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Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs

post #1 of 50
6/22/08 at 11:05am
Thread Starter 
Same structure as the last one: Starts off so-so, turns awesome halfway through, ends in brilliance and great ideas, in this case, about the nature of human love, be it romantic, religious, or philanthropic. Not sure if the ending is supposed to be damning or praising of polyamory, though.

Standout moments: Steamboat Futurama, what the Professor puts on his pancakes, Zoidberg's dual vomit, Stephen Hawking, Zoidberg's cake analogy, "Play time *is* fun time!", the return of Pazuzu, Superman, "Matter's bad-ass grandma!", the Cthulhu imagery played up as far and as creepy as they could take it within context, "My leg feels funny!", interuniversal dating, "That was brutal even by MY standards!", "No sklit?", the POTC: Dead Man's Chest moment.

And as a sidenote: the blooper reel confirms that Katey Sagal is continuing to age gracefully.
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post #2 of 50
6/22/08 at 11:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Justin Clark View Post
Same structure as the last one: Starts off so-so, turns awesome halfway through, ends in brilliance and great ideas, in this case, about the nature of human love, be it romantic, religious, or philanthropic.
You are insane. Please point out to me these great ideas, because the narrative I watched was hollow and ad hoc...
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post #3 of 50
6/22/08 at 12:26pm
Thread Starter 
The fact that there's a mostly positive poly relationship in a mainstream piece of work at all.

The thin line between love for the religious experience, and being a slave to it just for that feeling.

The idea of God and Heaven really being a matter of interpretation rather than gospel (also a standout: angels as the pigeons of Heaven)

The irony that the things we built to serve humans learned from us that love is completely jealous and self-serving, and end up ruining our shot at the unconditional.

There's plenty going on under the surface of this thing.
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post #4 of 50
6/22/08 at 1:44pm
I'm starting to resent the fact that these DVD movies are trying to have it both ways of being a 'movie' and several episodes ready-made for broadcast later. The whole thing ends up so scatterbrained, it was very annoying. Little moments here and there were fun but as a whole, it really let me down.

Maybe I'm expecting too much from the fact that this is supposed to be kind of a 'movie', but I wish it was as well written and contained as their 22 minute episodes.

Sure, there's plenty of stuff going on under the surface, but it doesn't matter if I'm not really enjoying any of the many storylines at all. I love these characters, and I wish the stories would give them something better to do.

At least they didn't sing in this one.
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post #5 of 50
6/22/08 at 2:20pm
I liked it. Thought it was funnier than Bender's Big Score, but liked the premise of Bender's more.
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post #6 of 50
6/22/08 at 2:25pm
"That was my right testicle" had me laughing a lot more than it should.
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post #7 of 50
6/22/08 at 2:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tati View Post
I liked it. Thought it was funnier than Bender's Big Score, but liked the premise of Bender's more.
I'd agree with that.

What I liked more about the first one was the emotional storyline of Paradox Fry becoming Lars in order to be with Leela. As hokey as it was, it was still more involving than anything in this new one.

Which leads me to my annoyance with the way it completely ignores this major growth we saw between Fry and Leela by throwing in Fry's polyamorous girlfriend. I know the show did this as well, but it was really felt this time because the two movies were more obviously connected through the rip in the universe plot.

This one treated the character relationships I liked in the show into non-mentions or with Amy ending up with Zap (which was kinda funny).
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post #8 of 50
6/25/08 at 3:00am
Fucking terrible. So bad is kind of made me question my love for Futurama in the first place.
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post #9 of 50
6/25/08 at 3:05am
Slater, out of curiosity, what did you think of Bender's Big Score? Just trying to get how the two films relate to each other in quality.
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post #10 of 50
6/25/08 at 3:33am
I loved Bender's Big Score, didn't like this one very much. I gave it points for effort. The preview of the the third movie isn't very promising. Fortunately BBS works well as a series capper, and I can be happy with that.
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post #11 of 50
6/25/08 at 3:47am
Damn, this is shitty.
Don't get me wrong, I'll probably be buying it, but it sucks that you can buy a season for the same price now, and these were intended to come out closer to one another release-wise.
Not to mention the simple fact that it may not be a quality release(I trust the opinions of most of the people in this thread. So torn.).
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post #12 of 50
6/25/08 at 4:02am
I also loved "BBS" and thought "Billion Backs" was weaker, but I'm not angry enough about its quality to label it "fucking terrible." If you like Futurama then I'd seriously doubt you'd regret watching it.
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post #13 of 50
6/25/08 at 4:19am
I already posted this in the Futurama thread, but I need the hits so:

My DVD Review
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post #14 of 50
6/25/08 at 5:07am
You shilling bastard!

Nah, it's a good site. *checks it out*


-edit- read it. Okay, so it's not that good. If Bender's Big Score was comparable to your average 2nd-4th season ep., is this at least on par with the 1st season?
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post #15 of 50
6/25/08 at 12:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Goldberg View Post
Slater, out of curiosity, what did you think of Bender's Big Score? Just trying to get how the two films relate to each other in quality.
Fun but disjointed. But BBS had a few dozen jokes that worked, and more importantly, it had heart and an actual story.

This one is unfunny, soulless and an absolute narrative mess, filled with gross out humor and Family Guy-style randomness.
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post #16 of 50
6/25/08 at 4:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nexus-7 View Post
-edit- read it. Okay, so it's not that good. If Bender's Big Score was comparable to your average 2nd-4th season ep., is this at least on par with the 1st season?

Um..no. Actually, despite his earlier hyperbole, Slater is right on with his second post, except for the souless remark, I think they really tried there, it just didn't work.
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post #17 of 50
6/25/08 at 4:31pm
I preferred this one to BBS, but structurally, this felt like 2 or 3 great episode concepts that were rendered totally mediocre by attempting to weave them into a movie. Fry getting into a polygamous relationship would have been knocked out of the park back in the day.

I will say this...Family Guy style or not...the Bender's Firstborn joke fucking slayed me.
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post #18 of 50
6/28/08 at 7:59pm
I liked it despite the flaws.
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post #19 of 50
7/3/08 at 11:58am
cthulhu vs bender = awsome

the rest of it was ho hum. kif punching zaf was funny
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post #20 of 50
7/3/08 at 12:08pm
Did not like.
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post #21 of 50
7/3/08 at 12:12pm
Thread Starter 
I hate being in the minority.

Gave it another spin over the weekend. Structurally, it bugged me a bit more this time, and the overall stance the film takes is still in question (though this time, Yivo came off as much more of an asshole/bitch), but I still enjoyed it.
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post #22 of 50
7/3/08 at 12:15pm
I watched it again last night.

The B&W opening is fantastic.
More Zap is awesome.
Bender vs Calculon was pretty good.
In fact all the league of robots stuff is pretty good.
The Murder/Death Ball stuff is good.
And yes, Benders first born is awesome "Daddy I knew you'd come back"

The biggest problem is that it drags big time...

I still hate the cheap cardboard packaging.

The next one has the potential to be really fucking horrible....I mean really bad.
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post #23 of 50
7/3/08 at 1:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Justin Clark View Post
I hate being in the minority.

Gave it another spin over the weekend. Structurally, it bugged me a bit more this time, and the overall stance the film takes is still in question (though this time, Yivo came off as much more of an asshole/bitch), but I still enjoyed it.
If it wasn't for the odd character choices (Fry getting over Leela so quickly and with no explanation, Amy and Zap?) I might have liked this more. Definitely things to like in the movie, but those 2 character choices took me out of the movie. Bad decision on the writer's.
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post #24 of 50
7/3/08 at 1:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul755 View Post
The next one has the potential to be really fucking horrible....I mean really bad.
Yeah, I actually cringed watching that promo for the next one.

Also, kind of disappointed in the extras for this one. The math extra in the first one was fantastic.
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post #25 of 50
7/3/08 at 1:52pm
I liked this one a lot more than the first one.

Then again, I've never been a die-hard fan, so this one's approach - more jokes per minute, less character development - suited me just fine.
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post #26 of 50
7/3/08 at 3:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by HBarr View Post
If it wasn't for the odd character choices (Fry getting over Leela so quickly and with no explanation, Amy and Zap?) I might have liked this more. Definitely things to like in the movie, but those 2 character choices took me out of the movie. Bad decision on the writer's.
Well the Amy/Zap thing was more of Zap just moving in on an emotionally unstable woman.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jesse Custer View Post
Then again, I've never been a die-hard fan, so this one's approach - more jokes per minute, less character development - suited me just fine.
So your more of a "Family Guy" humor type of person.
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post #27 of 50
7/3/08 at 3:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul755 View Post
Well the Amy/Zap thing was more of Zap just moving in on an emotionally unstable woman.
I wasn't fond of that development either. It was mostly because they didn't do ANYTHING with it. Zap was just being Zap. That's fine. But that Amy would succumb to it felt like a betrayal. She's a klutz, but I really believed that she loved Kif and that Zap would bed her so easily annoyed me.

But that would've been still fine... had the story actually done something interesting with it. Instead, they just bring Kif back and barely acknowledge it. All we got as closure was Kif punching Zap, which wasn't enough.

Maybe they'll continue to deal with it in the next movie, but with the way they completely dropped the Fry/Leela relationship going from the first one to this recent one... I don't hold out much hope.
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post #28 of 50
7/3/08 at 4:56pm
The Futurama movies are why an Arrested Development movie should not come to be.

Both are lacklustre, wink-to-the-camera in-jokes and cameos that "die-hard-fans" can get off to.

Go watch the first season for something funny. This stuff nearly soured my memory of the originals.

- Signed, A Futurama Fan.
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post #29 of 50
7/3/08 at 5:00pm
I second that notion!
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post #30 of 50
7/3/08 at 5:35pm
Yeah, but unlike Family Guy and Futurama, Arrested Development was always aware of its status. It was constantly winking to the fans. They constantly break the 4th wall and it always works.

My problem with an Arrested Development movie is that I don't think it can be like the show because part of the show's brilliance is that it kept building on itself and the film will have to be able to stand alone so as not to alienate those that never saw the show.
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post #31 of 50
7/3/08 at 5:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Goldberg View Post
Yeah, but unlike Family Guy and Futurama, Arrested Development was always aware of its status. It was constantly winking to the fans. They constantly break the 4th wall and it always works.
"Please, please tell your friends about this show!"
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post #32 of 50
7/3/08 at 6:25pm
I enjoyed this well enough, but I agree that it was pretty weak-sauce. The structure was pretty terrible, the episode seams were showing something awful. The jokes were funny, but the fact that they relied far less on in-jokes (seriously, watch these two side-by-side and try and tell me Billion Backs has one-third of the in-jokes of Big Score.) actually deflated the overall hilarity a little. I admire dropping the wink-wink nudge-nudge thing, but their approach in lieu didn't really click.

If the drops in quality for each are consistent, then the next two will be worthless. If they at least manage to stay consistent or improve from here, they'll all at least be entertaining.
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post #33 of 50
7/3/08 at 7:09pm
This was basically unwatchable. I think one joke worked.
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post #34 of 50
7/3/08 at 7:24pm
...or that, too.
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post #35 of 50
7/3/08 at 7:50pm
Having seen the trailer for the next one - and not laughing once - I don't hold out much hope. But we all know we're gonna watch it.

Please, PLEASE, have one tenth of the brilliance of an episode such as The Sting or Less Than Hero.
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post #36 of 50
7/4/08 at 8:19am
Less than Hero and The Sting were lesser episodes.

Admittedly those episodes were better than the films, so I agree in hoping it has some of their charm. Less Than Hero is one of the more forced spoofs. An example of good spoofing is Where No Fan Has Gone Before or Mars University.

Futurama (the series) is funny because it's well written - consistantly. Remembering "That one good joke from Bender's Big Score" defeats the point. It's pop culture. That's not funny. It's lazy writing.

Every single fucking straight-to-dvd-movie should be as good as The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings. Funny, clever and powerful. It was also modest for the last true episode.

I won't buy the third one. Not even a rental.

If I sound a bit angry, it's because i'm watching Season 2 of American Dad at the moment and hands-down has sharper writing per-episode than both Futurama Movies combined. The guy responsible for fucking Family Guy.
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post #37 of 50
7/4/08 at 4:02pm
I disagree that The Sting is a lesser episode, and I think that Bender's Big Score was a pretty good series capper, but I agree that the third movie looks awful, and that American Dad is slowly getting better and better. The last point is the strangest.
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post #38 of 50
7/4/08 at 5:29pm
Wow, these diverging opinions are pretty weird. I thought BWABB was fucking hilarious. I was laughing my ass off the entire time. It was up there with the best of the series for me.

BBS was good, except for the unwatchable musicals and the beyond pointless narwhale subplot. It didn't make me feel like Futurama needed to return, though. This did.

How could anyone have possibly wanted more of the Leela/Fry relationship? Was 4 seasons of will-they-or-won't-they not enough?

If you're watching Futurama for the "story", well...I don't know what to say.
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post #39 of 50
7/4/08 at 7:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers View Post
I disagree that The Sting is a lesser episode, and I think that Bender's Big Score was a pretty good series capper, but I agree that the third movie looks awful, and that American Dad is slowly getting better and better. The last point is the strangest.
I know what you mean; it took me a while, but I now realize that Family Guy is completely hysterical, and is easily the funniest thing on T.V. with 30 Rock gone.
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post #40 of 50
7/4/08 at 7:54pm
The reason I mentioned The Sting and Less Than Hero is becuase, like the new movie, they take a divergent idea and run with it for the whole episode. While also being decent sci-fi and damn funny. Try and tell me Hoover yelling "Citizen Sniiiips" didn't have you laughing.

But I'll allow they might not be the strongest episodes. The Devils Hands... is a good example of where I really wish the standard of the movies could be, but then few things are that good. Probably the best writing of any episode of Futurama's whole run.
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post #41 of 50
7/5/08 at 8:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sackley View Post
The reason I mentioned The Sting and Less Than Hero is becuase, like the new movie, they take a divergent idea and run with it for the whole episode. While also being decent sci-fi and damn funny. Try and tell me Hoover yelling "Citizen Sniiiips" didn't have you laughing.

But I'll allow they might not be the strongest episodes. The Devils Hands... is a good example of where I really wish the standard of the movies could be, but then few things are that good. Probably the best writing of any episode of Futurama's whole run.
Yeah, I see exactly where you're coming from. The episodes were definitely unique in that regard.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyle Reese View Post

How could anyone have possibly wanted more of the Leela/Fry relationship? Was 4 seasons of will-they-or-won't-they not enough?

If you're watching Futurama for the "story", well...I don't know what to say.
Firstly - nobody wanted more of the Leela/Fry relationship. It ended perfectly as it was.

Secondly, we don't watch for the story - as I said, it's the writing. The current movies feel like they're written by monkeys.
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post #42 of 50
7/5/08 at 4:53pm
Got the flick last saturday, and checked it out, and it's not as good as Bender's Big Score, but it's still pretty good. I agree that more Zap is always welcome, and the "Invasion of The Body Snatchers" sequence with the tentacles that takes up a good amount of time was great, as was the payoff for why the tentacles were placed in their necks in the first place.

I reserve my judgment for Bender's Game for when I actually see it. The preview as alright, but I'm sure there'll be more funny stuff in it.
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post #43 of 50
7/5/08 at 9:31pm
I watch Futurama for the story. I also watch Venture Bros. for the story. I don't like television without a story for the most part, which is why I can hardly even watch Family Guy any more.
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post #44 of 50
7/7/08 at 12:54am
Got around to watching this and while I thought the first half hour was pretty great, the same can not be said for the last hour. I can count on one hand the number of times I laughed. The scripting was sloppy and the jokes were almost non-existent. I thought Bender's Big Score was good throughout but this was just a mess. Still, I'm absolutely going to watch Bender's Game because it's Futurama and a wasted hour of my time that I was probably going to waste anyway doesn't change that.
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post #45 of 50
7/7/08 at 6:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers View Post
I watch Futurama for the story. I also watch Venture Bros. for the story. I don't like television without a story for the most part, which is why I can hardly even watch Family Guy any more.
Admittedly that's why I can't watch family guy. I think by "story" I was going for an arc.

The individual unique (not spoof) episodes have fantastic stories.
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post #46 of 50
7/7/08 at 12:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul755 View Post
Well the Amy/Zap thing was more of Zap just moving in on an emotionally unstable woman.

So your more of a "Family Guy" humor type of person.
No, actually. I'm more of a "doesn't make weird, generalized judgements without basis" type of person.

As I said - I'm not a die-hard fan, so the character development that seemed to make people happy in Bender's Big Score didn't have the same impact on me. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate said-development, just that this movie made me laugh more than the first one did.
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post #47 of 50
7/9/08 at 2:47am
This movie came in at about the same 3 out of 4 stars that almost every single episode of the show came in at for me. About the same as the last movie too. I swear, I have no idea where the gap in quality between this and the series is. There was occasionally a bit of sentiment in the Fry and Leela relationship, but by and large Futurama was never anything other than The Simpsons aimed squarely at smart SciFi nerds (which is what Groening and co. always were too). The only complaint I understand about this is that you didn't think it was funny. Although I would disagree with you, and wonder why you ever liked Futurama in the first place.
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post #48 of 50
7/9/08 at 3:00am
I really do think it's a structural thing. Other than the silly episodes they did once in a while, Futurama episodes had really well done scripts. Pretty tightly written other than the bits of off-kilter humor. The 22 minute runtime each episode had to shoot for really forced them to keep it that way.

With these movies, they're also trying to split it into airable episodes. There's a conflict of interest there. Each episode will feel utterly incomplete with no arc of its own and as a movie it has no focus. If you loved the show (which you don't really seem to), this is really painful.

Also, other than the art style of its creator and the pop culture references, Futurama was nothing like The Simpsons. Futurama had a continuity and a kind of mythology it was trying to build. It was really as much David Cohen's baby as much as it was Groening's. The Simpsons just went along in a way that could go infinitely (which it is, damn it...). The only things that hold are the deaths of certain characters, but in terms of growth there isn't any.
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post #49 of 50
7/9/08 at 5:01am
I didn't laugh out loud once. I'm not trying to be a defeatist, a reductionist or an obstructionist, but that about sums it up for me.
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post #50 of 50
7/9/08 at 11:44pm
Upon reflection, I suppose I never did love Futurama. But I always liked it quite a bit. And this hit for me about as much as the show ever did.

That's all well said about splitting the movies into airable chunks, but I guess I just approached these as three new episodes in a row rather than a real "movie" movie.

As to the mythology aspects of Futurama, I'm not sure I see them. The characters don't really change. Some things, like the Leela's parents stuff, carries over, but only as long as it's useful to the writers. Fry and Leela can have a little pathos, but it gets pushed aside in the next episode so Fry can date someone funny. I don't think any of this is at all a negative, it's just the nature of the show. I always liked it for isolated plotlines that combined good scifi and comedy writing. And honestly, it's a rare instance when I think fan service works, because that's sort of the show's entire raison d'etre.
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