Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs
So how is it? There’s a lot of griping out there but I liked it better than the prior one: Bender’s Big Score. I think part of the problem is that shows of this sort do better in shorter episodes. What I loved about this was all the political satire there was. We get skewered the afterlife and being one with God, bad episodes of Star Trek, polygamy, bad movies of Star Trek, and a whole lot more.
As with a lot of Futurama catching the references is half the fun. It takes a while to get to the main skewering which seems based upon rumored icky Japanese anime sci-fi. (At least that’s my guess from comments at Slashdot over the years from back when anyone bothered reading Slashdot) It’s taken in a pretty funny way though. Add in Bender joining a secret masonic like group of robots and it’s pretty funny.
Of course I had just come back exhausted from camping. So it might be one of those perfect timing sort of things.
I picked it up for the kids (my boys are huge Futurama fans) but I haven’t watched it yet.
Comment by Susan M — June 30, 2008 @ 10:15 am
I also haven’t watched it. Or bought it. I’m a huge Futurama fan–I’m kind of nervous, as the message board reactions haven’t been so hot. I will definitely pick it up later this week.
I loved Bender’s Big Score, but it could have used just a few more laughs.
Comment by Casual Jeff — June 30, 2008 @ 10:46 am
I think that the laughs bit was a problem with both films. Until I stopped to think and I realized that they really weren’t much different than the TV shows. As I said, I think a longer format just doesn’t work as well. With the TV the satire and lower level humor can work on you after the 20 minutes of show is over. With a movie you kind of want more out-loud laughs. But really that was never Futurama’s forte. (And arguably is why it was cancelled)
But I just loved elements of the movie. While I loved the first one I was a tad disappointed. I think that was partially because I was expecting it to be more than the TV show rather than on par.
Comment by Clark Goble — June 30, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
BTW – there was a trailer for the next one coming out for Christmas. Bender does D&D.
Comment by clark — July 7, 2008 @ 11:11 pm