to Fry's benefit because the nerdy guy always gets the pretty girl. As for the reverse situation happening? That is an infrequent occurrence.

I must admit i had huge fears about the reincarnating Futurama...in retrospective, i don't know why. It hasn't been that long after all, and the team has stayed pretty much the same. From the very first scene i felt right at home. No neat hyper modern animation tricks, no bullet time camera spins, just the familiar Futurama, which is all i wanted.

Bender's big score is a surprisingly plot-driven movie, reminiscent of the few more serious episodes. Have no fear, though, the gross humour is still present. Even with the horrid singing numbers (i was looking for anti-depressants) and the obsessive re-introduction of nearly every character that ever appeared on the original series, this is a rewarding event for sure, especially for us die hard fans who waited so long. It could have been better as a movie, but i don't want to get too critical, i'm just glad futurama is back! It just won't die!