DVD Review: Futurama: Bender’s Big Score
Good news, everyone!
Futurama has returned in triumph.
Let me get this out of the way: the DVD is a big mess. There are like 500 plots and it features basically every Futurama character introduced thus far, ever, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense, and there’s lots of Al Gore.
And, it’s awesome. There are many laugh-out-loud moments, even if the show is overstuffed. It feels like a “Best of Futurama” 2-hour special, which is what I suppose it exactly is. In fact, in watching the film you can easily press stop after each 30-minute increment and be perfectly satisfied. It breaks into nice watchable chunks of joy. Science and math jokes abound, Bender is nicely amoral and it is great to watch a Futurama that feels unchained from the Fox network.
The central plot involves nudist spammers taking over the Earth, but as is typical with Futurama the best bits involve sub-plots and in-jokes. Bender’s Big Score abounds in both, from Hermes’ decapitation to Fry romancing a narwhal to the gang joining up with Santa and Kwanzaa-Bot.
Extras abound on the disc, as they tend to do on the Futurama DVDs:
* Futurama Returns! — A 6-minute cast read of a comic book from the comic-con.
* Everybody Loves Hypnotoad — 22 minutes of a sitcom starring the best frog in the business
* Deleted Storyboard Sequences — Modest laughter.
* A Terrifying Message from Al Gore — A Futurama promo for Al Gore’s movie, with audio/video commentary by Groening, Cohen, and Gore. Nobel prize + cartoon = delicious.
* Bite My Shiny Metal X — A 22-minute lecture from professor Sarah Greenwald explains the science and math references hidden in Futurama. Wonderful.
* 3D Models / 3D Turnarounds — Meh.
* Bender’s Big Score — the screenplay.
* New Character / Design Sketches — Boring but good for the fans.
* Original 5-Minute Comic-Con Promo — the original trailer.
Overall, I definitely recommend the disc. Futurama fans will be elated; average joes will be highly entertained. It’s a modest price ($18 at Amazon) for a great film with lots of features.
My kids made me buy it the day it came out. I haven’t watched it yet.
Comment by Susan M — November 29, 2007 @ 12:59 pm
I hear Santa is putting this in my stocking? HD-DVD available?
Comment by Clark Goble — November 29, 2007 @ 2:21 pm
No HD-DVD, Clark. I watched it on my HD-DVD player, and it was a good DVD transfer, although occasionally a little pixellated.
Comment by Supergenius — November 29, 2007 @ 2:37 pm
Funny. I just ordered a HD-DVD player and am surprised at how few movies there actually are - even on Netflix. I’m halfway wondering if I shouldn’t have gone BluRay.
Comment by Clark Goble — November 29, 2007 @ 6:49 pm
Clark, I don’ t know that you’d be that much better off. I got myself HD-DVD (the Walmart special) and it’s not THAT bad. I believe HD-DVD will win the format war, if you ask me.
Comment by Supergenius — November 29, 2007 @ 7:25 pm
That’s what I was thinking on the basis of Microsoft and some of the recent bribes, I mean investments by HD-DVD to the manufacturers. Plus I got it for $150 + 5 movies from Costco. But looking at the selection at Costco and Amazon and Netflix Blue Ray has a bigger selection.
Comment by clark — November 29, 2007 @ 9:34 pm
What format wars has Sony ever won?
Comment by a random John — November 29, 2007 @ 9:36 pm
Well they really got portable tapes off the ground. (Arguably the Walkman was the predecessor of the iPod) Wasn’t Sony pretty involved in the DVD and CD formats as well?
I think Sony went astray in the late 90’s with those weird proprietary writable disc formats. Their biggest problem is not worrying about the whole experience. (IMO)
Comment by Clark — November 30, 2007 @ 11:15 am
Binky, the one-eared rabbit from Matt Groening’s early comic strip, Life is Hell, makes an appearance in Santa’s Workshop as a toy.
Comment by Susan M — November 30, 2007 @ 7:55 pm
CD was invented by Philips. Sony invented the 8-track, which lost to the cassette, which they didn’t invent but did include in their devices.
The list of things that they did invent that were either killed because they were inferior or because Sony refused to make them the standard through liberal licensing is long.
The list of things that they have invented in-house that have become standards is short.
I think that they did worry about the whole experience. They just assumed that it would be a pure Sony experience from end to end.
Comment by a random John — December 1, 2007 @ 12:26 am
To be fair, while Betamax deservedly died, Betacam based on that spec still dominates in film and television. So I’m not sure it was a real failure. It was just a failure in one market and a roaring success in an other.
Other big Sony successes. The Trinitron. The 3.5″ floppy.
You’re right that Phillips invented the CD, but the initial players were all Sony. So I think it fair to give a lot of credit to Sony. I believe they were, with Phillips, part developer of the spec.
In the late 80’s Sony got into all these weird digital formats - most of which had only niche success though. However, unless I’m mistaken, most of the popular camcorder formats (either digital or non) were all developed by Sony.
One should also note the Playstation, Playstation 2, and PSP were all big successes. (I didn’t own any of them - I have an XBox) Of course the Playstation 3 hasn’t exactly been a big hit.
Comment by clark — December 2, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
I finally saw it. Not quite as good as most of the TV episodes. (I think the show works better as 20 minute shorts rather than as a long movie as well) But still great.
BTW - my HD-DVD player finally showed up. Dang, it sure does an impressive job playing regular DVDs on my HDTV. Far superior to what would come up with my old DVD player.
Comment by Clark — December 13, 2007 @ 12:13 pm