Product Description

Movie DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7298 in DVD
• Brand: TCFHE
• Released on: 2007-11-27
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: AC-3, Animated, Color, Surround Sound
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 88 minutes

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Proving that you just can't keep a good animated series down, Bender's Big Score revives the Futurama crew in a full-length feature (reportedly, the first of four which will later be broken down into individual episodes for television broadcast) chock full of the satiric touches that made the Matt Groening series a cult favorite among sci-fi and animation fans. In true Futurama form, the plot of Big Score is proudly ridiculous: At its core, it's about alien telemarketers with a plan to steal Earth's most valuable historical objects, who use e-mail viruses to cripple Planet Express and take control of belligerent robot Bender; the latter carries out their scheme via a time-travel code tattooed on Fry's backside. This allows for all manner of subplots involving Fry's return to the 20 th century, romantic confusion between Fry and Leela (Katey Sagal), and a host of cameos ranging from Kwaanza-bot (Coolio) and Zapp Brannigan to Al Gore (voiced by the real former vice-president, who once again displays an offbeat sense of humor).

Bender's Big Score also features a staggering amount of extras that reflect the show's sense of playful anarchy. Most valuable to longtime fans is the feature-length commentary by Groening, writers Ken Keeler and David X. Cohen, director Dwayne Carey-Hill, and cast members Billy West (Fry), DiMaggio, and Phil LaMarr, which provides a wealth of information on the film's production as well as plenty of laughs from the voice actors. "Futurama Returns!" is a live comic book reading by the cast in front of an enthusiastic convention audience, while "A Terrifying Message from Al Gore" is a short animated promo featuring the ex-veep in an animated promo for his Inconvenient Truth documentary (Gore's commentary for this short is worth the DVD's sale price alone), and "Bite My Shiny Metal X" is an amusing, tongue-in-cheek lesson on the mathematics used to deliver the show's futuristic touches. Perhaps the oddest extra is a full-length episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad, a sitcom based around the bizarre title creature that will provoke equal amounts of laughter and exasperation. A small battery of deleted scenes, new character design sketches, and a five-minute promo shot for Comic-Con round out the extras. --Paul Gaita

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Customer Reviews

I'm walking on Sunshine!! The Future is now!
Yes! The Year 3000 is back!! This is all-new material, NOT RECYCLED or from 4 seasons offered in volumes 1-4 or Monster Fun. All new from the Simpson's creator Matt Groening and the Futurama team.

It's here the first of the 4 "NEW" FUTURAMA direct-to-DVD videos, 3 of which will be released throughout 2008. Following "BENDER'S BIG SCORE" will be, "INTO THE WILD GREEN YONDER" then, "BENDER'S GAME" and THE BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS." The features will be cut into an episode format to air eventually on Comedy Central, not Cartoon Network.

Each of these feature the brilliant original voice talent, from the short-lived fox series: John Di Maggio (as Bender and others), Dave Herman (as the Honorable Mayor C. Randall Poopenmayer and more ) Katey Sagal (Leela), Phil LaMarr (Hermes), Lauren Tom (Amy Wong), Billy West (Fry, Zoidberg, Farnsworth, an other Futurama, but known as Stimpy and from the Howard Stern Show, West does the best LARRY FINE in the business), old school veterans like Frank Welker (here for Nibbler but he's the original Fred Jones, if you saw Saturday morning, you can bet he was in it) and Maurice LaMarche (as Morbo, but LaMarche was on the original Transformers, amoung other projects) and Tress a.k.a. "Skinner's Mom" MacNeille (most recently played the "Spider-Pig" in Simpson's Movie). This time around Sarah Silverman is a guest along with others, like Star War's Mark Hamill.

The Story:
The Planet Express crew are back, only to be accidently sold to evil nudist aliens in an internet racket (remember kids don't give out personal info. on-line). The aliens desire information and upon learning the secret of paradox-free time travel is tatooed onto Fry's butt, the turn Bender into an evil (well more-evil) time-traveling killing/stealing machine. Incidently, Leela nearly wed, a major character is beheaded and the Universe is torn asunder.

This paradox-free nature creates an op for lots of return appearances and cool cameos. The opening credits goof nicely on the epic-DVD movie release, filled with glam-shots of the characters and their full names. Any questions explained are quickly replaced by more confusing questions.
The spirit of the original series is easily matched and able to sustain the 89 min. movie format.

As always the Futurama DVD extras are insanely funny and worthly of the name "special features." For example, a full-episode of "EVERYBODY LOVES HYPNOTOAD" (a 20+ min. gag that you need to let run in its course to fully appreciate the joke), an animated promo for Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, a MATH LECTURE, I said a "MATH LECTURE" really! Many of the Producers & writers involved with Futurama are Math Majors even PHDs. So the Math Lecture is a full segment in which a Math Prof. discusses and explains the use of math in the original series as well as the new material. The lecture also explains the ALIEN SYMBOLS and even reveals a hidden character to help truly OCD fans to decode the latest symbols.
Other extras include Comic-Con full-cast Futurama comicbook reading!

I can't wait for the next installment of the DVD series.

Not Bad, But Definitely For The Fans
I wasn't let down; if you're a fan, buy it, buy it now, maybe two copies. Supposedly we'll get four more of these, and if you're like me, you can't comprehend how Family Guy got revived while Futurama sat fallow these long sad years. All that said, this is a little long, a little light on jokes, and a little heavy on series references and in jokes for fanboys. As a fanboy, I love it, but if you don't know every episode inside and out, you might not be down. The villains are truly disgusting to look at; the letterbox format doesn't fit the format all that well; and the lines turned jagged and funky on my copy. Not the homerun we'd hoped for, but we'll take what we can get. The disc is worth the price for the full length episode of "Everyboyd Loves Hypnotoad," perfect to have on screen in the background of drunken parties. Commentary throughout as always, and the geekiest extra ever: a Futurama math lecture make this a must by despite the flaws.

Did I expect too much?
Don't get me wrong, I love Futurama and I am very glad it is back, but this movie left a lot to be desired. The writing on the original series was tight, full of one liners and wonderfully dry humor, while this one felt like the writers were tied to a chair and forced to make one 22 minute episode into four. There were some very funny parts, but they were few and far between. I really don't think I was expecting much in the way of comedy either, as my favorite episodes are the character driven, newer ones ("Jurassic Bark", "The Sting", "Roswell That Ends Well", and "The Devils Hands are Idle Playthings"). I will continue to faithfully follow Futurama, but I hope for better things in the future.