Product Description

The thrilling conclusion to Futurama: Benders Big Score.

Bender and the planet express crew must contend with a massive cosmic team that sends the world into panic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6977 in DVD
• Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
• Released on: 2008-06-24
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: AC-3, Animated, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 89 minutes

Features

• The thrilling conclusion to Futurama: Benders Big Score. Bender and the planet express crew must contend with a massive cosmic team that sends the world into panic. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ANIMATION Rating: NR Age: 024543520931 UPC: 024543520931 Manufacturer No: 2252093

Amazon.com
In Futurama's latest and most tentacle-packed epic, space itself rips open, revealing a gateway to another universe. But what lies beyond? Horror? Love? Or maybe both, if it happens to contain a repulsive, planet-sized monster with romantic intentions! Nothing less than the fate of human and robot-kind is at stake as the Futurama crew takes on The Beast with a Billion Backs.

The Beast with a Billion Backs will be presented in widescreen format with English Dolby Surround 5.1, along with French and Spanish subtitles. Bonus features include:

The second of four direct-to-DVD adventures featuring the Futurama crew, The Beast with a Billion Backs picks up where its predecessor, Bender's Big Score, left off while balancing multiple love stories and the arrival of a sexually voracious alien from another universe. Unlike Bender, the various story lines converge well here--the tentacled, Lovecraftian creature Yivo (voiced by David Cross), which wants to mate with the entire population of the universe at once, makes Fry (Billy West) its de facto leader (Pope, actually), which in turn plays havoc with his relationship with new girlfriend Colleen (Brittany Murphy). And Yivo's scheme causes the people of Earth to evacuate the planet, leaving it in the hands of robots--which is, of course, excellent news for Futurama's resident mechanical malcontent, Bender (John DiMaggio). Beast is probably best understood and enjoyed by longtime fans of the series, who will recognize and appreciate the countless "surprise guests" (Robot Satan, the Harlem Globetrotters, Bender's hero Calculon, the head of Stephen Hawking), though the feature is certainly well-written and performed by its voice cast, and should provide plenty laughs for first-timers with flexible attention spans. Parents, however, should note that the humor can be fairly suggestive at times, and should exercise caution in regard to younger viewers.

Extras include a very funny commentary track with creators Matt Groening and David X Cohen, stars West, DiMaggio and Maurice LaMarche, and key members of the production team. Deleted scenes and a making-of featurette with the voice cast are entertaining, but the real features of value are Futurama: The Lost Adventure, which is culled from the Futurama game for Playstation 2, as well as a lengthy preview of the next direct-to-DVD movie, Bender's Game. Suffice it to say that the Lord of the Rings weighs heavily on the storyline. -- Paul Gaita

Beyond Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs on DVD

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Stills from Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (Click for larger image)

Studio description
In Futurama's latest and most tentacle-packed epic, space itself rips open, revealing a gateway to another universe. But what lies beyond? Horror? Love? Or maybe both, if it happens to contain a repulsive, planet-sized monster with romantic intentions! Nothing less than the fate of human and robot-kind is at stake as the Futurama crew takes on The Beast with a Billion Backs.

Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs will be presented in widescreen format with English Dolby Surround 5.1, along with French and Spanish subtitles. Bonus features include:

-Commentary By Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Michael Rowe, Claudia Katz, Peter Avanzino and Lee Supercinski
-Futurama The Lost Adventure - a long-lost full-length adventure produced for the video game with audio commentary by Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Michael Rowe, J. Stewart Burns and Lee Supercinski
-Meet Yivo! Featurette with David Cross
-A Brief History Of Deathball Featurette
-Blooperama: The Futurama Cast At
-3D Models With Animator Discussion
-Storyboard Animatic: The Beast With A Billion Backs, Part One
-A Sneak Peek at the Next Futurama Epic! -Deleted Scenes/Storyboards: Original Opening, Fry and Colleen Meeting, St. Asimov Parade, Zapp and Scientists, Amy Fry and Leela, Scruffy the Janitor
-Futurama: Bender's Game - a sneak peek at the next Futurama epic!

Customer Reviews

The Proud Result of Prison Writing
While I'm a truly devoted Futurama fan, I'm not one of those condescending supergeeks who claim to love Futurama so much that I have the authority to tell everyone else how virulently they're supposed to hate anything even slightly different than my favorite old episodes. (That's right, you heard me.) I'm ecstatic that Futurama has returned from the dead, and I totally loved "Bender's Big Score." But this new Futurama flick disappoints. Most of what we know and love about Futurama is still here in spades, but this flick suffers from a poorly-developed plot and a degeneration of the show's formerly deep and subversive humor.

The 88-minute format is either too long for a compact and focused plotline, or too short for the type of complex story the producers appear to be striving for. The story here jumps around at a very awkward pace and shows signs of severe over-editing. The jokes have been reduced to Family Guy-like asides played for cheap guffaws rather than deep thoughts. (The caped superhero is an unfortunate example, and Bender's firstborn son is a very unfortunate example.)

Many holes and inconsistencies in the storyline show that plot construction took a backseat to the more easily written sight gags and cheap asides. (Here's an example that hopefully won't be condemned as a spoiler. Late in the film the new Yivo character says he [sklee] sent an image of himself to artists in our universe, but most of the story is built on the idea that Yivo thought he was alone in all universes.) The fundamental story has also trumped the longstanding strengths of the show. The personalities of Fry and Leela (and important supporting characters like Kif) are inconsistent, Bender has been demoted to an unworkable subplot, and Zoidberg does little more than vomit for simpleminded laughs. There are also many missed opportunities for building upon the cliffhangers left from "Bender's Big Score."

You can rest assured that the great Futurama animation, music, and voice acting (the actors have always been the show's unsung heroes) won't disappoint this time around. But the writing will. Certain fans may or may not like the basic story, but the bigger point is that everyone will notice the careless and unprofessional defects in the story. Hopefully this flick will just be a temporary misstep. Console yourself by remembering once again how lucky we are to have Futurama back among the living. [~doomsdayer520~]

Too late to go back to the future?
I bought this on the day of release, so of course I'm a big Futurama fan and expected to like it. I thought Bender's Big Score was a decent effort showing some rust, so to speak, and that the new releases would get better from there. This one is a letdown, though. No doubt, there are some good jokes, and I laughed here and there during the 90 minutes. But the writing really doesn't feel like Futurama. The grossout and mildly sick humor is amped up (it was always there but balanced with the show's sophisticated writing), and in particular, some of the humor that plays on the film's "rape" plot has a slightly ugly edge. There's also a lengthy subplot with Calculon that really drags down the film while offering almost no laughs.

The special features are pretty weak too. The deleted scenes reel is very short, the "blooper" section is just 2 minutes of the voice actors mugging for the video cameras (though this guy is happy to look at Tress McNeill and Katey Segal), and the full-length "episode" created for a video game just doesn't have the laughs.

Bottom line: I eagerly awaited this and bought it day of release; I won't be in such a hurry for the next one (which doesn't look so hot, based on the preview included with this one).

It really is THAT bad.
I hate to review a movie from a beloved series so poorly but this really was one of the worst/most boring/painful to watch films I've ever seen. It doesn't even deserve cult status. I watched it recently with a fellow Futurama/Simpsons fanatic and about 3/4th of the way through the movie we looked at each other and asked, "should we turn this off now or keep waiting for a joke?" We finished it, but I felt like it was a complete, mind-numbing waste of time. Frequently I enjoy movies that others found worthless or tasteless, but this one has no merit whatsoever. Don't destroy your opinion of the regular Futurama series by watching it. Bender's Big Score is far better.